Critical Outakes: Ian McEwan

Q: What is your style of composition. "Saturday" feels like it unfolds in a series of set pieces. Do you know where they are going?

A: Not entirely. I'm fairly -- what's the word? -- unsystematic. I brood. I sort of mulch things around for a long time. There are certain things I avoid thinking about before I write, and even thinking about them gives them more shape than they should have before I get them there. I sort of brood until I'm driving myself nuts, and what I should do is write. And then what I am looking for is the tone, the style, the means by which I should tell a story. The very first bits of Saturday I wrote is Henry stepping out of the house on a fresh morning, seagulls in the sky, and some memory of childhood: a basalt rock formation by the sea. I thought, I don't know where this is going, but I'm sure at some point he'll step outside of his house. I just need to try this out: and with that I saw the prose. And then I started again. For this book I wanted a very pure style -- so that every page I wanted characters to emerge as if from nowhere. So this man gets out of bed and makes his way to the window, as if he materialized out of darkness, and forms in front of the reader's eye.

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