The fiction writer is an observer, first, last, and always, but he cannot be an adequate observer unless he is free from uncertainty about what he sees. Those who have no absolute values cannot let the relative remain merely relative; they are always raising it to the level of the absolute. The Catholic fiction writer is entirely free to observe. He feels no call to take on the duties of God or to create a new universe. He feels perfectly free to look at the one we already have and to show exactly what he sees.
Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose
fiction, fiction-writing, how-to-write, novel-writing, observation, perception, world-view, writing-fiction