"Once established, a successful style looks like an inevitability - maybe that's the definition of a successful style - but there's often the time when it looks like anything but."

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Roughly, the action of a character should be unpredictable before it has been shown, inevitable when it has been shown. In the first half of a novel, the unpredictability should be the more striking. In the second half, the inevitability should be the more striking.

— Elizabeth Bowen