I was reading the latest issue in my lifetime subscription to The Paris Review today—a gift subscription from my wife that’s been going on for more than 35 years (so I got that going for me, which is nice)—and because the interviews have always been my favorite part, I started by reading the first one, which is with Hilary Mantel, best known as the author of Wolf Hall.

One of the things she had to say about her approach to writing resonated with my own—

With historical fiction, the big thing is the constant check you keep on information. What have I told my readers? Of what I’ve told them, how much do I think they hang on to, at first reading? Have I told them too much, have I spoon-fed them? Or have I told them too little, mystified them? It’s not just historical fiction, of course, all fiction is like that. And if it’s a choice between spoon-feeding and mystification, I think choose mystification, because you always have to assume that your reader is at least as intelligent as you are, if not more so.

Between the two, I, too, choose mystification.

How’s that working for me?

Well … it’s working for me.

As to whether it’s working for anyone else … that’s a question which has yet to be fully answered.