Horizontal

From an interview with David Means:

I think the stillness you mention comes out of what Andre Dubus called vertical writing, rather than horizontal; going down deep, and deeper, into the situation instead of moving to some end point. If you don't have that stillness in short fiction, you end up leaning too hard on plot, or irony, or some technical device. Or maybe if you use plot too much, or you're ironic, or silly, you can't have that stillness. In part I think it's inherent in the form. There's a great story by Eudora Welty called "The Whistle" that is so still and quiet and lovely it's amazing. Maybe it's the fact that survivors, or those who suffer, tend to find solace in those moments of silence. But I agree with Baxter's general premise, although I don't think you can make a conscious decision to include stillness in the work. You can't just say: I'll slip some stillness in here, and some more here.

A feeling of panic came over me as I read that. It's perhaps a perfect criticism of the novel I'm pushing to finish in the next week.