Tom Wolfe

Fortunately, the world is full of people with information compulsion who want to tell you their stories. They want to tell you things that you don't know. They're some of the greatest allies that any writer has.

The way that Dickens structured his books has a form that we most readily recognize now from, say, the great T.V. series, like 'The Wire' or 'The Sopranos.' There's one central plot line, but then from that spin off all kinds of subplots.