Eleanor Catton thought there was a need for a book that was “structurally ornate” and lengthy but still had a driving plot. She looked around and didn’t find one that satisfied what she wanted. So she went ahead and wrote The Luminaries, which, as everyone likes to remind you, came in at over 800 pages.

Catton tried to encourage some students to take the same approach:

Don’t write the book you think you should write, but what you want to read – the book that doesn’t exist yet, and because that fact drives you mad…