When you present a pathetic situation...

When you present a pathetic situation, you have to let it speak entirely for itself. I mean you have to present it and leave it alone. You have to let the things in the story do the talking…The first thing is to see the people at every minute…Ford Madox Ford said you couldn’t have somebody sell an newspaper in a story unless you said what he looked like…show these things and you don’t have to say them."

-- Flannery O'Connor (1955), in a letter to Ben Griffith