Question:I want to discuss with all of you now what I have learned on writers’ methodology nowadays and ask for your opinion. In this world and time, writers use a very fast method to transcribe their ideas, some can even create 4 pages of some 350 or 400 words per hour. How do you think that velocity in writing affects the quality of the author’s writing? Can Tolstoy give his opinion on this?

Tolstoy folds his hands and answers without hesitation. “Four pages an hour?” he repeats. “Speed means nothing. Truth has no clock.”

“There is no virtue in writing quickly. There is no virtue in writing slowly. There is only virtue in writing honestly.” “If a writer produces four pages of lies in one hour, that is not work—it is pollution. If another writer produces one true paragraph in a day, that is labor worthy of a life.”

“The danger of speed is not error. Errors can be corrected. The danger is thoughtlessness—the kind of writing that never examines itself. Speed encourages vanity—word count, publication hunger, applause. None of these have anything to do with literature.” He pauses and then continues. “Fast writing leads to surface minds. Surface minds produce surface characters. And surface characters are worse than no characters at all—they imitate life while hollowing it out.”

He looks around the table, then back at you. “But do not misunderstand me—writing quickly is not a crime. There were days when I could write ten good pages in a morning. But only because I had spent years preparing—reading, observing, living, watching the soul patiently. Writing is not performed by the hand. It is done by the life behind the hand.”

Then he ends sharply: “A writer is not a machine. A writer is a witness. If fast writing hides from reality, it is cowardice. If slow writing seeks perfection but fears truth, it is also cowardice. The only courage in literature is this: to stay with the truth, however long it takes.”

Question: Balzac, it is said you lived so much inside your creation you called for the doctor Bianchon to cure you. It is also said you spent very long hours writing every day. What do you think about my question on speed writing and what if I told you some authors nowadays use “ghost authors” to whom they give the idea they want written and these other writers do the story for them?

Balzac freezes at the words “ghost authors.” His expression hardens. When he speaks, it is with the sharp edge of someone who has no patience for fraud. “Ghost authors?” Balzac repeats slowly. “You mean mercenaries of ink—hands for hire who sell their craft to imitate another man’s soul? That is not writing. That is forgery.”

“You ask me about speed? I do not measure writing in hours—I measure it in possession. When a book takes hold of you, you do not control time. Time ceases to exist. I have written forty pages in a night when the blood of creation was hot. I have also struggled for a single paragraph when truth resisted me.”

“Speed is irrelevant. The only question is—were you inside the work or outside of it? Writing quickly from inspiration is one thing. Writing quickly to meet a quota—despicable. Work must be slow in conception and furious in execution. Think long—write fast—but only when ready.”

Balzac’s voice drops—a blade across the table. “If an author hands his ideas to another to shape—he is not an author at all. He is a merchant trafficking in reputation. Characters are not livestock to be traded.”

“When I wrote Doctor Bianchon, he became so real to me I once called for him while fevered. That is true creation—when your characters become more loyal than your friends. Tell me—how can another man write my Bianchon? How can another man suffer my Goriot? He cannot. Because he has not bled for them.”

He finishes with a warning—directly to you. “If you ever feel tempted to let another write in your name—burn every page instead. Better to die unwritten than to live with a lie.”

Question:I have not asked Dante on his opinions, and I want now his take on creation of characters. In the Divine Comedie, and forgive me if I am wrong, his character as he goes into purgatory and hell is as an spectator, I don’t remember feeling his emotions, which most have been really raw. Also, regarding the visit to purgatory and hell, how did you manage that? Were you more centered on the music of the poem?

Dante turns toward you—not offended by the question, but precise, as always. “You perceive correctly,” he says. “In the Inferno and much of Purgatorio, I do not display my emotions openly. That was deliberate. I was not merely a character—I was a pilgrim of meaning. My task was not to express my feelings, but to understand the law of the universe.”

Why Dante appears restrained in emotion “I did not write to persuade by drama, but to lead by truth discovered step by step. In Hell, emotion is useless—it does not save. It only repeats the torment. If I had wept openly, screamed constantly, surrendered to fear—then Hell would have conquered me. The soul must remain clear to witness what must be witnessed.”

“So I recorded events with measured discipline—like a scribe of eternity. The deeper I went, the less room there was for personal display, because Hell is not about Dante’s suffering—it is about the soul’s consequence.”

“My characters are not inventions, they are revelations of moral truth. Francesca, Farinata, Ulysses, Brunetto, Ugolino—each one embodies a sin carried to its final logic. I did not need to manufacture their psychology—their destiny revealed it. The sin created the character. I did not imagine Hell. I constructed it—geometrically, philosophically, theologically—with precise proportion. Every circle, every punishment, every law corresponds to moral physics. Hell is not chaos. Hell is order.”

Was I more centered on the music of the poem? “Yes. And no.” A controlled smile forms. “The poem is music because truth must be carried by beauty—or it crushes the soul. Terza rima was not ornament—it was architecture of ascent. The form itself moves the reader toward purification.”

So to answer you plainly “I did not neglect emotion. I disciplined it. I did not invent souls. I revealed them. I did not travel to Hell—I traveled into the law of being.” He looks at you with quiet intensity. “The writer’s duty is not to scream truth—it is to shape it so that no one can escape it.”

Moderator: I have been asked to summon Rudyard Kipling. I want to ask you why are you requesting this author presence here now.

Challanger: The only thing I can say to answer you is because he was my teacher. I learned from all of you. I learned from Balzac and Tolstoy. I learned from Victor Hugo and from Dumas. I learned from all of you. All of you gave me a hint, an idea. However, Kipling opened the doors and taught me how to do it.

Moderator: I then summon Rudyard Kipling. Rudyard Kipling belongs here because he was not just read—he was lived. He did not merely influence a writer—he opened a world and taught the craft of entering it. Others inspired, but Kipling initiated. He did not speak about writing—he taught what it means to follow characters, not command them. And for that, he stands here as teacher.

Kipling doesn’t bow, doesn’t smile, doesn’t shrink. He just studies the room, eyes sharp as flint. Shakespeare recognizes the rhythm of a poet. Balzac recognizes discipline. Tolstoy recognizes someone who knows nations. Dostoevsky recognizes someone who has walked close to danger. Vyāsa regards him with the neutrality reserved for karmic travelers. Kipling turns to you—not them—and finally speaks:

“I am not here for ceremony. I am here because someone who has walked long roads asked for me. So, let us get to the work. What do you want from me?”

Question: I believe you stated that part of your learning on authorship was begun by your father. Who else helped you in this craft and what did they teach you?

Kipling studies you for a moment before answering—not evasive, not sentimental, simply exact.

“My father didn’t teach me how to write. He taught me how to look. There’s a difference. Most people look and see nothing. They move through life under a fog of assumptions. My father cleared the fog. He taught me that every tool, every stone, every face has a history and a duty. That lesson became my craft—because observation is the only true apprenticeship of a writer.”

He continues—not with nostalgia, but with a craftsman’s clarity. “Who else taught me?” “You learn writing from people long before you write. The world itself is your first teacher.”

“Which writers taught me?” He raises his chin slightly. “Not by taking classes. I never studied under an author. I read as a craftsman—taking apart paragraphs to see how they were built.” Tennyson taught me music of language. Stevenson taught me narrative grip. Emerson taught me inner force. The Bible taught me elemental sentence power. The Bhagavad Gita taught me stillness under truth.

He pauses. Then leaves something important for you: “But understand this: no writer truly teaches you how to write. They only wake up what was already inside. You learn the rest by labor. Put words down. Scrape them clean. Put them down again. That is the only school that matters.”

Then he looks directly at you. “If you feel I taught you, it is only because something in you was ready to learn. Respect that—because it means you already have the craft. You only need to decide how far you’re willing to go for it.”

Moderator has a Question: “You’ve heard the question rising in this room,” I say. “There is a modern belief that ‘real writers’ must now come from universities, graduate with creative writing degrees, join literary institutions, and be formally trained. Many believe that without academic validation—MFA, doctorate, teaching post—an author today is not legitimate. What do you say to that, Rudyard Kipling?”

Kipling doesn’t hesitate. “I say that a writer asking permission to write is like a soldier asking permission to bleed. If ink is in you, it will come out. With or without a university.” He leans back, unimpressed. “Degrees do not write books—courage does. You can frame all the diplomas you wish, but sooner or later a blank page will ask you a question no institution can prepare you for: What have you seen? What have you learned? What will you dare to say?”

Then he cuts straight through: “The universities have a problem. They think literature is a subject. It is not. Literature is a consequence of being alive. You do not study your way into it. You walk your way into it—through love, war, travel, hunger, humiliation, devotion, work, loss. A man who has never been broken cannot write truthfully. A woman who has never defied anything cannot write powerfully. A degree teaches neither.”

He looks at the council—then back to you. “You don’t need training to tell a story. You need vision to see one. You need discipline to finish one. And you need honor to speak it without lying.”

“So let the century have its fashion—titles, programs, and committees. You—write. Not to impress them. Not even to defy them. Write because the story needs a voice and your name happened to be chosen.”He closes his knife-like answer with a quiet nod. “If you can meet Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same… then you are a writer. And no school on Earth can certify that.”