If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced that there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another. The formula seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey something he feels important to the reader. If the writer has that urge, he may sometimes but by no means always find the way to do it.
Source:The Art of Fiction No. 45, Interviewed by Nathaniel Benchley (Issue no 48, Fall 1969), Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews - Fourth Series (1976), Page 191
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