Sophie Kemp’s absurdist novel Paradise Logic (Simon & Schuster, 2025) follows a young woman who seeks everlasting devotion from her boyfriend and embarks on a mission to become the best girlfriend of all time. In an interview published in Columbia University’s the Blue and White, Kemp talks about drawing inspiration from one of Nobel Prize–winning author Kazuo Ishiguro’s books. “The Remains of the Day is about a guy who wants to be the greatest butler of all time,” she says. “And I was like, oh, it’s going to be like that.” Write a short story in which your main character is trying to become the absolute best in their field or pursuit. What insights can this monomania give to your character’s psychology? Is the grandiose fixation noble, deluded, ill-fated, successful, or perhaps somewhere in-between?
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