“To think over”

Rand’s view that people’s philosophical premises drive their choices in life shapes her fiction. The choices and actions of each character needed to follow logically from their philosophical ideas (whether good or bad), but they also needed to be appropriately dramatic for the medium of fiction. These notes cover some of Rand’s thoughts on this topic, about how the differing philosophical ideas of Roark and the other characters affect both each other and the story.

There is also one very interesting note at the bottom of the second page about a different meeting for Roark and Wynand. In the vast majority of her notes as well as the final story, Rand planned that these two characters would meet when Wynand hired Roark to build a house for him. But, if only on this one page, Rand did consider an alternative meeting: that Roark would be brought to Wynand as “the greatest prey,” another man of integrity that Wynand could (attempt to) break.