"And before I'd got to the end of the first paragraph, I'd come up slap bang against a fundamental problem that still troubles me today whenever I begin a story, and it's this: where am I telling it from?"

This quote by Philip Pullman talks to the trouble of starting a story. He recommends that when he starts a story, he is right away faced with a basic problem: where is the story being told from? This is a challenging question to answer, as it requires the author to pick the viewpoint from which the story will be informed. Will it be told from the perspective of a single character, or will it be told from an omniscient viewpoint? Will the story be informed in the very first person, or in the third individual? These are all concerns that the author need to consider when beginning a story, and Pullman suggests that this is an issue that still difficulties him today.