Being Wilbur

First and foremost, he's a real pig. Who can talk. He prefers sleeping to all else except eating. He craves and creates love.

The danger would be in making him sound like me or some character or anyone other than himself. So to understand Wilbur I'd have to study pigs, as E.B.White had done. I'd have to watch them, smell them, listen to grunts, feed them. And let Wilbur's voice go from there.

As for Charlotte . . .

[photo of page on which Charlotte, chairing a meeting of barn animals, mutters and glares.]

That's as cranky as she ever gets. Her purpose in calling the meeting is to generate new ideas for her web and thus save Wilbur's life. The sage counsel of the oldest sheep is to appeal to the rat, Templeton, who can bring back bits of text from the dump. She convinces him to do so by appealing to his "baser instincts."