We all hate moral ambiguity in some sense, and yet it is also absolutely necessary. In writing a story, it is the place where I begin.

Tan is pointing to a paradox at the heart of storytelling and moral life: readers often crave clear heroes and villains, but the most truthful and compelling narratives arise from mixed motives, partial knowledge, and ethically fraught choices. “Moral ambiguity” becomes her generative starting point because it creates tension—between what characters want and what they should do, between cultural expectations and private desire, between love and harm. In Tan’s fiction, such ambiguity frequently appears in family relationships and cross-cultural misunderstandings, where no one is wholly right or wrong. The quote also implies a craft principle: complexity is not an ornament added later, but the engine that produces plot, character depth, and emotional resonance.