All language subtitles for Masterclass Margaret Atwood Teaches Creative Writing - 04.Structuring Your Novel Layered Narratives and Other Variations

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Well, let's talk about
the difference between story

and how you tell the story.

So the story is what happens.

So the plot.

And the structure is
how you tell the story.

So let us take a
simple illustration.

Little Red Riding Hood.

Little Red Riding Hood.

Simple version.

You begin at the beginning.

You go on with the
events in sequence,

and you end at the end.

Little Red Riding Hood was
a little girl whose mother

had made her a red
cloak and a hood,

so everybody called her
Little Red Riding Hood.

And one day, her
mother said to her,

your grandmother is
very ill, and I've

made this wonderful basket
with bread and a bottle of wine

in it, and you must carry it
to her through the forest.

But don't stray off
the path because there

But don't stray off
the path because there

are wolves in the forest.

So Little Red Riding Hood
sets out along the path,

but then she sees some beautiful
flowers off to the side

and thinks what a
good idea it would

be if I were to pick a
bouquet for my grandmother.

And she steps off the path and
begins gathering the flowers.

And out from behind
a tree stepped

a rather hairy looking gentleman
who said, "What are you

a rather hairy looking gentleman
who said, "What are you

doing little girl?"

And she said, "I am
gathering some flowers

for my grandmother who lives on
the other side of the forest."

You know the rest.

Let's start the story
a different way.

It was dark inside the wolf.

The grandmother, who
had been gobbled whole,

couldn't say a word because
it was quite stifling and full

of old chicken parts
and plastic bags

that the wolf had
eaten by mistake.

that the wolf had
eaten by mistake.

And she had to listen in
silence as the wolf put

on her nightgown and nightcap
and climbed into her bed

and started doing a
terrible imitation of her.

What a bad imitation
the grandmother said.

But, luckily, along
came you know the rest.

We can start it another way.

We can tell the story from
the point of view of the wolf,

or we might tell the
story as a flashback.

or we might tell the
story as a flashback.

Every time the
grandmother remembered

what an awful time she had had
inside the wolf, et cetera.

Or we might begin as a
detective story might begin.

There, on the floor, lay either
one corpse, that of the wolf,

or two, because,
in some versions,

the grandmother doesn't
come out of it so well.

What had caused
this double murder?

Those are some ways
of telling the story.

Those are some ways
of telling the story.

Sometimes, people
use time jumps.

Little was Little Red Riding
Hood to know that in two weeks

time, she would be looking
back on one of the most

definitive events of her life.

So where you start, what
order you tell the events in,

that's variable.

The plot underneath it,
however, it's the same story.

Or you can also have
the "Rashomon" approach

Or you can also have
the "Rashomon" approach

which is there is a
story there somewhere,

but we hear three
different versions of it.

"Rashomon" is the
film by Kurosawa

in which the same
story is told involving

a murdered man, a robber,
and the murdered man's wife.

And each one has a
different version

of how that murder came about.

The murdered man
appears through a medium

The murdered man
appears through a medium

that goes into a trance.

And each of the
stories is different,

so the viewer is left wondering
which one is the real story.

There's also a device in
which you give the reader

two possible endings.

And that was used
by Charlotte Bronte

in her novel called "Villette."

On the one hand, maybe
it ended this way.

But on the other
hand, dear reader,

But on the other
hand, dear reader,

if you're feeling
more hopeful, you

might prefer this other version.

There are many
different kinds of ways

of telling stories that have
been used for generations,

but I would never
dare to say that there

was nothing new under the sun.

Because as soon as you
say that, then there is.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Understanding how the
structure is going to work

can take a while.

In that respect, it's
a bit like knitting.

In that respect, it's
a bit like knitting.

You can pull it all apart and
start again if things have not

been working out.

And as one of the great
things about being a writer,

you can always
just pull it apart.

You're not stuck out on the
stage like an opera singer who

just sung a bad note.

You can't take that back.

Everybody heard it.

But with a writing,
it's under your control

until you decide to show
it to somebody else.

until you decide to show
it to somebody else.

So the two novels I
really got quite far into

and had to then set aside--

in the first one, there
were too many characters.

There were eight characters.

I knew everything
about these people.

I knew what they
had for breakfast.

I knew what kind
of socks they wore.

And all of that, and I
had covered 200 pages,

and nothing had happened.

There wasn't any story.

There wasn't any story.

Into the drawer.

The second one, I had
too many time levels

and too many locations.

And it was the same problem.

I knew a lot about these time
levels and these locations.

I got quite far into it.

I was up to about page 150.

And nothing had happened.

So if nothing is happening by
page 10, you're in trouble.

So if nothing is happening by
page 10, you're in trouble.

Because you don't know
what the story is.

How do you strike the balance
between something that's

too complicated and
doesn't work and something

that's just complicated
enough and does work?

Practice.

And yet, you can't
tell anybody how

to do that because it
is hands in the mud.

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For a full compendium
of ways to tell stories,

you could do worse than
read the thousand and one

nights and one night, usually
known as the "Arabian Nights."

They were originally a
number of uncollected stories

that had been circulating
around the ancient world

for a long time.

Some genius put them
together in a frame story,

which is another way
of telling stories.

You have a frame story,
and within that frame,

you can tell many
different stories.

The frame story of the thousand
and one nights and one night

The frame story of the thousand
and one nights and one night

is that there was a
sultan whose wife had

been caught cheating on him.

And so disillusioned
and angry was he

that he decided to
marry one woman a day.

And then the next
morning, cut off her head.

Scheherazade decided
to put a stop to this

and volunteered herself
to be the next bride.

and volunteered herself
to be the next bride.

But she did ask one
favor, which was

that her younger sister
should sleep under the bed,

because she was in the
habit of telling her a story

every night.

And that was granted.

So she begins telling the
story, but it is not finished

by the time dawn arrives.

And the Sultan is so eager
to hear the end of the story

that he lets her
live another day.

She does the same thing.

She finishes that story
and begins another one.

She finishes that story
and begins another one.

And this goes on for a
thousand and one nights.

And on the final
night, he realizes

that he's been a bad person.

He reforms and decides not
to cut the heads off girls

anymore.

So that's the frame story.

But within it, we got all
of these other stories

some of which have yet other
stories embedded within them.

The frame story is the story
of Scheherazade and the Sultan.

But the stories within that
frame are the stories that

But the stories within that
frame are the stories that

Scheherazade is telling him in
order to-- and she tells them

in a certain order--

in order to bring him to
a different frame of mind.

But also, of course,
to save her own life

because each of those stories
has to be interesting enough so

that he wants to
hear the end of it.

And like Charles Dickens,
she ends each installment

with a cliffhanger.

What's going to happen?

What's going to happen?

Tune in next week.

That's exactly what
soap operas do today.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

In "The Blind Assassin,"
we have the main character

who's kind of a mean old lady.

She could have been
meaner, but she's not

a kindly, nice polite person.

She's quite prickly and annoyed.

She's quite prickly and annoyed.

So she's the narrator in both
the present and the past.

But then, we have
another layer, which

is a novel called
"The Blind Assassin."

And within the novel called
"The Blind Assassin,"

there's a story called
"The Blind Assassin," which

is being told by one of the
characters within the novel

to another character
within the novel.

So there's another
layer which is composed

of newspaper and
magazine articles that

are a counterpoint
to the actual story.

They're the public
version of the events that

They're the public
version of the events that

are going on behind the scenes.

And the stories told by each
one of these kinds of narration,

they're all different,
but they're related.

So that is the structure.

There are four
levels of narration.

It's not just a
story within a story.

It's a story within a story
within a story within a story.

So it's fancy footwork, granted.

And some people follow the
clues and others don't.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

If you're just starting
out, forget everything

I said about all of these
different structures

and just do a simple
telling of your story

to see if you can
master that part.

My first novels were pretty
simple in their structure.

My first novels were pretty
simple in their structure.

So "The Edible Woman," which
is my first published novel

begins at the beginning and goes
on until it reaches the end.

And the only change is
a part in the middle

that's in the third person.

But the events
are told in order.

So I would say learn to do that.

It's like any other skill.

You can't suddenly
play a Beethoven sonata

You can't suddenly
play a Beethoven sonata

until you first learn to
play "Twinkle, Twinkle,

Little Star."

So practicing the skills, if you
can get a simple thing to work,

then you can start
with the variations.

But I think with any
skill, with any craft,

it is hands-on learn by
doing and it's also seeing

what other people have done.

what other people have done.

So what are their skills at?

How did they do it?

But also, what are my
skills at, and what am I

up to doing right now, today?