Original subtitles

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Which comes first, the character or the story?

There is no such thing as first.

Because a person is what happens to them.

So a novel is characters interacting with events.

Characters don't just exist in isolation.

Characters don't just exist in isolation.

You're finding out who they are through how they interact,

through the decisions they make, through how other people treat

them, through how they react to how other people treat them,

all of these interactions that change us,

that reveal us to ourselves, that reveal us to other people

and therefore to the reader.

So somebody-- let me see, let's give them

So somebody-- let me see, let's give them

an automobile accident.

They run over their neighbor's cat.

Do they tell?

Do they pretend somebody else did it?

Do they dispose of the body?

Or here's a real live thing.

A person we know is bothered by a skunk.

So they set a live trap--

a live trap for a skunk, you can't see in.

And they caught the skunk.

They could hear it inside the trap.

So they put it into their car.

So they put it into their car.

They're going to drive it far, far away out into the country.

They took the trap out, they put it in a field.

They stood well back.

They pulled the string and out shot their neighbor's prize

Persian and disappeared into the woods.

What do they do?

Do they confess?

Do they pretend it never happened?

Well, if you're like most other people,

you will pretend it never happened.

[CHUCKLING]

Because you'd be so embarrassed.

Because you'd be so embarrassed.

You don't know, necessarily, what

new facets of your character are going

to reveal themselves until you put them in new situations.

When the Titanic is going down, would you

have jumped into the lifeboat first?

How do we know what we know about characters anyway?

How do we know what we know about people?

How do we know what we know about people?

There's the impression you have of them,

and then there's the impression that you

feel they are trying to create.

And then there's the impression that other people have of them

in the book, within the book.

So you may think they're quite charming.

And another character, someone in the book,

may have a jaundiced view of that person.

So their actions, what other people say about them--

which may or may not be true--

which may or may not be true--

and what they themselves say--

which may or may not be true--

and then our own ruminations and thoughts about them.

We're going to want to know how old they are.

We're going to want to know how frowny or smiley they are.

We're going to want to know what gender they are at that moment.

We're going to want to know if they are dressing to impress.

We're going to want to know if they are dressing to impress.

We're going to want to know if they are dressing

in a way that is too young or too old for the age

that they are.

So when is their birthday?

What are their friends like?

What are their hobbies?

Have they had any traumatic experiences?

Do they have maybe some obsessions?

Are they in love?

So all of these things can be part

of building your character.

Here is something that I like to do when I have a novel that's

taking place over time and therefore is set in the past

and involves a number of characters.

I like to write the months of the year

down the side of the page, on the left hand side.

I like to write the years across the top.

And I like to put in the characters' birth

dates and also important world events that happened.

dates and also important world events that happened.

So then I always know how old they are in relation

to one another, in any given year,

and what was happening in that year

and how old they were when those things were happening.

That way, not only do you know what astrological symbol

they are--

(LAUGHING) so useful.

But you also know how old they are in relation to one another

exactly, so you don't get that mixed up.

exactly, so you don't get that mixed up.

And you also know how old they are in relation

to important world events.

So how old was your character on 9/11?

If they were 12, that probably made a pretty deep impression

on them.

If they were two, it probably didn't.

All of those things you like to know about their background,

you can keep control of them with a handy chart like that.

you can keep control of them with a handy chart like that.

Have you given the reader enough clues?

Have you given the reader enough?

When I finished writing "Alias Grace,"

I had three of my editors in Toronto,

and they all read the text.

They all had the impression that the landlady was plump.

I said, I've specifically made her very thin.

She's run out of food.

And they said, well, we didn't pick that up, because we always

And they said, well, we didn't pick that up, because we always

think of landladies as not being thin.

I said, well, I guess I have to make it

more obvious that she's thin.

So I put in some more thinness.

Because people will leap to their own conclusions,

if you don't give them enough clues.

There are authors who feed their characters a lot.

And then there are other authors who never feed their characters

at all.

So Dashiell Hammett, for instance, his characters

drink and smoke a lot.

drink and smoke a lot.

But they never eat.

You never catch them eating, which was kind of like him.

Dickens, they ate very specifically.

Food is quite important in his books.

It's usually quite odd food or not enough food

or sometimes very lavish food.

It's never just meat and potatoes.

The food is there for a reason, it's telling us something.

There are similarly authors who are not interested in clothing.

I'm quite interested in their clothing.

I'm quite interested in their clothing.

And I want their clothing to be accurate for the period,

but I also want their clothing to say something about them.

Henry James is pretty good on clothing.

He likes describing how people look.

Particularly women, he likes describing their ensemble

and what it says about them.

People always were asking me, why

do you write so much about women, blah, blah, blah.

And because I'm lazy was apparently not

an adequate answer.

So I decided to write "Oryx and Crake" entirely from the point

of view of a male person.

And the first question that I was asked, of course,

when it came out, was why didn't you tell it through a women?

Wouldn't you know.

So Jimmy from "Oryx and Crake," at the beginning of the book

So Jimmy from "Oryx and Crake," at the beginning of the book

finds himself living in a tree and believing

that he's the only kind of our human being left on earth.

And in his vicinity are some new and improved versions

that don't have any of our faults,

that are very non-aggressive.

So Jimmy has control of his whole book.

And what sort of a character is he?

Well first of all, we realize that he is not a math genius.

Although he exists in a part of society in the future

where being a math genius is highly prized,

those are not his skills.

He's a word guy.

He is somewhat neglected by his parents.

He has a best friend who is a lot more of a genius

than he is, which wouldn't be that hard.

But he has a good heart.

Although he has commitment problems, he has a good heart.

Although he has commitment problems, he has a good heart.

And therefore, he's the one who ends up

as the shepherd and protector of the new group of people

that have been created and are so non-aggressive.

So they need a sort of shepherd, and he's

the one chosen for the job.

Because although no genius, he has a good heart.

So I wrote this book.

And because I always pass my books under the eyes of experts

And because I always pass my books under the eyes of experts

to make sure I haven't made any frightful mistakes,

they saved me from things.

That would have been useful for a few books

that I have read by men that have women characters in them.

They should have let some woman read that book and say,

that is not how you put on pantyhose.

You know, you don't stick both feet out and pull them

on like this.

(LAUGHING) They're not trousers.

So fundamental, really basic things like that.

So fundamental, really basic things like that.

So I let somebody read my Jimmy book.

I gave it to a young man with commitment problems,

of about the same age.

And he gave me two helpful hints.

First of all, he said, don't say, "what in the fuck."

Say "what the fuck."

Accurate.

And then he said, that's not how you smoke a joint.

And then he said, that's not how you smoke a joint.

[LAUGHTER]

Ask the experts.

So I said, but what about the rest of it?

You know, what about the character of Jimmy?

And he said, well, (HUMMING) how did you know?

So I thought that was a yes.

So these kinds of things.

It's often these small details that

may trip you up because you've never thought about them.

But if you're writing from the point of view somebody

But if you're writing from the point of view somebody

who isn't you, it's just as well to pass that

beneath the eyes of somebody more like that person.

That's a pretty good helpful hint.