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[MUSIC PLAYING]
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The novel is about time.
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You cannot write a novel that
does not involve time in some
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way.
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So Leon Edel, the
biographer of Henry James,
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said, if it's a novel, there's
going to be a clock in it.
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Time passes.
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In a lyric poem, maybe not.
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In a lyric poem, maybe not.
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That could be about
a timeless moment.
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But in a novel, time happens.
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People change.
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The clock hands move, or least
the digital ticks happen.
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But there are two
ways of viewing time.
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One is circular,
and one is linear.
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So the circular kind
of time revolves,
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and that's where we
get analog clocks.
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and that's where we
get analog clocks.
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That's where we get sundials.
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That's where we get the
idea that there are seasons.
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They keep moving around.
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Lunar cycles-- they're circular.
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The other way of viewing
time is that it's linear.
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It begins at the
beginning, garden of Eden.
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It ends at the end,
Book of Revelations.
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And you go from here to there.
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And that's where we
get people talking
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And that's where we
get people talking
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about the wrong side of
history, et cetera, et cetera.
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Actually, there is no wrong
side of history or right
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side of history because
history is always changing.
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It's the wheel of fortune.
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And in the wheel of
fortune, characters
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rise up on one side of it.
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They may achieve a moment of
having a crown at the top.
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Then they're thrown off the
other side, and some of them
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are crushed underneath.
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There's nothing about human
history that is inevitable.
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What kind of time,
however, are you
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What kind of time,
however, are you
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going to have in your novel?
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Are you going to have a kind of
time in which things come round
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at the end to
something like what
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they were at the beginning?
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Is it going to be "The
Mayor of Casterbridge"?
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Is it going to be from
rags to riches to rags?
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That would be a circular motion.
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Or are you going to
take as your model
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a kind of inevitable
progress in which everything
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a kind of inevitable
progress in which everything
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is going to get better
and better until you reach
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the city of God, the classless
society, whatever that goal may
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be?
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You probably have some kind of
idea in your head about time,
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whether time, as
Robertson Davies said,
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wounds all heels, whether
time brings a just resolution,
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whether hidden things come to
light, whether a balance is
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whether hidden things come to
light, whether a balance is
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achieved, or
whether you're going
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to have an ironic end in
which bad people triumph
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and good people are crushed.
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Your choice.
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[MUSIC PLAYING]
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How do you indicate
to the reader
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when you're moving
from the present
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to the past and vice versa?
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Well, there's a number of
pretty obvious devices.
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You can certainly put the time.
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A lot of people do that.
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A lot of people do that.
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So May, 1940, April, 1977--
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you can do that.
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You can put in some indicators.
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Clothing is always
a pretty good clue.
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Lulabelle adjusted her bustle.
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The simplest way if it's
a time-sensitive structure
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is simply to put the date.
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is simply to put the date.
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That's not hard.
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Just as if you're changing
person, put their name.
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And don't make
everybody a redhead.
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That's very confusing.
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And don't have them all
have names that begin
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with M or any other letter.
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Make the names different
so we can actually
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remember who these people are.
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Thank you very much.
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And I'm keen on maps if it's an
historical drama that requires
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And I'm keen on maps if it's an
historical drama that requires
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a lot of moving around.
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So where would we be in Lord of
the Rings without those maps?
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We like to know
where things are.
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And that, too, is a very old
device, most noteworthily
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in "Gulliver's Travels."
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[MUSIC PLAYING]
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The problem with flashbacks
is that you can't
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make them too long or tedious.
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make them too long or tedious.
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So too much exposition
explanation, then we kind of
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nod off.
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Remember that time
when, and he was married
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to her, but before that--
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do we really need to know that?
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So tell us what we
really need to know in
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as engaging a way as you can
so that we don't nod off.
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But unless you
begin with something
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that's going to
hold our attention,
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that's going to
hold our attention,
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we may not stay with you.
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[MUSIC PLAYING]
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I think it depends what sort
of story you're telling.
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And sometimes you're jumping
around in the space and time.
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So it's the "meanwhile"
device, which
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Charles Dickens used a lot.
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So meanwhile, unbeknownst to
Oliver Twist, his evil brother
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So meanwhile, unbeknownst to
Oliver Twist, his evil brother
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was plotting to demolish him.
118
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Neither group knows what
the other ones are up to.
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And then the beauty of it
is watching it all converge.
120
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Some of these devices
were very explored
121
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in the 19th century novel.
122
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So "Wuthering
Heights," for instance,
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begins with somebody unrelated
to the people in the story.
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begins with somebody unrelated
to the people in the story.
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It's this gentleman
who for his health
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wants to rent a house
in the countryside.
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And that's how he gets
into the Heathcliff story.
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So the frame device
is this unrelated man
129
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being told about
the Heathcliff story
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by the old housekeeper
who has known
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the family all of this time.
132
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We never hear the story told
from within either Heathcliff
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We never hear the story told
from within either Heathcliff
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or Catherine Earnshaw
because to do
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that would diminish
their stature
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as larger-than-life
romantic figures.
137
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We see them through
the eyes of others.
138
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We observe them through the eyes
of lesser mortals commenting
139
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upon them.
140
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upon them.
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But we do cut back in time.
142
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We start in the present.
143
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We cut back in time.
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We hear the story.
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And then we go forward in
time to see how it works out.
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[MUSIC PLAYING]
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Leaping around in time--
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well, I think you're going
to have to ask yourself
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why you want to do that.
150
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It's the same as
any of these things.
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Is it going to work with your
story to do that with the story
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Is it going to work with your
story to do that with the story
153
00:08:02,240 --> 00:08:04,610
that you are telling?
154
00:08:04,610 --> 00:08:09,620
So there aren't any
abstract tips as such.
155
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I think, again, it's a
matter of try it this way.
156
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See if it works for your story.
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And if it doesn't,
the wastepaper basket
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is your friend.
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Try it another way.
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You have infinite
freedom within your world
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You have infinite
freedom within your world
162
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that you're creating
until you send it
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out into the rest of the
world, at which point
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you lose control over it.
165
00:08:40,919 --> 00:08:44,450
So it is a megalomaniac's
dream, writing a novel.
166
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You can do anything.
167
00:08:46,700 --> 00:08:48,860
But then you have
to ask yourself
168
00:08:48,860 --> 00:08:54,600
is this working for my book
that I'm writing right now.
169
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So don't move from the
abstract into the concrete.
170
00:08:59,720 --> 00:09:00,000
Move from the concrete.
171
00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:01,850
Move from the concrete.
172
00:09:01,850 --> 00:09:05,480
Work with your
hands, as it were.
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Trees don't grow out of air.
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They grow out of dirt.
12681
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