Original subtitles

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The novel is about time.

You cannot write a novel that does not involve time in some

way.

So Leon Edel, the biographer of Henry James,

said, if it's a novel, there's going to be a clock in it.

Time passes.

In a lyric poem, maybe not.

In a lyric poem, maybe not.

That could be about a timeless moment.

But in a novel, time happens.

People change.

The clock hands move, or least the digital ticks happen.

But there are two ways of viewing time.

One is circular, and one is linear.

So the circular kind of time revolves,

and that's where we get analog clocks.

and that's where we get analog clocks.

That's where we get sundials.

That's where we get the idea that there are seasons.

They keep moving around.

Lunar cycles-- they're circular.

The other way of viewing time is that it's linear.

It begins at the beginning, garden of Eden.

It ends at the end, Book of Revelations.

And you go from here to there.

And that's where we get people talking

And that's where we get people talking

about the wrong side of history, et cetera, et cetera.

Actually, there is no wrong side of history or right

side of history because history is always changing.

It's the wheel of fortune.

And in the wheel of fortune, characters

rise up on one side of it.

They may achieve a moment of having a crown at the top.

Then they're thrown off the other side, and some of them

are crushed underneath.

There's nothing about human history that is inevitable.

What kind of time, however, are you

What kind of time, however, are you

going to have in your novel?

Are you going to have a kind of time in which things come round

at the end to something like what

they were at the beginning?

Is it going to be "The Mayor of Casterbridge"?

Is it going to be from rags to riches to rags?

That would be a circular motion.

Or are you going to take as your model

a kind of inevitable progress in which everything

a kind of inevitable progress in which everything

is going to get better and better until you reach

the city of God, the classless society, whatever that goal may

be?

You probably have some kind of idea in your head about time,

whether time, as Robertson Davies said,

wounds all heels, whether time brings a just resolution,

whether hidden things come to light, whether a balance is

whether hidden things come to light, whether a balance is

achieved, or whether you're going

to have an ironic end in which bad people triumph

and good people are crushed.

Your choice.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

How do you indicate to the reader

when you're moving from the present

to the past and vice versa?

Well, there's a number of pretty obvious devices.

You can certainly put the time.

A lot of people do that.

A lot of people do that.

So May, 1940, April, 1977--

you can do that.

You can put in some indicators.

Clothing is always a pretty good clue.

Lulabelle adjusted her bustle.

The simplest way if it's a time-sensitive structure

is simply to put the date.

is simply to put the date.

That's not hard.

Just as if you're changing person, put their name.

And don't make everybody a redhead.

That's very confusing.

And don't have them all have names that begin

with M or any other letter.

Make the names different so we can actually

remember who these people are.

Thank you very much.

And I'm keen on maps if it's an historical drama that requires

And I'm keen on maps if it's an historical drama that requires

a lot of moving around.

So where would we be in Lord of the Rings without those maps?

We like to know where things are.

And that, too, is a very old device, most noteworthily

in "Gulliver's Travels."

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The problem with flashbacks is that you can't

make them too long or tedious.

make them too long or tedious.

So too much exposition explanation, then we kind of

nod off.

Remember that time when, and he was married

to her, but before that--

do we really need to know that?

So tell us what we really need to know in

as engaging a way as you can so that we don't nod off.

But unless you begin with something

that's going to hold our attention,

that's going to hold our attention,

we may not stay with you.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I think it depends what sort of story you're telling.

And sometimes you're jumping around in the space and time.

So it's the "meanwhile" device, which

Charles Dickens used a lot.

So meanwhile, unbeknownst to Oliver Twist, his evil brother

So meanwhile, unbeknownst to Oliver Twist, his evil brother

was plotting to demolish him.

Neither group knows what the other ones are up to.

And then the beauty of it is watching it all converge.

Some of these devices were very explored

in the 19th century novel.

So "Wuthering Heights," for instance,

begins with somebody unrelated to the people in the story.

begins with somebody unrelated to the people in the story.

It's this gentleman who for his health

wants to rent a house in the countryside.

And that's how he gets into the Heathcliff story.

So the frame device is this unrelated man

being told about the Heathcliff story

by the old housekeeper who has known

the family all of this time.

We never hear the story told from within either Heathcliff

We never hear the story told from within either Heathcliff

or Catherine Earnshaw because to do

that would diminish their stature

as larger-than-life romantic figures.

We see them through the eyes of others.

We observe them through the eyes of lesser mortals commenting

upon them.

upon them.

But we do cut back in time.

We start in the present.

We cut back in time.

We hear the story.

And then we go forward in time to see how it works out.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Leaping around in time--

well, I think you're going to have to ask yourself

why you want to do that.

It's the same as any of these things.

Is it going to work with your story to do that with the story

Is it going to work with your story to do that with the story

that you are telling?

So there aren't any abstract tips as such.

I think, again, it's a matter of try it this way.

See if it works for your story.

And if it doesn't, the wastepaper basket

is your friend.

Try it another way.

You have infinite freedom within your world

You have infinite freedom within your world

that you're creating until you send it

out into the rest of the world, at which point

you lose control over it.

So it is a megalomaniac's dream, writing a novel.

You can do anything.

But then you have to ask yourself

is this working for my book that I'm writing right now.

So don't move from the abstract into the concrete.

Move from the concrete.

Move from the concrete.

Work with your hands, as it were.

Trees don't grow out of air.

They grow out of dirt.