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[MUSIC PLAYING]
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What are novels
if not stories?
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If all they were was ideas,
they wouldn't be novels.
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They would be
works of philosophy
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or something else like that,
but they would not be novels.
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And novels are
always about people,
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even if the people are rabbits.
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And "Watership
Down", it's a novel.
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And "Watership
Down", it's a novel.
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We have these characters.
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They're rabbits, but
really they're people.
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They have emotions like people.
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They have conversations
and they have activities
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that are people like.
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"Lord of the Rings", there
are some human beings in them,
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but the other characters are
talking trees or Nazguls,
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things like that.
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But essentially it's
characters in a story,
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and that's what a novel is.
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and that's what a novel is.
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The thing about the novel as a
form ever since it has appeared
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is that it's been
infinitely malleable.
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That is it's polymorphic.
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It's taken many forms.
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People are always coming up
with new theories of the novel
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or new theories of
new kinds of novel
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or doing things like writing
a novel in which the letter
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A does not appear.
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People are always pulling it
this way, pulling it that way,
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People are always pulling it
this way, pulling it that way,
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pulling it apart,
experimenting with it,
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declaring that it's dead.
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It's been such a shape
changer that we do not
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know what new form may emerge.
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And that is one of
the great things
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about this thing
we call the novel,
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namely long prose
narratives that
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are not medieval poetic epics
or whatever preceded them,
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the novel.
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They've all got
characters and events,
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They've all got
characters and events,
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and within that just about
anything has been possible.
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But the main rule is
hold my attention.
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[MUSIC PLAYING]
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What is the value of knowing
the genre or type of book you're
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writing before you start?
47
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Well, there may be a
value in not knowing.
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Well, there may be a
value in not knowing.
49
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And the value of
not knowing may be
50
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that you may be able to
do some genre bending
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that if you lock yourself
in to a preconceived box,
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you might not be able to do.
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What your job is is to make
your book whatever it may be,
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as plausible, as
believable as possible.
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If you can make us believe
in "Rosemary's Baby",
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it doesn't really matter what
shelf down the line somebody
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it doesn't really matter what
shelf down the line somebody
58
00:03:07,940 --> 00:03:09,800
is going to put you book on.
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00:03:09,800 --> 00:03:11,960
It's more of a
requirement for people
60
00:03:11,960 --> 00:03:18,290
writing literary criticism than
it is for authors themselves.
61
00:03:18,290 --> 00:03:21,350
Your job as an author is
to make your book real.
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Literary fiction,
commercial fiction,
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these are decisions
made by publishers.
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So as an author,
your job remains
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So as an author,
your job remains
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to make your book as good a
book of its kind as it can be.
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So some editor then may
come across and say,
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this has really great
commercial possibilities.
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We're going to put a lot behind
this, major marketing campaign.
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That's not your decision.
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You have made your book the
best of its kind that it can be.
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And how it is
marketed, although you
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may scream and yell and protest
and say they haven't done
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may scream and yell and protest
and say they haven't done
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00:04:00,880 --> 00:04:03,550
enough or they've done the wrong
thing or all the rest of it,
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those are not your decisions.
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Character-driven novels
and plot-driven novels,
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another false distinction.
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If you've made your book the
best book that it can be,
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it's going to have both.
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That is it's going to have both
people whose personalities we
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want to watch develop and it's
also going to have events in it
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want to watch develop and it's
also going to have events in it
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that we want to watch happen.
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We want to know what comes next.
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If there's nothing in
a book but characters--
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it could be a new piece
of post-postmodernism,
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but the audience will
probably be somewhat limited
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and possibly rather ephemeral.
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I don't know whether you
remember a French writer called
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Robbe-Grillet who was supposed
to be the new hot thing at one
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00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:00,380
Robbe-Grillet who was supposed
to be the new hot thing at one
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00:05:00,380 --> 00:05:05,090
point, and he decided to do
away with plot and characters.
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00:05:05,090 --> 00:05:06,740
What was the result?
95
00:05:06,740 --> 00:05:11,960
Well, it was sort of like
reading about a cafeteria tray.
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There were objects.
97
00:05:14,600 --> 00:05:16,550
Those were a bit--
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00:05:16,550 --> 00:05:19,480
how daring-- no
plot, no characters.
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00:05:19,480 --> 00:05:20,580
How long did that last?
100
00:05:20,580 --> 00:05:23,850
Have you ever heard
of this person, you?
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00:05:23,850 --> 00:05:24,350
No?
102
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Didn't think so.
7760
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