Original subtitles

[MUSIC PLAYING]

What are novels if not stories?

If all they were was ideas, they wouldn't be novels.

They would be works of philosophy

or something else like that, but they would not be novels.

And novels are always about people,

even if the people are rabbits.

And "Watership Down", it's a novel.

And "Watership Down", it's a novel.

We have these characters.

They're rabbits, but really they're people.

They have emotions like people.

They have conversations and they have activities

that are people like.

"Lord of the Rings", there are some human beings in them,

but the other characters are talking trees or Nazguls,

things like that.

But essentially it's characters in a story,

and that's what a novel is.

and that's what a novel is.

The thing about the novel as a form ever since it has appeared

is that it's been infinitely malleable.

That is it's polymorphic.

It's taken many forms.

People are always coming up with new theories of the novel

or new theories of new kinds of novel

or doing things like writing a novel in which the letter

A does not appear.

People are always pulling it this way, pulling it that way,

People are always pulling it this way, pulling it that way,

pulling it apart, experimenting with it,

declaring that it's dead.

It's been such a shape changer that we do not

know what new form may emerge.

And that is one of the great things

about this thing we call the novel,

namely long prose narratives that

are not medieval poetic epics or whatever preceded them,

the novel.

They've all got characters and events,

They've all got characters and events,

and within that just about anything has been possible.

But the main rule is hold my attention.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

What is the value of knowing the genre or type of book you're

writing before you start?

Well, there may be a value in not knowing.

Well, there may be a value in not knowing.

And the value of not knowing may be

that you may be able to do some genre bending

that if you lock yourself in to a preconceived box,

you might not be able to do.

What your job is is to make your book whatever it may be,

as plausible, as believable as possible.

If you can make us believe in "Rosemary's Baby",

it doesn't really matter what shelf down the line somebody

it doesn't really matter what shelf down the line somebody

is going to put you book on.

It's more of a requirement for people

writing literary criticism than it is for authors themselves.

Your job as an author is to make your book real.

Literary fiction, commercial fiction,

these are decisions made by publishers.

So as an author, your job remains

So as an author, your job remains

to make your book as good a book of its kind as it can be.

So some editor then may come across and say,

this has really great commercial possibilities.

We're going to put a lot behind this, major marketing campaign.

That's not your decision.

You have made your book the best of its kind that it can be.

And how it is marketed, although you

may scream and yell and protest and say they haven't done

may scream and yell and protest and say they haven't done

enough or they've done the wrong thing or all the rest of it,

those are not your decisions.

Character-driven novels and plot-driven novels,

another false distinction.

If you've made your book the best book that it can be,

it's going to have both.

That is it's going to have both people whose personalities we

want to watch develop and it's also going to have events in it

want to watch develop and it's also going to have events in it

that we want to watch happen.

We want to know what comes next.

If there's nothing in a book but characters--

it could be a new piece of post-postmodernism,

but the audience will probably be somewhat limited

and possibly rather ephemeral.

I don't know whether you remember a French writer called

Robbe-Grillet who was supposed to be the new hot thing at one

Robbe-Grillet who was supposed to be the new hot thing at one

point, and he decided to do away with plot and characters.

What was the result?

Well, it was sort of like reading about a cafeteria tray.

There were objects.

Those were a bit--

how daring-- no plot, no characters.

How long did that last?

Have you ever heard of this person, you?

No?

Didn't think so.