All language subtitles for Masterclass Salman Rushdie Teaches Storytelling and Writing - 03.Flesh Out Your Story s Structure

SALMAN RUSHDIE: A
novel is written well

if the author is really
looking at themselves

and what they're trying
to do and becoming

very clear about it
and saying, OK, here's

what I'm trying to achieve.

And this is what I
need to do in order

to get there, to set
yourself the boundaries,

set yourself the shape,
and then stick to it.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

When you're trying
to compose a novel,

it's very often helpful to
know where to hang your hat,

so to speak.

If you don't have some
kind of edifice built

of a story and a plot, some
kind of structural element,

of a story and a plot, some
kind of structural element,

it goes like this,
then it can be

very hard to know how to
begin to flesh things out.

The plot and structure
are like the skeleton.

And the characters and
events are the flesh

you put on that skeleton.

There are writers who have
always needed that skeleton

to be very detailed.

I mean, according to
legend, Scott Fitzgerald

was the writer of that kind,
who really worked things out

very carefully before writing.

very carefully before writing.

And there are other writers
who kind of wing it more.

And you have to find
out which one you

are because the only rule,
really, is whatever works.

That's the rule.

The advantage of structure is
that you know what you're doing

and you know where you're going.

In a novel like "Midnight's
Children," where

the actions of the characters
are linked quite closely

the actions of the characters
are linked quite closely

to historical events,
I needed that plot

because I needed to be able to
map the lives of the characters

onto the history of the
country so that they

coincided at the right points.

And if I didn't
do that, the book

would have been
unbelievably messy.

So it desperately needed
that kind of architecture.

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When people are writing
toward film writing,

there's all this stuff
about three act structure

and exactly how you must
allow a story to unfold.

My view is it's all nonsense.

Many of the very
greatest films I've seen

have nothing to do with
three act structure.

If you look at the great
cinema of the French New Wave

or the Italian--

if you look at film directors
like Visconti or to Truffaut

if you look at film directors
like Visconti or to Truffaut

or Godard or--

you can't look at their work
using that kind of a grid.

If it helps you to
think I need to have

a beginning, a middle, and an
end, three acts, then fine,

do that.

But it's but it's
not compulsory.

And in a book, it's even less
compulsory than in a movie

because a book can
be a single moment.

because a book can
be a single moment.

It can exist in a
very single moment.

To talk about Joyce's
"Ulysses," all there

is there is one day in
the life of one man.

So yeah, I mean it's
an idea-- the three act

structure, for example,
is an idea you can use.

I mean, it's usable.

You know, it works.

But it's only one idea.

And my view is that the
story will tell you.

And my view is that the
story will tell you.

If you listen
carefully to the story,

the story will tell you
what it needs to be.

Sometimes you don't start
at the beginning, you know?

And sometimes you
start in the middle.

And then we've all
now become very used

to the idea of the flashback.

You know, once upon a
time the flashback felt

strange to the reader, you know?

Now it feels everyday.

So it may be that
you want to start

at a dramatic moment in the
middle of somebody's life

at a dramatic moment in the
middle of somebody's life

in order to immediately
engage you with the character

and what is happening to
them and then tell you

how they got there.

A story has to have a
beginning, a middle, and an end

but not necessarily
in that order.

So the novel is an enormously
fluid form, you know?

It really can be
anything you make it,

It really can be
anything you make it,

as long as you understand that
it can't be random, you know?

It can't just be one
damn thing after another.

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A lot of the development
work of a book,

a lot of the the the
preliminary thinking

is exactly about
who's doing what

to whom, which people
are kind to other people

and who's unkind, who is
trying to get something out

and who's unkind, who is
trying to get something out

of somebody else, who is
more generous, you know,

who's going to shoot somebody,
who's left standing at the end.

I sometimes think in my
book, too many characters

don't make it to the end.

I sometimes think it's, you
know, kind of a tough fate

to be in a Salman Rushdie novel
because you get beaten up,

and then you die.

The question of how the
characters' destinies are

The question of how the
characters' destinies are

connected to each other,
again, is different depending

on the scale of the novel.

If you're writing,
you know, like,

a big epic or comic
epic or anti-epic,

a big book with a large
cast and a number of scenes

and sometimes happening
over a long period of time,

you know, then in many
cases, the destinies

of individual characters will
not connect to each other.

of individual characters will
not connect to each other.

When the novel has
a smaller frame,

then the destinies
of the characters

are absolutely interlocked.

And what happens
to one affects all.

For example, in a
multigenerational novel,

say Thomas Mann's
"Buddenbrooks," for example,

several generations in the life
of a family, a merchant family.

And essentially, what
happens in the novel

is that the family declines,
generation by generation.

is that the family declines,
generation by generation.

Each generation is less than
the generation that preceded it.

So when you read it, you
have the old patriarch

who is, you know, powerful
and successful and so on.

And as you get through to the
sons and grandsons and so on,

they become weaker.

But their weakness and
strength is relative, you know?

They're relative to their
father and their grandfather.

So even though they have their
own stories which are not

So even though they have their
own stories which are not

influenced by the
earlier generations,

the novel is saying
to us, this is a novel

about the decay of a family.

So of course, you want
to feel as the author,

and your readers
will want to feel,

that the book has a
strong cohesion, you know,

and that it is in the
shape it's in because that

is the necessary shape.

And the way you feel
that as a reader is

And the way you feel
that as a reader is

to feel that the
characters are very

integrated with each other and
that everything that happens

to each character is
significant not only

in that character's
life but in the lives

of the other characters.

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Mirroring is a
very useful device,

where something
happening over here

is like something
happening over here.

is like something
happening over here.

And the reader sees
that and connects them.

What is best is if it's
not exactly the same.

If it's exactly the
same, it's too artificial

and will be seen as artificial.

But if there's a
relationship, if there's

over here a mother
and daughter having

a certain kind of
bad relationship

and over here in another place
or another generation there's

another mother and
daughter having

a difficult
relationship-- doesn't

have to be the same difficulty.

have to be the same difficulty.

It doesn't have to
come out the same way.

But the reader
will say, oh, yeah,

this thing is like that thing.

And it helps the reader to grasp
the larger form of the novel.

So those things, echoes
and mirrors, you know,

are useful devices to create
the sense of structure.

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I think most people
who write books

have some little germ of
something inside of them

have some little germ of
something inside of them

that they need to get out.

There's usually some
little thing eating at you

that you need to express.

And so how do you do that?

I mean, there's a
number of answers.

One answer is trial
and error, you know?

I mean, I certainly
had the experience

of many false starts, you know?

And I find that actually
beginning a piece of writing

And I find that actually
beginning a piece of writing

is a question of finding
the right entry point.

Some of the doors you go through
will just lead to a dead end.

And other doors will open
out into an attractive space,

a space you want
to be in, you know?

So which slice through
the world do you take?

You know, I mean, I very often,
even now, have like nine, 10,

11, 12 attempts at
finding that door

to go through before I know
that I've found the one that

to go through before I know
that I've found the one that

leads me through the story.

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We're looking here at
some of the work notes

that I made during the five-year
process of writing "The Satanic

Verses."

And then they're notes
which, in many cases,

don't bear a direct relationship
to the finished book.

don't bear a direct relationship
to the finished book.

But they are part of
the thinking process

that I went through in order to
arrive at the way the finished

book actually looks.

What I was doing, trying
to kind of wrestle

this quite long and
complicated book to the ground,

was I would kind of talk
to myself on my typewriter.

I would ask myself questions
about the characters and about

the themes.

And I would try and answer them.

And I would try and answer them.

So on this page,
amongst other things

I was asking about,
I asked myself,

what is Gibreel Farishta's fate?

And I answered in a way that is
actually not true of the novel

that I finally wrote.

I mean, it's a kind of sketch.

To be mad with jealousy
when sane, to be denied God

and therefore to be like
a bull in a China shop

when possessed of his angelness.

Well, I mean,
something like that

happens in the novel
but not exactly that.

happens in the novel
but not exactly that.

You know, so I'm
seeing these now

for the first time
in a very long time.

And it surprises me in many
ways how many of these notes

are some distance away from the
book as it finally took shape.

Structurally, the
book has a number

of intertwined narratives.

And in the beginning,
I wasn't even sure

if I was thinking
about one book.

if I was thinking
about one book.

There was a moment at
which I thought these

might be three separate books.

There might be a book about
Indian immigrants in London.

And there might be
another, more kind

of visionary book about
these angel-devil nightmares,

these visions.

And eventually, I
began to understand

how the stories sat together and
how they kind of communicated

how the stories sat together and
how they kind of communicated

with each other.

But that was a long process.

trying to understand how
the structure of the book

was going to work.

And a lot of this
material here is just

me trying to get
to grips with that.

I think, you know,
looking at this again,

the thing it shows me is that
one of the ways in which I

the thing it shows me is that
one of the ways in which I

have approached writing--

I mean, this is, you know--

I mean, "The Satanic
Verses" came out in 1988.

I started writing it
five years before that.

So this stuff is--

I wrote this a long time ago.

But it's clear that one of the
processes I had-- and I mean,

to some degree I still have,
is to talk to myself, you know,

is to interrogate
myself, say, look,

what do you think about this?

Or what you are
trying to write makes

Or what you are
trying to write makes

me think of the following,
and how does that work?

And I would try
all sorts of things

to answer that, you know?

These notes here are
a part of the process

of getting to grips with it.

But they're not-- I mean, this
is not the end product at all.

These are steps on the way.

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