Original subtitles

[MUSIC PLAYING]

People say that writing is a lonely occupation.

But actually when your characters come to life,

you feel you're not alone.

You feel you're with these people.

And they want you to tell their story.

What I found always is that there's

What I found always is that there's

a certain moment in the preparation for a book when

the character feels real to you.

In other words, when you feel that they're alive.

This is what I mean by starting to listen to them.

It's as if they're talking to you,

and you're talking back to them, and you're in a conversation.

What do they need in order to be fully themselves,

and in order to be exactly who they need to be

at that point in the story?

And I think, obviously, there's a sense

And I think, obviously, there's a sense

in which this is nonsense.

The character doesn't exist.

And it's all in your head anyway.

And obviously you're doing it all anyway.

I just think it's a useful--

even if it's only a way of fooling yourself,

you know, it's a way of thinking about what you're doing.

You don't want to feel the writer pulling the strings all

the time.

You want to feel that the-- you know,

the characters have a kind of independent existence.

You know, you want to feel that Anna Karenina is herself

and not just Tolstoy speaking through her, you know.

and not just Tolstoy speaking through her, you know.

You want to feel that the characters in The Color Purple

are themselves with their own thoughts and feelings,

and not just Alice Walker projecting her vision

through them.

You know, and so this idea of being in conversation

with your characters is a way of helping

you to create characters which don't look-- just feel

like your puppets, you know.

Which feel like they have an independent reality.

Which feel like they have an independent reality.

And that's very pleasing to readers to feel that.

You can write a character biography

if that's what works for you.

You don't have to, but if it works, do it.

I mean, I write, in a much more haphazard way,

notes for a character.

Even, like, phrases they might use,

repeated language that they have.

I just will write down, like, a moment in their life that I

I just will write down, like, a moment in their life that I

think I must remember, because that's

a significant thing that I need to make sure happens.

This whole process of preparation

is valuable and necessary in the same way

as in a historical novel research

about the historical period is valuable and necessary.

But there's a point at which you have to put it aside.

There's a point at which you have to say, OK,

now I'm going to imagine it.

And you don't need to be endlessly looking back

And you don't need to be endlessly looking back

at your biodata, you know, or your research.

When you're actually doing the writing,

you need to-- you need to feel you have it already within you.

You know that stuff.

And so you can just write it.

You need to understand the interiority of the character

in those terms of--

what has damaged them in their lives, you know?

I mean, we are all, every human being,

I mean, we are all, every human being,

carrying some kind of damage.

You know, and it can be a broken heart in a love affair.

It can be that you feel your father didn't love you.

We all have bruises, you know.

We all-- we all carry wounds through life.

And to some extent those shape what we--

what we find ourselves doing.

Everybody in life has something that pushes them

Everybody in life has something that pushes them

in one direction or another.

It can simply be the desire to take care of your family.

You know, it can simply be the problem of earning a living.

It can be racial prejudice.

Or it can be some deep need they have

in life, some ambition, some dream, some hope, something

that they yearn for.

that they yearn for.

And you need to know that about them.

Because then that gives you--

that's the story they need to tell, you know, about whether,

in the end, they achieve their dream,

whether the thing that they yearned for comes to them,

or whether it doesn't.

And that's, in a way, the difference

between a happy ending and a tragedy.

between a happy ending and a tragedy.

If you go through your life yearning for something,

and you don't get it, that's a sad life.

And it can be very dramatic in a novel for people

to come very close to the thing they want

and then to be cheated of it in some way.

Or the other way around, to be cheated of it

and then to find their way back towards getting it,

whatever it may be.

One of the answers to whose story is you telling--

One of the answers to whose story is you telling--

are you telling, will be-- will have

to do with your central character very often,

or your central characters.

But there are specific things that I think really help,

which are very banal things you might think.

What clothes do they wear?

How do they dress?

Are they fashionable or unfashionable?

Are they fashionable or unfashionable?

Or just literally, what kind of shirt do they wear?

If somebody wearing a Hawaiian shirt,

that's not quite the same person as somebody

wearing a Yankees shirt.

But in a way, it's easy to start with the exterior things.

It's easy to start with, what does a character look like?

Do they have a big nose?

You know, are they bald?

And as I say, what clothes do they wear,

and how do they speak?

And work your way inside, you know,

And work your way inside, you know,

to try and see if those exterior things, in some way,

are defenses or expressions.

You know, sometimes somebody who is

very flamboyant on the outside will

be doing it to hide some real insecurity

and uncertainty about themselves underneath that.

Sometimes it'll be because they are flamboyant and extroverted.

So it could be both.

So it could be both.

And you need to decide which it is.

And at that point, the character will act, you know.

And the story will move forward.

One of the great lessons that I was taught when I was still

at university, when I was studying history-- my history

professor said to me about writing history,

he said, you should never write history until you

can hear the people speak.

He said, because if you don't know how they speak,

He said, because if you don't know how they speak,

you don't know them well enough.

And so you can't tell their story.

And I think, excellent advice for writing history.

But it also struck me as being excellent advice for writing

fiction.

One of the questions I ask myself always,

about every character, large or small, is how do they talk?

Do they have an accent?

You know, an accent can reveal social class.

It can also reveal race.

And it could also reveal regionality.

You know, somebody from the Deep South, from Mississippi,

You know, somebody from the Deep South, from Mississippi,

isn't going to speak the same way as somebody from Boston.

Another question is, how--

are they talkative?

Are they the kinds of characters who have a lot

to say for themselves?

Or are they quite silent and hard to draw out, you know,

people of few words?

Ask yourself, what kind of vocabulary do they use?

Do they have-- do they have a large vocabulary?

Do they have-- do they have a large vocabulary?

Or do they have quite a limited one?

That also will tell you something

about their background and who they are.

Do they use bad language, or do they

resist the use of bad language?

And if you go through that and know that about your character,

you've--

you've got quite a long way to knowing who they are.