All language subtitles for Masterclass Salman Rushdie Teaches Storytelling and Writing - 09.Setting as a Character

SALMAN RUSHDIE: The way of
avoiding cliché is to really

look into yourself and to see
what it is about that place

that is significant to you
and write out of that feeling.

And then you will
write something good.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

There are novels which so
relish the world they're set in,

There are novels which so
relish the world they're set in,

whether it's Paris or Vienna or
New York or wherever it may be,

that the portrayal of the place
is as done with as much love

and care as the portrayal of
any of the people in the place.

And the way in which people
live in that place, the place

interacts with them and
is like a character.

You know, and I really like
that because for me, place

You know, and I really like
that because for me, place

is very, very important.

I think it may be because
my own place in the world

has changed quite a lot.

I grew up in Bombay.

I mean, I've lived for roughly
equal chunks of my life

in Bombay, London, and New
York, and three very different

realities.

It has the advantage
that it allows me--

it gives me the freedom to
set stories in many places.

it gives me the freedom to
set stories in many places.

But it also makes me worry about
the ground beneath my feet.

You know, and that's to say
when a writer is deeply rooted

in one place, they can
write about that place

with complete ownership.

This is my place.

The migrant writer, there's
always a question mark

above the place that
they're in and belonging,

the ability to belong,
the willingness

of people to accept that
they belong, et cetera.

So I've felt the need
to, literally in a book,

So I've felt the need
to, literally in a book,

to create the ground
that the book stands on.

And only when I've
done that can I

begin to have characters
moving around in it.

So for me, the place
comes first, always.

It doesn't have to be a city.

It doesn't have to be a country.

It can be a street.

It could be a cafe.

It can be the bedroom in
which you were a child.

It could also be a lost
place because places

It could also be a lost
place because places

are lost for two reasons,
either because you can't go back

there because of exile
or whatever it might be,

or because the place
itself has changed

so much that it is no longer
the place you remembered.

And maybe what you want to do in
your writing is to recreate it,

you know, to allow it to
exist on your page in the way

that it actually no longer
exists in the world.

For example, Balzac's
novel, "Eugénie Grandet,"

For example, Balzac's
novel, "Eugénie Grandet,"

he sets it up.

You know, he describes first
the town in which he lives,

the neighborhood of the
town, what that's like,

the house in the neighborhood
in which she lives.

And by the time you get to hers
in a room inside the house,

he's already created for you a
lot of the context of her life,

you know, and that her life then
takes place in that context.

He's built the world
first, and he's told you,

He's built the world
first, and he's told you,

we're going to have a story
which inhabits this world.

Tolkien does the same
thing in a different way.

You know, in a hole in
the ground lived a hobbit.

You already know
what you're in for.

So that's, I would say, the
best the best advice I can give

is to set it up, right from
the outset, the kind of story

you're going to tell.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

When you're developing
a place, I would say,

When you're developing
a place, I would say,

think of it exactly in
the way that you think

of one of your characters.

You have to be very clear
about the when of the place.

You know, even in New
York City, a story set

in New York City
in the 1970s would

refer to the Pan Am
building rather than

the MetLife building.

There would be no trade
towers, et cetera.

There would be no trade
towers, et cetera.

Or they would be just
being built, actually

or just finished.

So you have to think about the
specifics of the moment, what

the place was like at that time,
which may be not at all what

it's like now.

Or if it's in the
future, then you

have to imagine what
the place might become.

have to imagine what
the place might become.

I mean, there are things
about today's world

that would feel
like science fiction

to somebody from the 1970s.

I mean, smartphones, you know,
laptops, things that we-- you

know, the internet.

Things that we take for granted
as part of everyday life

would feel completely surreal.

They'd feel like the
stuff of fantasy fiction.

So it's interesting
to just ask yourself

what might be the things
50 years from now that we

what might be the things
50 years from now that we

would see as absolutely
surrealist that that

could never happen.

Ask yourself exactly
when in the past,

or if it's the present,
then the present,

and if it's the future,
then where in the future.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

If you're writing about a place
for which you have a feeling--

which, by the way,
doesn't have to be love.

It can be hate as well as love.

It can be hate as well as love.

It could be-- that's just
something about which you

have a really strong feeling.

I, for example, really hated
being at my British boarding

school and a terrible time.

And so far, I've barely
written about it.

I mean, there's about one
page in the "Satanic Verses"

which comes out of a
memory of being at school.

But I think I could,
if I wanted to--

if I wanted to spend my
life hating something,

I could definitely get into
writing a story about being

at boarding school because I
have real deep feeling for it,

at boarding school because I
have real deep feeling for it,

you know.

But to have deep
feeling is what I'm

saying, that that's a good
guideline, that that's

a place that you might want
to include in your story.

And, you know, love
is better than hate,

so if there's a place that you
have strong positive feelings

about, then you should
explore those feelings.

Why do you think like that?

What was it about--

or is it, if it's
the present time--

that makes you feel that?

that makes you feel that?

Does it have to do
with the physicality

of the place with its
beautiful mountains,

or it's by the seaside
or it's in a forest?

Or is it to do with
natural beauty?

Is it to do with the people
you associate with the place,

you know, whether that's
your parents or your beloved

or your children
or your friends?

Does the place mean to you
being amongst those people?

What does it mean?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I mean, I sometimes ask
people, as an exercise,

to just choose a place
that means a lot to them

and to write a few
hundred words, 300 words,

about that place without
using any adjectives.

about that place without
using any adjectives.

Adjectives are things that allow
writers to be lazy sometimes.

But if you can't
say that somewhere

is beautiful or green or ugly,
if you can't use an adjective,

what it forces you to do is
to tell a story about it.

The way in which
we, your readers,

can be made to
understand the place,

if you can't use
adjectives, is that you

if you can't use
adjectives, is that you

have to tell us a story
about it, which we connect,

which we relate to.

So cutting adjectives out
forces you into narrative.

I mean, I'm not saying
never use adjectives--

I'm saying as an
exercise to show yourself

how telling a
story about a place

is the best way of
getting your reader

to enter into that place.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

It's important to write
about place visually.

It's important to write
about place visually.

I remember, actually, a great
film director, Nicholas Roeg,

who was actually not very
interested in screenplays,

I have to say--

he was a very visual director.

He said to me once.

He said, you know, if
somebody comes to see a movie,

and they go out and there's
six pictures in their head

that they'll never forget,
that's a good movie.

And I think that you could
apply that to a book.

You could say if
somebody reads a book

and there's half a dozen
moments in that book

and there's half a dozen
moments in that book

that they will never
forget, that's a good book.

You know, and the visual
is a very good part

of-- a very powerful tool
in creating those moments.

One of the stories I really
love is in a collection

by Italo Calvino, the Italian
writer, called "Cosmicomics,"

which is a series of,
more or less, fables,

fairy tales, about the
beginning of the universe.

One of the stories is historical
all at one point, which

imagines a world before the
invention of space and time,

imagines a world before the
invention of space and time,

i.e, before the Big Bang,
when therefore, you know,

there wasn't much room.

So all of the
characters are kind of

squashed in at this point.

And I mean, it's written,
obviously, as comedy.

And one of these
proto characters

in this moment pre-Bang is
kind of an Italian mama.

At a certain point, she says
to everybody else squashed in.

She says, "Oh, if
only I had some rum.

She says, "Oh, if
only I had some rum.

How I'd like to cook some
noodles for you boys."

And at that moment, bam!

There's rum.

And the idea of the universe
being created, space and time

being created by the first
generous impulse I think

is very beautiful.

The way you do it in writing
is just to make it as vivid

as you can, you know.

And in that story, Calvino
talks about the sudden rushing

And in that story, Calvino
talks about the sudden rushing

outwards, you know,
and people being

flung to impossible
distances from each other.

And the Italian mama is lost.

You know, she's somewhere
lost in the galaxies

and never gets to
make the noodles.

The question of the visual
in writing is, I think,

very important.

There are some writers who we
kind of disapprove of making--

writing too visual, you know.

And I'm not one
of those writers.

And I'm not one
of those writers.

I mean, I think it may partly
be because I have, in my life,

been maybe as
strongly influenced

by cinema as my literature.

You know, I think,
as a consumer of art,

you know, I think
I've been at least as

much impressed by
my great movies

that I've seen as by great
books that I've read.

And so, I find that the visual
is a very important element

of what I try to do.

of what I try to do.

And it's kind of the
answer to how you dramatize

things which are not verbal.

You know, you have to make
pictures in people's heads.

You know, and I think if you
just set yourself the task,

how can I make a picture
in somebody's head,

then you create the world of
the book very immediately.

You know, and I've
always thought

that what you're trying
to do, writing a book,

is to create a world that
the reader wants to be in.

is to create a world that
the reader wants to be in.