Original subtitles

[MUSIC PLAYING]

SALMAN RUSHDIE: I would say that every writer that is any good,

is that they have sharp observational powers.

And those can be developed.

If you set yourself the task of noticing,

it's amazing how much you will begin to notice.

You should have a sharp eye.

You should have a sharp eye.

You should be able to look at the world.

And you should be a good noticer.

You know, you should try to notice things wherever you go.

What is happening on this street, you know?

It may mean looking away from the action.

You know, look at the corners of the vision.

What's happening in the corner of your eye,

not straight ahead?

When we normally just walk down the street,

we can be lost in our thoughts.

We can be on the phone to somebody.

We can be on the phone to somebody.

We can be distracted.

But if you set yourself the task of noticing when you walk down

the street, you'll actually be surprised

by how much you do notice, that all this is going on.

Oh, I never looked at that before.

So that's one thing.

One thing is to try and train your eye to look at the world

and to notice it.

The second thing is-- is to hear the world.

You know, it's to develop your ear.

And for example, how do people talk?

And for example, how do people talk?

That's going to be very useful to you

when you're writing dialogue.

If you actually-- and these days,

actually, it's got easier.

Because everybody's walking down the street talking

to themselves, because they got a phone in their ear, you know.

And they're talking to themselves

as if nobody's listening.

It's very good to try and sharpen

your hearing in terms of listening

to-- listening to the world.

Listening to how people speak.

Listening to the natural world.

There's a wonderful passage in Calvino

There's a wonderful passage in Calvino

where one of his characters, Mr. Palomar,

is just sitting in a chair in his garden

listening to the birds.

And he begins to hear rhythms in the way the birds are tweeting.

And he starts trying to write down

the rhythms of the birds, and--

just by listening.

And it's a beautiful passage.

So when you get good at this, or if you

So when you get good at this, or if you

are naturally good at it, your ear will hear--

you'll start hearing things which are revealing

about people, you know.

And it's-- you know, if you have a notebook--

I mean, always have a notebook, you know.

Always have something to write something.

I mean, I've used my--

if I think of something, or I hear or see something,

I just make a note in my phone, and I transfer it later.

There are things which you hear which make you think things.

And if you don't write them down at that moment,

you will never remember them ever again.

you will never remember them ever again.

You know, so you have to form the habit of making

a record of your observations.

Everything you do every day can help you sharpen your eye,

if you-- if you are conscious of the fact

that you're trying to really look.

You know, most of us don't really look.

If we're in a place that's familiar to ourselves--

to us, like, the place where we live,

we're not really looking at it, you know.

We can reach for the doorknob, because we know where

the doorknob is, you know.

The place is familiar to us.

And therefore, we don't really have to consider it.

But you have to try to de-familiarize it.

You have to think, what would this house be like,

You have to think, what would this house be like,

what would this apartment be like, if I came into it

and had never been here before.

What would I see then?

What would be the first thing I see?

What would I think of the person who lives in this place?

What sort of person is this?

What do the things on the walls tell us

about the person who lives here?

Are there pictures?

Are there not pictures?

Are there bookshelves?

Are there not bookshelves, you know?

I, myself, feel very uneasy going

into a house in which there are no bookshelves.

into a house in which there are no bookshelves.

I think it tells me something about the owner of the house

that I don't like, you know, that they don't read.

So as-- as-- we're trying to make the familiar unfamiliar.

Try and imagine that if you didn't

know this place very well, how would you react to it?

You know, and what would you think about its occupants?

What would it show you about its occupants?

Walking is very good, you know.

I mean, I've always loved walking in cities, you know.

I-- just as a--

as an adventure, you know.

It's not that anything really happens.

But just-- walking in cities, in order

to see the life of the city as it moves around me, you know.

Who's there?

Who's there?

Where have they come from?

What's their story?

In the great metropolises, whether it's Bombay or London

or New York, you have the same experience that you--

as you walk in the city, you see people

from everywhere in the world.

The metropolis is like that.

It's the magnet.

You know, and people come from everywhere.

As you walk in the city, just look at people and think,

what's their life?

What do I know about their lives?

Do I know-- do I know anything about their lives?

Maybe I should try and know something about their lives.

Maybe I should try and know something about their lives.

What is their picture of the world?

What's the picture of the world they're walking around in,

you know?

And-- and that'll sharpen your own vision.

And we take-- we take the world we live in for granted.

We think we know its shape.

I remember when I was very young,

and I was trying to get a job in an advertising agency.

They sent me, like, an exam, like a test.

They sent me, like, an exam, like a test.

And one of the questions I had to answer

was, imagine that you meet a Martian who speaks English,

but who doesn't know what bread is.

And explained to him in 100 words or less

how to make a piece of toast.

Very hard question to answer, actually.

Because there are so many assumptions

we make about bread and toast and electricity

and so on, that if you come from another planet,

you don't know what bread or electricity or toast is.

So it becomes hard to tell-- you have

So it becomes hard to tell-- you have

to tell them a story about it.

But that's what I'm saying.

Try to make yourself the alien walking through the world,

to see it as if you've never seen it, to see it as somebody

not you would see it.

The question of sound--

sound is very valuable, because, you know,

sound is very valuable, because, you know,

a soundscape, again, is a thing that we all live in as much

as we live in a landscape or a cityscape.

You know, we-- whether we are fully conscious of it

or not, there's a kind of repertoire of sounds that

is around us, whether that's traffic or birdsong or somebody

busking in the subway or a dog yelling in the park,

busking in the subway or a dog yelling in the park,

barking in the park.

We move through a kind of soundscape every day.

And-- and that is very specific to the kind of place

that we're in.

And in a novel, as in life, a sound

can be a warning of something, you know.

Thunder is a warning of a storm.

Thunder is a warning of a storm.

It can add emotion, and it can add drama to a scene,

if used properly.

I mean, it's kind of become a cliche

that when there's going to be trouble

between two people in the relationship they get caught

in a storm, you know.

So you should try and avoid those cliches.

In a way, it would be better for people

to be in the most beautiful, idyllic, peaceful, bird

chirping setting, and then to have the great fight

chirping setting, and then to have the great fight

of their lives and break up.

The contrast would be more pleasing than just

to have thunder and lightning around them, which is banal.

But yeah, if you start really thinking about it,

you can use sound in a story as an effect.

There are writers who are wonderfully good at dialogue.

You know, and characters leap into life

because of the various idiosyncrasies

of how they speak.

That's a skill which can be learned by listening, you know.

No two people speak the same way.

And if you start listening, not just to the words they use--

the pitch of their voice, you know.

Do they have a high voice or a low voice?

Does their voice rise in pitch when they get excited?

Does their voice fall in pitch when they get angry?

How does their voice work in their body?

You know, and how does it express what they feel?

So even before you get to the words they're saying,

So even before you get to the words they're saying,

you know, just the sound of their voice

can tell you something about them.

You know, and-- and then, of course, there is the question--

we were talking about how people actually speak

and what is their way of speaking.

And the more you listen to that, the more

you will become capable of replicating it.

Because I say, no two people speak in the same way.

Even if you are from the same family,

Even if you are from the same family,

you know, your sister won't speak the same way as you do.

And you have to listen to how she speaks.

What does she like to say?

What does she talk about?

And what are the words she uses, which

may not be the same as the words you would use?

So it's just a way of changing your focus, you know.

Focus on these things instead.

And they will help you.