All language subtitles for Masterclass Salman Rushdie Teaches Storytelling and Writing - 15.All Writing Is Rewriting

It's often been said,
and I think it's true,

all writing is rewriting.

It's very rare that when
you put something down

for the first time that you
don't need to look at it again.

What's more characteristic is
that it needs work, needs work,

and rework.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

To be frank, the
hardest thing of all

is to make something
out of nothing.

You know, that the
terror of the blank page.

You know, that the
terror of the blank page.

What do you put down on it?

And very often, your first
attempt to put something

down on the blank page
we'll be imperfect.

And my view is, you
should go with that.

It's important to
get something down.

Because once you have something
down, however rough it is,

then another part of
your mind kicks in,

then another part of
your mind kicks in,

which is not just your
creative imagination

but your critical imagination.

Because then you're looking at
a thing that's actually there.

And you can start thinking,
what's wrong with this?

And what needs, what
needs to be cut?

What needs to be added?

What needs to be changed?

You can look at it critically.

And that becomes a
process of improvement.

You will do well to be
your own best editor.

What you should look at when
you look at your own text

is two things.

One is, are there
things that you

are saying that are superfluous
that you don't need to say?

That it would be better
if you didn't say them?

And are there things
that you haven't

And are there things
that you haven't

said that need to be said,
and that would improve

the text if you did say them?

You have to look at both.

Both having said too much
and having said too little.

And if you use those two tests
on every page, it can be very,

it can actually make you read
your work very objectively.

You should be revising
your language, constantly.

And sometimes, you want to
revise the actual action.

Maybe you think that something
that you had planned--

that when you actually
get round to doing it,

it's kind of not
satisfying to you.

And you have to find
a different way.

I'm looking at the
language and I'm

I'm looking at the
language and I'm

looking at the development
of the story all the time,

and trying to see if it's
going the way I want it to go.

Or are there false notes?

Are there some
other things that I

thought would be good that end
up being less successful than I

hoped they would be?

This can happen also
with characters.

A character that you think
is going to be an important

character, when you
actually introduce them,

you realize that
they're-- actually,

you don't have that
much room for them.

And they can become a
much smaller character,

And they can become a
much smaller character,

or they can, sometimes you
can leave them out altogether.

And vice versa.

They can be characters
which you didn't expect

to be big characters, but
who somehow force themselves

upon you.

They're too interesting
when you start making them.

You want more of them.

You want to give
them more scenes.

And so they grow in the book.

I always like that when that
happens because it makes

me feel that the book has a
kind of organic life of its own.

That I'm trying to
stay in charge of,

but I'm also interested
that it grows in its own way

and it tells me things.

But

Yeah, I think you have to just,
you have to be very alert when

you're writing a book, both
to questions of language

and to questions of form,
and to questions of story.

You have to watch
it all the time

because it's very
easy for a book

to go slightly off the rails.

And when it's doing
that, you need

to be able to put it
back on the rails.

The truth is, when
you have a big book,

and there's a lot of
characters coming in and out--

you can make all
the notes you want.

You can draw as many
diagrams as you like.

But in the end, you
hold it in your head.

I mean, I find that I just have
this spider's web in my head

I mean, I find that I just have
this spider's web in my head

connecting all the
people to each other.

And it stays there all the
time I'm writing the book.

And it's my way of knowing
who's doing what to whom.

And you can feel it
there when it's there.

You know how everybody
connects to everybody.

And I find a very
strange thing that

happens when I'm
finishing a book

is that at a certain moment,
the spider's web disappears.

And you don't have the book
in your head in the way

And you don't have the book
in your head in the way

that you've had it for X years.

At that point, it becomes
very dangerous to revise it.

However, whatever it
is, at that point,

it's like performing
brain surgery blindfold

or wearing boxing gloves.

And there's a moment
where you just

have to think, OK,
whatever this book is,

whatever its faults
are, this is what it is.

I can't touch it anymore.

There's no worthwhile
book that was simply

written once and published.

Because it's not
how the mind works.

We try to approximate
what we're doing.

And then we try gradually to
get closer and closer and closer

to what we think we were
supposed to be doing.

So yeah, revision is everything.

Sometimes it feels better
just to go on, and try and get

Sometimes it feels better
just to go on, and try and get

some kind of a
draft down on paper.

And then maybe
step away from it.

Take a bit of a break.

I've always found just
the act of getting

to the end of a story or a
book immediately shows me

what I needed to do before.

You get to the end,
and you think, oh.

Yeah, but I needed to
have much more of this.

And I needed to have
much less of that.

And this is wrong,
but that is right.

And suddenly, you begin to see
the book just because you have

And suddenly, you begin to see
the book just because you have

the whole thing sitting there.

So there is a good
case for saying

you should just press on
and get something down.

And then take a step
back and then look at it.

And then go into
it and try and fix.

I mean another way of
doing things, which

I find that I do more
and more nowadays,

is to fix all the time.

That's to say, if I do a day's
writing, always the last thing

That's to say, if I do a day's
writing, always the last thing

I do at night after having
stepped away from the desk,

and had dinner, or whatever
it is, I always read

what I wrote that day again.

And that's for two reasons.

The first reason
is that maybe I can

see something that needs
fixing, in which case

I'll try and fix it.

And the second reason is that
it puts the book in your head

so that it's there in the
morning when you wake up.

so that it's there in the
morning when you wake up.

And you can go forward.

But I would say that
the important thing

is to be able to step
back from the work.

And then come back to it
and look at it afresh.

The critic Randall Jarrell
had a very nice funny line.

He said a novel is a long piece
of writing that has something

wrong with it.

That I think is probably true.

And if you're writing something
that's 80,000, 90,000, 100,000,

And if you're writing something
that's 80,000, 90,000, 100,000,

200,000 words long,
it's kind of impossible

that every word will be perfect.

So perfection becomes
a kind of pipe dream.

What you have to try
and do is to make

it as perfect as possible
while understanding

that there will be
imperfection because everybody

suffers from that.

What you need to know
is that it's always

possible to make
something a little better.

possible to make
something a little better.

It's good to have an attitude of
dissatisfaction with your work.

Look at every
sentence all the time.

Do I need that sentence?

Is that the right word?

This is what I have always
done long after the editorial

process is over,
when the book is

in the process of being made.

I'm still almost every
day reading over and over

and over and over it.

And trying to see is they
just some tiny little thing?

And trying to see is they
just some tiny little thing?

Is there a comma I don't need?

Is there a paragraph I should
break into two paragraphs?

Is there a sentence
that needs to be added?

And usually, this goes on
in the production period

until you get the first galleys.

And when they arrive, your
publishers will say to you,

as it were, this is your last
chance to touch the book.

And so that read
is very important

And so that read
is very important

because it is your last chance.

After that, it is what it is.

Yeah.

My view is that I am very
skeptical of what I've done.

And I'm constantly trying
to tweak it until--

and these can be tiny tweaks.

But sometimes a tiny tweak can
make a substantial difference

to the way in which
a paragraph is read.

to the way in which
a paragraph is read.

So it's worth going on and on
and on, going over and over

and over and over it
until you can't anymore.

And then you just
have to live with it.

The thing about
knowing when it's bad,

it should be more
or less in built.

I think most people
who are at all

I think most people
who are at all

good at writing can see
when they've made missteps,

and when there are false notes.

I mean, the truth is that if you
can't tell when it's not good,

then you have a
bit of a problem.

Because if you can't
tell when it's not good,

you can't really
tell when it is good.

Again, I mean, I would
say the only real--

there isn't a trick to it.

The only trick to it is
to be, is to read a lot,

and to know, to know what
it is that good writing is.

and to know, to know what
it is that good writing is.

And I think you only get
that knowledge by reading.

And then be ruthless
with yourself.

I mean, Hemingway has this
line that every writer needs

to have a good shit detector.

What he means is, if you
don't know when it's bad,

you don't know when it's good.

So what we have here is
from my literary archive

So what we have here is
from my literary archive

which is at Emory
University in Atlanta.

Some pages which are early
versions of the beginning

of "Midnight's Children."

Typed on my little Olivetti
Dora portable typewriter.

In those days, long before
the arrival of anything

like a computer.

They're annotated because
these are unfinished pages.

They're annotated because
these are unfinished pages.

Some of the versions here are
quite like how it ended up,

and some of them begin
in different places.

For instance, there's a section
here which is in the novel

but begins in a completely
different place.

It begins with Saleem as a boy
in the garden of his family

house in Bombay with
his father, watching

what had just been launched,
which was the Russian Sputnik

satellite.

satellite.

And I remembered
as a child standing

in the garden with my father.

And him saying, look over there.

And you saw this moving
dot, shining, moving dot,

moving across the sky.

It was just a magical
moment of my childhood,

and I wanted to use it.

But in the end, I thought, that
doesn't set it up in the way

that it needs to be set up.

So this is an early
version of the beginning.

And it's actually
described as a prologue.

And it's called omnipotence.

We're in the garden in
the evening watching

We're in the garden in
the evening watching

the Sputnik cross the sky.

I'm thinking of Laika, the
first and last dog in space.

I remember as a child feeling
very sad for the dogs.

Dog was up there,
wasn't coming back.

And the idea of this dog
being sent into space

to die I thought was
very moving and sad.

And the thing about
that is it came

to feel to me like the beginning
of a different kind of novel.

In a way, that's the
beginning of the kind of novel

In a way, that's the
beginning of the kind of novel

I originally conceived of, which
was a novel about childhood.

And that would be
a good beginning

for a novel about childhood.

But because I now had
this rather larger plan

for the book, where it would
be not only about childhood,

but also about India,
about the first 30

years of independent
India, I thought

that doesn't set it
up the right way.

And then the
beginning that I found

And then the
beginning that I found

I thought set it up better.

This novel took an enormous
amount of time to write.

It took me pretty close
to five years to write.

I think I started
writing it in 1975 or 6,

and wrote it for
a number of years.

And partly, it was slow going
because I had really bitten

off more than I could chew.

I mean, it was a really
very big, ambitious idea.

I mean, it was a really
very big, ambitious idea.

And I was a very
inexperienced writer.

So there was a lot of stopping
and starting, and wondering

how to do the next bit,
and trying to not panic,

and to remain confident that
it would work out in the end.

So there was a lot
of that going on.

And yes, a lot of writing
and rewriting along the way.

I mean, it was the
most ambitious thing

I mean, it was the
most ambitious thing

by a million miles that
I'd ever tried to do.

And as I say, I was not at
all confident of my ability

to pull it off.

And indeed, when I'd
finished writing it--

I mean, when I finished writing
it, I was quite happy with it.

I thought, you far as I can
tell, this is a good book.

But because until that
moment, I had really

no success as a writer at
all, I wasn't confident

no success as a writer at
all, I wasn't confident

that my judgment would be
shared by anybody else.

And so I remember
thinking, well,

if people don't agree
that this is a good book,

then maybe I don't know
what a good book is,

and I should maybe give
up trying to write it.

So there was an enormous amount
for me personally riding on it.

And I mean, fortunately, people
did think it was a good book.

And so here I am all these
years later still writing

books as a result.

books as a result.