1 00:00:13,284 --> 00:00:14,780 [MUSIC PLAYING] 2 00:00:14,780 --> 00:00:18,290 MARGARET ATWOOD: Creativity is one of the essential things 3 00:00:18,290 --> 00:00:21,140 about being human. 4 00:00:21,140 --> 00:00:23,890 You don't have to apologize for it. 5 00:00:23,890 --> 00:00:27,910 It's something human beings do. 6 00:00:27,910 --> 00:00:30,000 Sometimes people say, express yourself. 7 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:31,570 Sometimes people say, express yourself. 8 00:00:31,570 --> 00:00:38,560 I don't really think that that's necessarily the key thing. 9 00:00:38,560 --> 00:00:42,570 Expressing yourself can be shouting in a field. 10 00:00:42,570 --> 00:00:45,680 So rather than expressing yourself, 11 00:00:45,680 --> 00:00:50,360 why don't you think in terms of evoking, conjuring up 12 00:00:50,360 --> 00:00:58,950 for the reader some curiosity, some suspense, some interest 13 00:00:58,950 --> 00:01:00,000 rather than this is my ego? 14 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:01,554 rather than this is my ego? 15 00:01:01,554 --> 00:01:04,536 [CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYING] 16 00:01:15,490 --> 00:01:20,770 If you're a writer, you have a very limited repertoire 17 00:01:20,770 --> 00:01:22,130 of tools. 18 00:01:22,130 --> 00:01:25,180 Your repertoire is a blank page and some words 19 00:01:25,180 --> 00:01:27,180 that you put on it. 20 00:01:27,180 --> 00:01:28,690 So you're not making a film. 21 00:01:28,690 --> 00:01:29,950 You don't have sound effects. 22 00:01:29,950 --> 00:01:30,000 You don't have actors. 23 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:31,570 You don't have actors. 24 00:01:31,570 --> 00:01:35,620 You only have those words that the reader is reading. 25 00:01:35,620 --> 00:01:39,550 And that's what you use to build everything in your story 26 00:01:39,550 --> 00:01:41,260 as words. 27 00:01:41,260 --> 00:01:43,690 Words on a page are inert. 28 00:01:43,690 --> 00:01:48,700 They're like black musical notes on a score. 29 00:01:48,700 --> 00:01:52,470 They're inert until the music is played, 30 00:01:52,470 --> 00:01:55,860 or in the case of a book, the reader is reading. 31 00:01:55,860 --> 00:01:58,050 And when the reader is reading, the words 32 00:01:58,050 --> 00:02:00,000 transform back into representations, sounds, 33 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:03,220 transform back into representations, sounds, 34 00:02:03,220 --> 00:02:05,610 smells, colors, people. 35 00:02:05,610 --> 00:02:11,400 Reading is the most participative of the arts. 36 00:02:11,400 --> 00:02:14,430 There's more brain activity when you're 37 00:02:14,430 --> 00:02:19,844 reading that kind of intense text 38 00:02:19,844 --> 00:02:21,510 than there is, for instance, when you're 39 00:02:21,510 --> 00:02:23,865 watching television, when you're watching film, 40 00:02:23,865 --> 00:02:30,000 because the brain has to supply everything with the words used 41 00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:30,180 because the brain has to supply everything with the words used 42 00:02:30,180 --> 00:02:33,270 just as cues, clues. 43 00:02:33,270 --> 00:02:35,040 So what you're providing the reader with 44 00:02:35,040 --> 00:02:40,790 is a score, a score that the reader will then interpret. 45 00:02:40,790 --> 00:02:43,920 And all you can do as a writer is make 46 00:02:43,920 --> 00:02:46,830 your book as good as it can be. 47 00:02:46,830 --> 00:02:51,100 You throw it out into the world, hope for the best. 48 00:02:51,100 --> 00:02:54,090 And that's all you can do. 49 00:02:54,090 --> 00:02:56,640 You can not dictate to the reader 50 00:02:56,640 --> 00:03:00,000 how they should read your book or receive your book. 51 00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:00,540 how they should read your book or receive your book. 52 00:03:00,540 --> 00:03:03,450 Because the meaning of a book, once it's is out in the world, 53 00:03:03,450 --> 00:03:06,900 is not decided by the writer anymore. 54 00:03:06,900 --> 00:03:10,180 Even if the writer has thought the writer was putting 55 00:03:10,180 --> 00:03:12,660 x meaning into the book, the reader 56 00:03:12,660 --> 00:03:18,240 may have quite a different idea, and usually does over time. 57 00:03:18,240 --> 00:03:21,280 So Thomas Hardy thought that "Tess of the D'urbervilles" 58 00:03:21,280 --> 00:03:25,470 was about the irony of fate, and we 59 00:03:25,470 --> 00:03:28,710 think it's a pretty kinky story about what happened to women 60 00:03:28,710 --> 00:03:30,000 in the Victorian period. 61 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:31,084 in the Victorian period. 62 00:03:31,084 --> 00:03:32,250 I mean, that's what I think. 63 00:03:34,800 --> 00:03:36,890 What do you think? 64 00:03:36,890 --> 00:03:38,390 When I wrote "The Handmaid's Tale," 65 00:03:38,390 --> 00:03:41,150 I didn't give the central character a name. 66 00:03:41,150 --> 00:03:44,420 The readers decided that her name was June. 67 00:03:44,420 --> 00:03:46,850 There's nothing in the book that contradicts that. 68 00:03:46,850 --> 00:03:48,860 In fact, it all fits. 69 00:03:48,860 --> 00:03:51,710 But it wasn't something I thought up. 70 00:03:51,710 --> 00:03:54,350 The readers figured it out. 71 00:03:54,350 --> 00:03:57,530 It has to be June once you come to think of it, 72 00:03:57,530 --> 00:04:00,000 because each of the names that are mentioned in chapter 1, 73 00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:01,550 because each of the names that are mentioned in chapter 1, 74 00:04:01,550 --> 00:04:04,450 they all occur again in the book except for June. 75 00:04:07,220 --> 00:04:10,568 I thought that was pretty smart of them. 76 00:04:10,568 --> 00:04:14,460 I'm Margaret Atwood, and this is my MasterClass.