1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,374 [MUSIC PLAYING] 2 00:00:08,200 --> 00:00:10,840 Well, let's talk about the difference between story 3 00:00:10,840 --> 00:00:13,830 and how you tell the story. 4 00:00:13,830 --> 00:00:17,160 So the story is what happens. 5 00:00:17,160 --> 00:00:19,770 So the plot. 6 00:00:19,770 --> 00:00:25,350 And the structure is how you tell the story. 7 00:00:25,350 --> 00:00:29,400 So let us take a simple illustration. 8 00:00:29,400 --> 00:00:30,000 Little Red Riding Hood. 9 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:31,230 Little Red Riding Hood. 10 00:00:31,230 --> 00:00:33,000 Simple version. 11 00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:34,440 You begin at the beginning. 12 00:00:34,440 --> 00:00:37,500 You go on with the events in sequence, 13 00:00:37,500 --> 00:00:39,840 and you end at the end. 14 00:00:39,840 --> 00:00:43,170 Little Red Riding Hood was a little girl whose mother 15 00:00:43,170 --> 00:00:45,060 had made her a red cloak and a hood, 16 00:00:45,060 --> 00:00:47,610 so everybody called her Little Red Riding Hood. 17 00:00:47,610 --> 00:00:50,260 And one day, her mother said to her, 18 00:00:50,260 --> 00:00:53,040 your grandmother is very ill, and I've 19 00:00:53,040 --> 00:00:56,130 made this wonderful basket with bread and a bottle of wine 20 00:00:56,130 --> 00:00:58,710 in it, and you must carry it to her through the forest. 21 00:00:58,710 --> 00:01:00,000 But don't stray off the path because there 22 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:03,270 But don't stray off the path because there 23 00:01:03,270 --> 00:01:06,690 are wolves in the forest. 24 00:01:06,690 --> 00:01:09,750 So Little Red Riding Hood sets out along the path, 25 00:01:09,750 --> 00:01:12,990 but then she sees some beautiful flowers off to the side 26 00:01:12,990 --> 00:01:14,850 and thinks what a good idea it would 27 00:01:14,850 --> 00:01:18,150 be if I were to pick a bouquet for my grandmother. 28 00:01:18,150 --> 00:01:22,680 And she steps off the path and begins gathering the flowers. 29 00:01:22,680 --> 00:01:26,030 And out from behind a tree stepped 30 00:01:26,030 --> 00:01:30,000 a rather hairy looking gentleman who said, "What are you 31 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:31,590 a rather hairy looking gentleman who said, "What are you 32 00:01:31,590 --> 00:01:33,540 doing little girl?" 33 00:01:33,540 --> 00:01:35,550 And she said, "I am gathering some flowers 34 00:01:35,550 --> 00:01:40,010 for my grandmother who lives on the other side of the forest." 35 00:01:40,010 --> 00:01:43,160 You know the rest. 36 00:01:43,160 --> 00:01:46,410 Let's start the story a different way. 37 00:01:46,410 --> 00:01:49,790 It was dark inside the wolf. 38 00:01:49,790 --> 00:01:53,160 The grandmother, who had been gobbled whole, 39 00:01:53,160 --> 00:01:56,400 couldn't say a word because it was quite stifling and full 40 00:01:56,400 --> 00:01:59,310 of old chicken parts and plastic bags 41 00:01:59,310 --> 00:02:00,000 that the wolf had eaten by mistake. 42 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:01,890 that the wolf had eaten by mistake. 43 00:02:01,890 --> 00:02:05,070 And she had to listen in silence as the wolf put 44 00:02:05,070 --> 00:02:08,729 on her nightgown and nightcap and climbed into her bed 45 00:02:08,729 --> 00:02:12,870 and started doing a terrible imitation of her. 46 00:02:12,870 --> 00:02:15,990 What a bad imitation the grandmother said. 47 00:02:15,990 --> 00:02:21,060 But, luckily, along came you know the rest. 48 00:02:21,060 --> 00:02:22,710 We can start it another way. 49 00:02:22,710 --> 00:02:26,430 We can tell the story from the point of view of the wolf, 50 00:02:26,430 --> 00:02:30,000 or we might tell the story as a flashback. 51 00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:30,260 or we might tell the story as a flashback. 52 00:02:30,260 --> 00:02:32,430 Every time the grandmother remembered 53 00:02:32,430 --> 00:02:36,330 what an awful time she had had inside the wolf, et cetera. 54 00:02:36,330 --> 00:02:41,300 Or we might begin as a detective story might begin. 55 00:02:41,300 --> 00:02:46,800 There, on the floor, lay either one corpse, that of the wolf, 56 00:02:46,800 --> 00:02:49,200 or two, because, in some versions, 57 00:02:49,200 --> 00:02:52,700 the grandmother doesn't come out of it so well. 58 00:02:52,700 --> 00:02:56,840 What had caused this double murder? 59 00:02:56,840 --> 00:03:00,000 Those are some ways of telling the story. 60 00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:00,470 Those are some ways of telling the story. 61 00:03:00,470 --> 00:03:05,120 Sometimes, people use time jumps. 62 00:03:05,120 --> 00:03:08,630 Little was Little Red Riding Hood to know that in two weeks 63 00:03:08,630 --> 00:03:12,290 time, she would be looking back on one of the most 64 00:03:12,290 --> 00:03:16,830 definitive events of her life. 65 00:03:16,830 --> 00:03:22,640 So where you start, what order you tell the events in, 66 00:03:22,640 --> 00:03:24,030 that's variable. 67 00:03:24,030 --> 00:03:28,970 The plot underneath it, however, it's the same story. 68 00:03:28,970 --> 00:03:30,000 Or you can also have the "Rashomon" approach 69 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:34,770 Or you can also have the "Rashomon" approach 70 00:03:34,770 --> 00:03:38,100 which is there is a story there somewhere, 71 00:03:38,100 --> 00:03:41,040 but we hear three different versions of it. 72 00:03:41,040 --> 00:03:43,980 "Rashomon" is the film by Kurosawa 73 00:03:43,980 --> 00:03:48,330 in which the same story is told involving 74 00:03:48,330 --> 00:03:52,560 a murdered man, a robber, and the murdered man's wife. 75 00:03:52,560 --> 00:03:55,860 And each one has a different version 76 00:03:55,860 --> 00:03:58,680 of how that murder came about. 77 00:03:58,680 --> 00:04:00,000 The murdered man appears through a medium 78 00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:02,190 The murdered man appears through a medium 79 00:04:02,190 --> 00:04:03,840 that goes into a trance. 80 00:04:03,840 --> 00:04:06,850 And each of the stories is different, 81 00:04:06,850 --> 00:04:13,010 so the viewer is left wondering which one is the real story. 82 00:04:13,010 --> 00:04:18,000 There's also a device in which you give the reader 83 00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:19,829 two possible endings. 84 00:04:19,829 --> 00:04:22,350 And that was used by Charlotte Bronte 85 00:04:22,350 --> 00:04:24,840 in her novel called "Villette." 86 00:04:24,840 --> 00:04:28,330 On the one hand, maybe it ended this way. 87 00:04:28,330 --> 00:04:30,000 But on the other hand, dear reader, 88 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:31,302 But on the other hand, dear reader, 89 00:04:31,302 --> 00:04:32,760 if you're feeling more hopeful, you 90 00:04:32,760 --> 00:04:36,790 might prefer this other version. 91 00:04:36,790 --> 00:04:38,440 There are many different kinds of ways 92 00:04:38,440 --> 00:04:40,930 of telling stories that have been used for generations, 93 00:04:40,930 --> 00:04:42,610 but I would never dare to say that there 94 00:04:42,610 --> 00:04:44,830 was nothing new under the sun. 95 00:04:44,830 --> 00:04:48,130 Because as soon as you say that, then there is. 96 00:04:48,130 --> 00:04:51,185 [MUSIC PLAYING] 97 00:04:54,600 --> 00:04:57,150 Understanding how the structure is going to work 98 00:04:57,150 --> 00:04:59,100 can take a while. 99 00:04:59,100 --> 00:05:00,000 In that respect, it's a bit like knitting. 100 00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:02,250 In that respect, it's a bit like knitting. 101 00:05:02,250 --> 00:05:06,930 You can pull it all apart and start again if things have not 102 00:05:06,930 --> 00:05:09,340 been working out. 103 00:05:09,340 --> 00:05:12,250 And as one of the great things about being a writer, 104 00:05:12,250 --> 00:05:15,130 you can always just pull it apart. 105 00:05:15,130 --> 00:05:18,250 You're not stuck out on the stage like an opera singer who 106 00:05:18,250 --> 00:05:20,140 just sung a bad note. 107 00:05:20,140 --> 00:05:21,730 You can't take that back. 108 00:05:21,730 --> 00:05:23,260 Everybody heard it. 109 00:05:23,260 --> 00:05:26,770 But with a writing, it's under your control 110 00:05:26,770 --> 00:05:30,000 until you decide to show it to somebody else. 111 00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:31,010 until you decide to show it to somebody else. 112 00:05:31,010 --> 00:05:33,640 So the two novels I really got quite far into 113 00:05:33,640 --> 00:05:36,450 and had to then set aside-- 114 00:05:36,450 --> 00:05:39,650 in the first one, there were too many characters. 115 00:05:39,650 --> 00:05:41,830 There were eight characters. 116 00:05:41,830 --> 00:05:43,552 I knew everything about these people. 117 00:05:43,552 --> 00:05:45,010 I knew what they had for breakfast. 118 00:05:45,010 --> 00:05:47,110 I knew what kind of socks they wore. 119 00:05:47,110 --> 00:05:52,580 And all of that, and I had covered 200 pages, 120 00:05:52,580 --> 00:05:53,950 and nothing had happened. 121 00:05:56,790 --> 00:06:00,000 There wasn't any story. 122 00:06:00,000 --> 00:06:00,390 There wasn't any story. 123 00:06:00,390 --> 00:06:02,130 Into the drawer. 124 00:06:02,130 --> 00:06:08,230 The second one, I had too many time levels 125 00:06:08,230 --> 00:06:09,750 and too many locations. 126 00:06:09,750 --> 00:06:11,710 And it was the same problem. 127 00:06:11,710 --> 00:06:15,910 I knew a lot about these time levels and these locations. 128 00:06:15,910 --> 00:06:17,740 I got quite far into it. 129 00:06:17,740 --> 00:06:20,950 I was up to about page 150. 130 00:06:20,950 --> 00:06:24,280 And nothing had happened. 131 00:06:24,280 --> 00:06:30,000 So if nothing is happening by page 10, you're in trouble. 132 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:30,490 So if nothing is happening by page 10, you're in trouble. 133 00:06:30,490 --> 00:06:33,220 Because you don't know what the story is. 134 00:06:33,220 --> 00:06:37,300 How do you strike the balance between something that's 135 00:06:37,300 --> 00:06:40,270 too complicated and doesn't work and something 136 00:06:40,270 --> 00:06:42,730 that's just complicated enough and does work? 137 00:06:46,900 --> 00:06:48,900 Practice. 138 00:06:48,900 --> 00:06:51,430 And yet, you can't tell anybody how 139 00:06:51,430 --> 00:06:54,610 to do that because it is hands in the mud. 140 00:06:54,610 --> 00:06:58,103 [MUSIC PLAYING] 141 00:07:01,100 --> 00:07:03,980 For a full compendium of ways to tell stories, 142 00:07:03,980 --> 00:07:06,650 you could do worse than read the thousand and one 143 00:07:06,650 --> 00:07:11,210 nights and one night, usually known as the "Arabian Nights." 144 00:07:11,210 --> 00:07:14,840 They were originally a number of uncollected stories 145 00:07:14,840 --> 00:07:17,060 that had been circulating around the ancient world 146 00:07:17,060 --> 00:07:18,530 for a long time. 147 00:07:18,530 --> 00:07:22,250 Some genius put them together in a frame story, 148 00:07:22,250 --> 00:07:24,320 which is another way of telling stories. 149 00:07:24,320 --> 00:07:26,660 You have a frame story, and within that frame, 150 00:07:26,660 --> 00:07:29,090 you can tell many different stories. 151 00:07:29,090 --> 00:07:30,000 The frame story of the thousand and one nights and one night 152 00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:32,930 The frame story of the thousand and one nights and one night 153 00:07:32,930 --> 00:07:35,390 is that there was a sultan whose wife had 154 00:07:35,390 --> 00:07:37,520 been caught cheating on him. 155 00:07:37,520 --> 00:07:40,870 And so disillusioned and angry was he 156 00:07:40,870 --> 00:07:45,420 that he decided to marry one woman a day. 157 00:07:45,420 --> 00:07:47,870 And then the next morning, cut off her head. 158 00:07:50,530 --> 00:07:55,610 Scheherazade decided to put a stop to this 159 00:07:55,610 --> 00:08:00,000 and volunteered herself to be the next bride. 160 00:08:00,000 --> 00:08:00,530 and volunteered herself to be the next bride. 161 00:08:00,530 --> 00:08:02,480 But she did ask one favor, which was 162 00:08:02,480 --> 00:08:07,700 that her younger sister should sleep under the bed, 163 00:08:07,700 --> 00:08:10,010 because she was in the habit of telling her a story 164 00:08:10,010 --> 00:08:10,850 every night. 165 00:08:10,850 --> 00:08:13,200 And that was granted. 166 00:08:13,200 --> 00:08:16,880 So she begins telling the story, but it is not finished 167 00:08:16,880 --> 00:08:19,840 by the time dawn arrives. 168 00:08:19,840 --> 00:08:22,510 And the Sultan is so eager to hear the end of the story 169 00:08:22,510 --> 00:08:26,690 that he lets her live another day. 170 00:08:26,690 --> 00:08:27,690 She does the same thing. 171 00:08:27,690 --> 00:08:30,000 She finishes that story and begins another one. 172 00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:30,480 She finishes that story and begins another one. 173 00:08:30,480 --> 00:08:34,549 And this goes on for a thousand and one nights. 174 00:08:34,549 --> 00:08:36,370 And on the final night, he realizes 175 00:08:36,370 --> 00:08:38,750 that he's been a bad person. 176 00:08:38,750 --> 00:08:42,309 He reforms and decides not to cut the heads off girls 177 00:08:42,309 --> 00:08:44,030 anymore. 178 00:08:44,030 --> 00:08:45,190 So that's the frame story. 179 00:08:45,190 --> 00:08:48,250 But within it, we got all of these other stories 180 00:08:48,250 --> 00:08:52,680 some of which have yet other stories embedded within them. 181 00:08:52,680 --> 00:08:56,740 The frame story is the story of Scheherazade and the Sultan. 182 00:08:56,740 --> 00:09:00,000 But the stories within that frame are the stories that 183 00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:00,430 But the stories within that frame are the stories that 184 00:09:00,430 --> 00:09:06,670 Scheherazade is telling him in order to-- and she tells them 185 00:09:06,670 --> 00:09:08,560 in a certain order-- 186 00:09:08,560 --> 00:09:13,220 in order to bring him to a different frame of mind. 187 00:09:13,220 --> 00:09:15,310 But also, of course, to save her own life 188 00:09:15,310 --> 00:09:19,330 because each of those stories has to be interesting enough so 189 00:09:19,330 --> 00:09:22,180 that he wants to hear the end of it. 190 00:09:22,180 --> 00:09:25,780 And like Charles Dickens, she ends each installment 191 00:09:25,780 --> 00:09:28,240 with a cliffhanger. 192 00:09:28,240 --> 00:09:30,000 What's going to happen? 193 00:09:30,000 --> 00:09:30,130 What's going to happen? 194 00:09:30,130 --> 00:09:32,530 Tune in next week. 195 00:09:32,530 --> 00:09:35,784 That's exactly what soap operas do today. 196 00:09:35,784 --> 00:09:39,242 [MUSIC PLAYING] 197 00:09:42,210 --> 00:09:46,800 In "The Blind Assassin," we have the main character 198 00:09:46,800 --> 00:09:49,900 who's kind of a mean old lady. 199 00:09:49,900 --> 00:09:52,980 She could have been meaner, but she's not 200 00:09:52,980 --> 00:09:56,770 a kindly, nice polite person. 201 00:09:56,770 --> 00:10:00,000 She's quite prickly and annoyed. 202 00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:00,160 She's quite prickly and annoyed. 203 00:10:00,160 --> 00:10:03,260 So she's the narrator in both the present and the past. 204 00:10:03,260 --> 00:10:05,740 But then, we have another layer, which 205 00:10:05,740 --> 00:10:09,130 is a novel called "The Blind Assassin." 206 00:10:09,130 --> 00:10:12,370 And within the novel called "The Blind Assassin," 207 00:10:12,370 --> 00:10:14,680 there's a story called "The Blind Assassin," which 208 00:10:14,680 --> 00:10:18,040 is being told by one of the characters within the novel 209 00:10:18,040 --> 00:10:20,650 to another character within the novel. 210 00:10:20,650 --> 00:10:23,410 So there's another layer which is composed 211 00:10:23,410 --> 00:10:26,260 of newspaper and magazine articles that 212 00:10:26,260 --> 00:10:29,650 are a counterpoint to the actual story. 213 00:10:29,650 --> 00:10:30,000 They're the public version of the events that 214 00:10:30,000 --> 00:10:32,800 They're the public version of the events that 215 00:10:32,800 --> 00:10:34,810 are going on behind the scenes. 216 00:10:34,810 --> 00:10:39,550 And the stories told by each one of these kinds of narration, 217 00:10:39,550 --> 00:10:42,730 they're all different, but they're related. 218 00:10:42,730 --> 00:10:44,580 So that is the structure. 219 00:10:44,580 --> 00:10:47,510 There are four levels of narration. 220 00:10:47,510 --> 00:10:50,260 It's not just a story within a story. 221 00:10:50,260 --> 00:10:55,960 It's a story within a story within a story within a story. 222 00:10:55,960 --> 00:10:58,255 So it's fancy footwork, granted. 223 00:11:01,840 --> 00:11:07,464 And some people follow the clues and others don't. 224 00:11:07,464 --> 00:11:10,922 [MUSIC PLAYING] 225 00:11:13,890 --> 00:11:16,560 If you're just starting out, forget everything 226 00:11:16,560 --> 00:11:19,310 I said about all of these different structures 227 00:11:19,310 --> 00:11:25,590 and just do a simple telling of your story 228 00:11:25,590 --> 00:11:29,060 to see if you can master that part. 229 00:11:29,060 --> 00:11:30,000 My first novels were pretty simple in their structure. 230 00:11:30,000 --> 00:11:35,110 My first novels were pretty simple in their structure. 231 00:11:35,110 --> 00:11:38,500 So "The Edible Woman," which is my first published novel 232 00:11:38,500 --> 00:11:43,840 begins at the beginning and goes on until it reaches the end. 233 00:11:43,840 --> 00:11:48,730 And the only change is a part in the middle 234 00:11:48,730 --> 00:11:50,410 that's in the third person. 235 00:11:50,410 --> 00:11:53,290 But the events are told in order. 236 00:11:53,290 --> 00:11:56,380 So I would say learn to do that. 237 00:11:56,380 --> 00:11:59,200 It's like any other skill. 238 00:11:59,200 --> 00:12:00,000 You can't suddenly play a Beethoven sonata 239 00:12:00,000 --> 00:12:03,850 You can't suddenly play a Beethoven sonata 240 00:12:03,850 --> 00:12:06,940 until you first learn to play "Twinkle, Twinkle, 241 00:12:06,940 --> 00:12:08,380 Little Star." 242 00:12:08,380 --> 00:12:16,870 So practicing the skills, if you can get a simple thing to work, 243 00:12:16,870 --> 00:12:19,440 then you can start with the variations. 244 00:12:19,440 --> 00:12:25,330 But I think with any skill, with any craft, 245 00:12:25,330 --> 00:12:29,500 it is hands-on learn by doing and it's also seeing 246 00:12:29,500 --> 00:12:30,000 what other people have done. 247 00:12:30,000 --> 00:12:33,260 what other people have done. 248 00:12:33,260 --> 00:12:36,230 So what are their skills at? 249 00:12:36,230 --> 00:12:37,280 How did they do it? 250 00:12:37,280 --> 00:12:40,400 But also, what are my skills at, and what am I 251 00:12:40,400 --> 00:12:44,670 up to doing right now, today?