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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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SALMAN RUSHDIE: "At
the precise instant

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of India's arrival
at independence,

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I tumbled forth into the world.

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There were gasps.

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And, outside the window,
fireworks and crowds.

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A few seconds later, my
father broke his big toe;

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but his accident
was a mere trifle

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when set beside what had
befallen me in that united

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moment, because thanks
to the occult tyrannies

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of those blandly saluting
clocks I had been mysteriously

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of those blandly saluting
clocks I had been mysteriously

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handcuffed to history,
my destinies indissolubly

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chained to those of my country.

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For the next three decades,
there was to be no escape."

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Very early in the book,
you need to, so to speak,

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make a contract with the reader.

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You have to say
to the reader, I'm

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going to tell you
this kind of story.

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And then, if they like that
idea, they'll stick with you.

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And then, if they like that
idea, they'll stick with you.

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You know, I think
the worst thing

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you can do as a
writer is to make

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the reader a kind of promise
about the sort of story

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you're going to tell them
and then not tell them

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that kind of story--

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break the contract
with the reader.

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That's very, very
annoying as a reader.

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If the book is going
to be surrealistic--

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if it's going to have elements
of fantasy, et cetera--

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they need to be
there to begin with.

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they need to be
there to begin with.

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If you write what looks
like a realist novel,

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and suddenly on page 150 a
spaceship lands from Mars,

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it's going to annoy people.

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Because you haven't set
up that expectation.

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Unless you're doing it
deliberately for shock value--

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you know, to create
a world that appears

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to be everyday and
humdrum and normal,

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and then something
really shocking

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happens in that world--

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like a spaceship
landing from Mars.

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That works.

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But then that's because
you know that you're

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But then that's because
you know that you're

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doing it to shock people.

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On the whole, start
as you mean to go on.

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You know, so if you're going
to write a realistic novel--

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if you're going
to write a novel,

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a love story, if
you're going to write

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a thriller, whatever
you're doing,

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start as you mean to go on.

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The best explanation of the
power of the opening sentence

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that I heard was--

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I once went to a book reading
by the author Joseph Heller,

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I once went to a book reading
by the author Joseph Heller,

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the author of "Catch-22"
and other books.

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And he said that most of
the books he had written

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had grown out of a
single sentence--

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that he had written a
sentence and he immediately

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saw that that sentence gave
him another couple of hundred

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of sentences, that
that sentence opened

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the gateway through which the
whole storyline could follow.

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the gateway through which the
whole storyline could follow.

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It's like a kind of
open sesame, you know?

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It's like the key
that unlocks the door,

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and then the book flows from it.

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The way to arrive at
an opening sentence--

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I mean, to try and, you
know, find your way to it

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as a-- as a practice exercises--

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is to think, what is
this book actually about?

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And I don't mean so
much in terms of story.

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I mean, what kind of book is it?

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I mean, what kind of book is it?

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You know, is it a comedy?

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Is it a horror story?

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Is it a thriller?

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Is it a love story?

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Is it an epic?

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Is it a surreal novel?

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What is it?

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And whatever it is that
your novel is going to be,

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your opening sentence should
in some way express that--

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in some way say that, hello,
I'm this kind of story--

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in some way say that, hello,
I'm this kind of story--

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read me.

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I spend a lot of
time making sure

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that I have the first
sentence that I want.

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And I think what
I would say to you

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is that it needs to be something
which serves two purposes.

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One is personal to
you, the author--

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which is, that it shows
you how to write the book.

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which is, that it shows
you how to write the book.

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You know, it opens the
doorway into the book.

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And the other is
for the reader--

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that it says something which
makes them want to read on.

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I think most writers agonize a
little bit about their opening

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sentences, and in my experience,
you know when you've got it.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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I do think opening sentences
are unusually important.

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I do think opening sentences
are unusually important.

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Sometimes the opening sentence
immediately plunges you

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into the reality of the book.

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You know, so the opening
sentence of Toni Morrison's

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"Beloved--" "124 was spiteful."

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And you immediately
realize that you're

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being told that this house
in which the action is

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taking place has a kind
of life of its own.

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And it puts you into
something which, actually,

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as it turns out, is a kind of
ghost story as it develops.

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as it turns out, is a kind of
ghost story as it develops.

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It doesn't even have to
be a flashy sentence.

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You know, it can be a
very simple sentence.

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Sometimes the opening
sentence can be quite grand--

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"All happy families
are alike," says

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the opening sentence of "Anna
Karenina," "unhappy families

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are unhappy in their own way."

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It's a-- it's a great Tolstoyan
assertion, which maybe you

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It's a-- it's a great Tolstoyan
assertion, which maybe you

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disagree with.

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You know, maybe not all
happy families are alike,

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but Tolstoy says they are.

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But what he tells
us is that he's

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going to tell us the story of
a particular unhappy family

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that's unhappy in a certain way.

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So it sets up a grand
book, which he then

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proceeds to write.

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Sometimes the first sentence
is part of a longer passage.

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Like, for example, in
Dickens' "Tale of Two Cities,"

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Like, for example, in
Dickens' "Tale of Two Cities,"

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the opening paragraph, really,
is a series of sentences

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which contradict themselves.

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"It was the best of times.

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It was the worst of times."

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You know, and that
sentence structure

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is repeated a number of times.

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But what it does is to
very, very powerfully evoke

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the mood of the book,
which is the time

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of the French Revolution.

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When you have the sentence
that those that double thing

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When you have the sentence
that those that double thing

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of giving you permission to go
on in some kind of fluent way

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and being a kind of
hook for the reader,

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I mean, then you've got it.

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And then you proceed.

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When I was writing my book which
was written for my son, "Haroun

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and the Sea of Stories,"
which is a kind of fairy tale.

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But it's a fairy tale
about serious things.

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But it's a fairy tale
about serious things.

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And I wanted it to be
accessible to grown-ups as well

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as to younger readers.

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I wanted, if I could do it,
to write a book that that--

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my son was 11, 12
years old at the time--

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would be able to read and get an
11, 12-year-old kid's pleasure

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from it.

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And I wanted an adult to be
able to read it and in a way

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read it in a different way.

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You know, and for me, the
real difficulty of that book

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You know, and for me, the
real difficulty of that book

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was tone of voice.

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I had started writing it,
and it seemed too childish.

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And I would try writing
it in a different way,

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and it seemed too adult.
And it was very hard

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for me to find where
to pitch the book.

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And then one day I wrote
the opening sentence.

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I remember writing
that and thinking, OK!

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I know what to do.

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You know, it just
set the tone of voice

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from which the whole
book proceeded.

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And until I wrote
those two sentences,

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I really didn't know
how to write the book.

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I really didn't know
how to write the book.

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I had made a number
of false starts.

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But that gave me the
permission to write.

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This is my second-published
novel-- my novel,

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"Midnight's Children," a
book about the generation

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of children that were born at
the time of the independence

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of children that were born at
the time of the independence

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of India.

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"I was born in the city of
Bombay once upon a time.

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No, that won't do, there's no
getting away from the date--

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I was born in Doctor
Narlikar's nursing

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home on August the 15th, 1947.

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And the time?

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The time matters, too.

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Well then-- at night.

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No, it's important
to be more.woke

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on the stroke of midnight,
as a matter of fact.

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on the stroke of midnight,
as a matter of fact.

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Clock-hands joined palms in
respectful greeting as I came.

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Oh, spell it out, spell it
out-- at the precise instant

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of India's arrival
at independence,

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I tumbled forth into the word."

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He has a kind of almost
stammering beginning where

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he doesn't finish sentences.

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he doesn't finish sentences.

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And it's because he's--

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in a way, the thing
he's going to say

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is so big that he,
in a way, almost

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doesn't have the
courage to say it.

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You know?

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And then he finds the
courage to say it,

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and then it pours out of him
and becomes much more fluid.

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And so, in a way, he's finding
his starting point, too.

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And his starting point--

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it is-- what can I say?

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It's a little broken
and uncertain.

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And then at a certain point,
he just takes a deep breath.

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He says "spell it
out, spell it out."

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and at that point, he opens
his heart to the story.

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And boom!

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Out it comes, and
then we're off.

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There was a particular day when
I wrote what essentially still

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There was a particular day when
I wrote what essentially still

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is that opening paragraph,
and immediately, I

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had a feeling of
great excitement.

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Because I felt that
I had managed finally

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to find the voice and
language of the book.

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And I've always said to myself--

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told myself that was the
day I became a writer.

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Because it was the first time
that I had written something

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anywhere near as good as that.

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And it showed me-- it opened
the door into the book--

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And it showed me-- it opened
the door into the book--

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and the book then poured out.