Margaret Atwood's Creative Process | Big Think
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- čas přidán 13. 06. 2011
- Margaret Atwood's Creative Process
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For the author, it’s not a question of sitting around and wondering what to write; it’s a question of deciding which of the "far-fetched and absurd" ideas she’s going to try to tackle.
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MARGARET ATWOOD:
Margaret Atwood is a Canadian novelist, poet, and essayist. She is best known for her novels, in which she creates strong, often enigmatic, women characters and excels in telling open-ended stories, while dissecting contemporary urban life and sexual politics. She is among the most-honored authors of fiction in recent history. In addition to the Arthur C. Clark Award-winning "The Handmaid’s Tale," her novels include "Cat’s Eye," which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, "Alias Grace," which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy, and "The Blind Assassin," winner of the 2000 Booker Prize. "Oryx and Crake" was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2003. She was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature in 2008. Her most recent novel is "The Year of the Flood."
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TRANSCRIPT:
Question: How do you begin working on a new book?
Margaret Atwood: Okay, where does a book come from? People have been thinking about that for a long time. How do you begin? How do you get into it? I would say that if you’re not finding this happens somewhat spontaneously, you probably shouldn’t be doing this activity. I mean, a lot of people say, “I want to be a writer.” And you say, “Well, what do you want to write?” And they say, “I don’t know.”
So for me, I think it’s not a question of sitting around wondering what I’m going to write. It’s a question of sitting around wondering which of the far-fetched and absurd ideas I’m going to try to tackle. Sometimes, I think I should be a lot safer and less risk-taking and stick to somebody, or something, a little bit more manageable.
But those aren’t the things that appeal to me, unfortunately. I wish I had a formula, I wish I had a way of preceding that would be kind of, you know, this is what Chapter One is always like, and this is what Chapter Two is always like. But it isn’t. I just have to plunge into it. And it’s usually the one... that the voice of sanity and reason is telling me not to write. It’s usually that one that I end up writing.
Question: What is your writing process?
Margaret Atwood: My absolute opening entry is always a handheld object with a point on one end. So it’s going to be either a pencil or a pen. And then it is applied to a flat substance of some kind, which is usually a piece of paper, but could be a piece of cardboard if one’s stuck without the paper. Or even my arm when things get really bad.
I think that people should carry notebooks with them at all times just for those moments because there’s nothing worse than having that moment and finding that you’re unable to set it down except with a knife on your leg or something. You actually don’t want to do that. So I recommend the paper and the pencil. Or if you must, some other stylus writing device that provides a permanent record of what you just set down.
When we get a bit further into it, I have to say that I do love the sticky notes. I like them. I like the bedside notebook for those thoughts that are so important at about 12:00 midnight when you wake up in the morning and can’t figure out why you thought that. So all of that goes on.
And then, do you know what a rolling barrage is? A rolling barrage comes from World War I and it’s when you run forward and then crouch down and your side fires over your head. Then you stand up, run forward and your side fires over your head again. If you get the timing wrong, of course, it’s unfortunate.
So, I start typing on a computer now. Computers were very helpful for me because I was always a bad typist and a bad speller. I start typing up my handwritten text while I’m still writing it at the back. So the rolling barrage of typing goes on while the writing creeps forward along the ground, if you will.
Question: How long does it normally take you to write a novel?
Margaret Atwood: First of all, there is no normal time that it takes me to write a novel. It very much depends on the length of the novel and how well or badly it’s going. And some of them have taken quite a long time because I have started off on the wrong foot, I have gotten quite far down the path and realized I have to change everything, go back to the beginning, start again, and that can happens several times. So that, of course, takes up...
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"It's usually the one that the voice of sanity and reason is telling me not to write is one that I end up writing." Just what I needed to hear.
Lmbo. I live her spontaneous laughter in the midst of her dryness.
This lady is a genius. Her dark humor and character development is untouchable.
The only thing I don't like about reading Atwood books is that I need a pencil and paper or a computer close, so that I can write down her amazing way of capturing so much in one line: 'potential has a shelf life' was one of those gems.
That's a good one.
Where is it from?
I just realized that If the queen of England and George Bush had a child it would look like Margaret Atwood.
gnonymouse so true 😀
Good observation! Gene Wilder must be her brother.
Useless comment.
I deplore comments that are pithy observations of superficial characteristics
@@privatenumber7243 Interesting, why is that?
Most of these comments are ridiculous, judging her on the tone of her voice. Grow up and maybe at least read some of her books.
Do people have a problem with her voice? I've read a couple of her books and liked them, also love her voice, she has a tone that entrances me and could honestly knock me out (in a good way, she isn't boring lol).
Margaret Atwood is lovely. What a cool person
In 1997 I was listening to an interview on the Howard Stern show of Mia Farrow. she said she and Woody Allen were vacationing in France when suddenly Woody had the compulsion to start writing. He insisted he could not stop ,that he had to finish these thoughts and grabbed anything available. He wrote for many hours exhausting all of their napkins and toilet paper as well. He organized all of these into a correct order.. after that they continued the vacation. Back in New York Woody wrote a screenplay based off of all the notes. Less than a year later the world knew those notes ,written in a hotel room in France, as the film Hannah and her sisters.
A living legend.
whatever....then why don't we destroy all the male obscure prolific authors?
William S. Burroughs Author.
Tom Wolfe Author.
Irvine Welsh Author.
Ken Kesey Author.
Bret Easton Ellis Author.
Jack Kerouac Author.
Because they are men! Cuz sh'e a woman, men are threatened by her POV being exposed to other women and fear they will take her literally , relax, woman can think for themselves and appreciate one woman's idealism and thought provoking truths of a strong woman's life experiences however ugly and exposed of that we all kept hidden. The history of man abusing women need not be the future, if we all accept it.
whoa...CHILL out there some people, the comments are so excessively Mean and uncalled for. Show some respect for an older person, whose achieved something etc.
My god, she has a voice that's just like Meryl Streep's!
I love her literal interpretation of "the writing process." Most people might make a quick joke and move on from it, but she really took her time with that stylus story.
My late husband used napkins in restaurants or used envelopes when he didn't have a pad of paper. He kept a notebook beside his bed. I also keep a notebook beside my bed.
one of my all-time favorite authors
I already had those moments when I had no notebooks and had to use napkins :)
I love how she started laughing when she said a hand held object with a point at one end knowing what stupid people like myself would immediately think (1:32)
Love her
She is right about you being stupid alright. Ya fucking big beardy bollix
i thought of a knife, for some reason
I'm presently reading 'Surfacing' and 'The Edible Woman' simultaneously.
I wanna be a writer because I love creating a whole fictional world in my head.
the deadpan at 2:06 cracked me up
"...except with a knife on your leg..."
LOL I was never into her work, but I could listen to her speak all day!
Margaret, don't wish you have a formula! Your writing is brilliant!
I am yet to read legendary powerful Margaret Atwood. Soon i intend to.
I have for my convenience divided good books into these categories: serious books, fun books, and those in middle that are called medium books. Bad books are the most pretentious ones and many authors speak about the badness of them so we can stay away from those bad books. And thanks to this outspeaking authors.
As a new writer i would like to say that writing is a fun filled hard work, whose success in form and income of money depends on supernatural elements. My strong belief is writing is, like any other good arts, a gift which can't be fully taught by humans. We can point out our experience in trials and tests on the process of writing but we can't give the gift, or a curse, for that matter, to another potential person.
I love her voice
0:23 - People write because they get inspired by other books.
1:00 - If you had a formula you would write the same style of book over and over.
Hai mam how are you? Your work is very interesting , I like it.
In The Street, a Mordecai Richler character said, "Don't be a writer kid, digging ditches would be easier.' But surely one can do both.
I have been white water canoeing and you have to be trained before you go in. By the end of the run your ehausted but it was fun. I did it as a kid and my dad let me have a burger and fries for breakfast from the Huddle House. Good childhood memories there. Afterwards we would go to a fancy restaurant that cooked and battered the whole fish.
whats this got to do with the video
Margaret Atwood, please adopt me.
me too please
Please keep plunging, Ms. Atwood!
What she writes is real interesting.
If you love her work then please connect with me and share your opinion and passionate for her work.
She may be up there with Verne, Wells and Bradbury.
that one time i had to use a knife to write down my idea...that was bad.
My left ear got jealous of my right ear.
What is this sound quality
Margaret Atwood has a disarming smile. An admirable (adorable) and smart person!
Can anyone in here recommend her best work?
I want to be Margaret when I grow up.
How'd it go?
@@Daniel-wg3ob still waiting to grow up!
@@gabriellsbaby how about now?
@@aahhhgixgi5028 sure, right now, totally
Her voice is like a fine, dry wine :)
She's a funny lady.
I don't know if that's the nicest thing to say to a writer, haha...some writers might need to be given a subject...I mean...decide what they want to write, I'm sure that might have been the case for some great writers...I mean...I might have heard some screenwriters talk about that...not just get an idea and start from that, but ask themselves "What do I want to write?"...others might develop ideas from real life, or from trying to tell fairy tales to children (Peter Pan was invented in that way, if I'm not mistaken)...that said, haha, that's probably the reason someone I know, who was thought to be a future writer as a child, who thought that of himself, doesn't write...because he doesn't easily come up with ideas spontaneously, which does happen for him when it comes to composing, where it's just a matter of organizing and writing down (and filling in gaps, etc) for ideas he gets in spite of himself, where he doesn't need to actually "ask himself" to come up with something...while many writers come up with short stories and stuff as children, which just flow out of them...at any rate, that same person didn't come up with music either as a child...
Well...the film Finding Neverland makes it look like Peter Pan was invented in that way, but I think I might have heard about that too...perhaps Alice in Wonderland similarly...
I mean...for composing for that particular person, he has no hope of ever writing all the stuff he's come up with down...while he might have come up with 5 ideas total for stories, haha, and it's vague ideas, it'd be difficult to come up with dialogue, small details, and the person doesn't know anything about life...or, at least, "normal" life...has never had sex, haha, for instance...only deals with abnormal people, so couldn't write about "normal" people...
Haha...and the person in question carries a recorder around...at any rate, I don't think it's necessary to have one's ideas come to one in order to partake in an art, if one wants to partake in it...I think Gustave Flaubert said he found it difficult to write, would perfect what he's trying to write through trial and error...there isn't one way to do any art, I suppose...a little the way she's saying in there, only applied to actually doing art general as opposed to the actual writing process...
In other words, the person in question doesn't want to write for that reason, but could have written...I never like advice that says: "If you can't do X, then you have no business doing Y", I think Schoenberg says something similar in a harmony manual or something..."If you cannot do X, then you should stop composing at once"...I prefer Van Gogh's quote: "If there is a voice telling you: "Do not write", then by all means, write, and that voice will be silenced"...someone really passionate about writing will probably be able to even if they don't come up with ideas spontaneously...
At any rate, talking about "not knowing anything about life", there's that quote from the film The Wife, though from the despicable character getting the Nobel: "Live a little, see what you come up with", haha...I would suspect that experiences might make a writer come up with better ideas, even if about fictional/fantasy stuff...at the end of the day, there are always characters, and characters always have anthropomorphic or semi-anthropomorphic (if I'm spelling that right) psychology...writers always write about people...
I prefer writing in my Ipad2. Maybe I will try sticky notes.
My left ear is missing out :(
There will be thunder.
I think the problem here is that, she learned writing by trial and error (plus by reading, I presume but that hasn't changed much). And that's not what we want to hear because we learn very differently now. For eg. I can access videos of people who are actually trying to explain inner working of the whole process (brainstorming, plotting, writing, picking the voice for the narration etc.) instead of telling me to stop writing if ideas don't just come to me. This is the exact same reason I despise Charles Bukowski. Writing is a craft that can be learned and a writer like herself should be the first one to say that.
"The problem here?" I am glad that this brilliant Canadian writer has graced us with some insight into her process. However she learned writing, there is nobody like her.
coreycox2345 you would understand if you were a writer and not just a reader
I think you took her point too literally, she made an off cuff amusing point that if it's a struggle then don't sit there and write - she's absolutely right about that, as an idea often comes better to you when you leave the work desk.
Also she never said she learnt by trial and error, you've misunderstand what she meant and the artistic process is that she meant she tackles each book differently, which you'll find a vast majority of writers will say.
Absorbing videos won't make you a writer, knowing your own imagination and what holds the reader will.
I love you Margaret
Why she talking about notebooks and pens, and knives? She got no phone?
I love Margaret Atwood, but I get lost in her monotonous voice and not in the same, great way that I get lost in her writing.
Inspirational.. But the layout of the video is awful. Having a camera shoved in front of her with a trademarked, white background seems barren and prison-like. She looks less like someone with a brilliant mind and more like she is being squished for ideas. Atwood deserves far better presentation.
i was forced into it
Oh. It's her.
I thought it was Pierre Trudeau in drag.
If you have to read a Canadian Margaret, try Margaret Laurence.
Are you Margaret Atwood???
Very pretentious! 😊
I like the way Margaret Atwood writes but I find the plots to her stories boring and unreal.