WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.110 align:middle line:90% So ask away. 00:00:03.110 --> 00:00:04.110 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:00:04.110 --> 00:00:06.410 align:middle line:84% You [INAUDIBLE] your characters, like 00:00:06.410 --> 00:00:08.840 align:middle line:84% that was awesome [INAUDIBLE] the language, 00:00:08.840 --> 00:00:11.540 align:middle line:84% the things that they're going to be very, very visceral 00:00:11.540 --> 00:00:13.873 align:middle line:84% are [INAUDIBLE] I don't know if he was there. 00:00:13.873 --> 00:00:16.040 align:middle line:84% And we're going to be talking a little bit about how 00:00:16.040 --> 00:00:19.440 align:middle line:84% you get into the process take to get inside that 00:00:19.440 --> 00:00:22.035 align:middle line:90% just the [INAUDIBLE]. 00:00:22.035 --> 00:00:24.160 align:middle line:84% Well, I mean, I was talking about this a little bit 00:00:24.160 --> 00:00:26.018 align:middle line:84% today in the Q & A. They're all me. 00:00:26.018 --> 00:00:27.310 align:middle line:90% I mean, that's what's so scary. 00:00:27.310 --> 00:00:30.410 align:middle line:84% Even though I would just like to go on record as saying, 00:00:30.410 --> 00:00:31.540 align:middle line:90% I'm not a neo-Nazi. 00:00:31.540 --> 00:00:34.090 align:middle line:90% I mean they all have-- 00:00:34.090 --> 00:00:36.340 align:middle line:84% for example, just at the beginning in the first scene, 00:00:36.340 --> 00:00:41.410 align:middle line:84% if I draw on or drew on my most anxious, alienated, 00:00:41.410 --> 00:00:44.110 align:middle line:84% terrifying moment walking down the streets of New York City, 00:00:44.110 --> 00:00:46.510 align:middle line:84% and-- also there's a kind of research, 00:00:46.510 --> 00:00:49.030 align:middle line:84% which is fun, which is walking through Times Square, 00:00:49.030 --> 00:00:51.640 align:middle line:84% imagining I'm this guy, how would he be responding? 00:00:51.640 --> 00:00:53.950 align:middle line:84% I mean, what I also said is that for me it 00:00:53.950 --> 00:00:57.730 align:middle line:84% has more to do with language than anything else. 00:00:57.730 --> 00:01:00.400 align:middle line:84% The minute I get their language I can figure out who they are. 00:01:00.400 --> 00:01:03.070 align:middle line:84% And the phrase that I read which is 00:01:03.070 --> 00:01:06.430 align:middle line:84% "a hybrid species born to survive on dog piss and carbon 00:01:06.430 --> 00:01:07.030 align:middle line:90% monoxide." 00:01:07.030 --> 00:01:09.520 align:middle line:84% The minute I got that, I knew who the guy was, 00:01:09.520 --> 00:01:12.220 align:middle line:84% because I knew he had a kind of intelligence that 00:01:12.220 --> 00:01:13.900 align:middle line:90% wasn't-- he's not a dumb guy. 00:01:13.900 --> 00:01:19.450 align:middle line:84% And he's verbally inventive, and responsive, and aware. 00:01:19.450 --> 00:01:24.310 align:middle line:84% But also I just always am using little pieces of my own life 00:01:24.310 --> 00:01:26.560 align:middle line:84% and just giving it to these characters. 00:01:26.560 --> 00:01:27.730 align:middle line:90% And also it's scary. 00:01:27.730 --> 00:01:30.730 align:middle line:84% I mean, at some point in the book-- 00:01:30.730 --> 00:01:31.630 align:middle line:90% Vincent's a nice guy. 00:01:31.630 --> 00:01:34.060 align:middle line:84% But at some point in the book, cousin Raymond shows up. 00:01:34.060 --> 00:01:34.940 align:middle line:90% Who's the heavy. 00:01:34.940 --> 00:01:36.910 align:middle line:84% And that was the scariest character 00:01:36.910 --> 00:01:39.610 align:middle line:84% to write only because it was the most fun. 00:01:39.610 --> 00:01:41.050 align:middle line:90% And I just went crazy, right? 00:01:41.050 --> 00:01:43.180 align:middle line:84% At the end of the day of writing, 00:01:43.180 --> 00:01:47.170 align:middle line:84% I just pretty much had to take a nap, because I 00:01:47.170 --> 00:01:49.690 align:middle line:90% was so frightened of myself. 00:01:49.690 --> 00:01:53.140 align:middle line:84% But it's getting in touch with those inner parts of yourself 00:01:53.140 --> 00:01:55.377 align:middle line:84% that you really don't want anything to do with. 00:01:55.377 --> 00:01:56.210 align:middle line:90% And Bonnie was easy. 00:01:56.210 --> 00:01:57.850 align:middle line:84% I mean, Bonnie-- part of it is written 00:01:57.850 --> 00:01:59.017 align:middle line:90% from Bonnie's point of view. 00:01:59.017 --> 00:02:03.310 align:middle line:84% And every maternal anxiety I ever had just got 00:02:03.310 --> 00:02:04.420 align:middle line:90% funneled into Bonnie. 00:02:04.420 --> 00:02:07.010 align:middle line:84% And the kid-- the kid-- well for example, I mean, 00:02:07.010 --> 00:02:11.080 align:middle line:84% the kid there's a scene later in the book when the kid writes 00:02:11.080 --> 00:02:14.982 align:middle line:84% a paper about the possibility-- he has to write a paper-- 00:02:14.982 --> 00:02:16.690 align:middle line:84% he chooses to write a paper about Hitler. 00:02:16.690 --> 00:02:18.482 align:middle line:84% And he writes a paper about the possibility 00:02:18.482 --> 00:02:20.500 align:middle line:90% that Hitler was gay. 00:02:20.500 --> 00:02:23.530 align:middle line:84% And he's accused by his extremely pissy teacher 00:02:23.530 --> 00:02:27.550 align:middle line:84% and principal of being homophobic, which he wasn't. 00:02:27.550 --> 00:02:30.393 align:middle line:84% And when I wrote it, I knew that what I was doing 00:02:30.393 --> 00:02:31.810 align:middle line:84% and the pleasure of writing it was 00:02:31.810 --> 00:02:38.830 align:middle line:84% that every stupid misreading review, the horror of being 00:02:38.830 --> 00:02:41.320 align:middle line:84% misread and misunderstood, I just gave it to the kid 00:02:41.320 --> 00:02:42.520 align:middle line:90% at that moment. 00:02:42.520 --> 00:02:45.790 align:middle line:84% Plus, I mean one of the pleasures 00:02:45.790 --> 00:02:48.190 align:middle line:84% of being a writer, the teachers who 00:02:48.190 --> 00:02:51.880 align:middle line:90% particularly tortured the kid-- 00:02:51.880 --> 00:02:54.710 align:middle line:84% my son's teachers, several of them 00:02:54.710 --> 00:02:58.900 align:middle line:84% make cameo appearances in the book. 00:02:58.900 --> 00:03:02.653 align:middle line:90% 00:03:02.653 --> 00:03:03.820 align:middle line:90% I mean, that's the fun part. 00:03:03.820 --> 00:03:05.425 align:middle line:90% Who wants to write about myself? 00:03:05.425 --> 00:03:08.530 align:middle line:90% 00:03:08.530 --> 00:03:09.500 align:middle line:90% Anything else? 00:03:09.500 --> 00:03:10.758 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:03:10.758 --> 00:03:13.920 align:middle line:84% This work [INAUDIBLE] is informed 00:03:13.920 --> 00:03:17.425 align:middle line:84% as one of the political social perspective. 00:03:17.425 --> 00:03:21.615 align:middle line:90% 00:03:21.615 --> 00:03:26.040 align:middle line:84% How much of that do you consciously bring in? 00:03:26.040 --> 00:03:32.890 align:middle line:84% It's clear [INAUDIBLE] how do you avoid that [INAUDIBLE] 00:03:32.890 --> 00:03:35.480 align:middle line:90% Well, you can just try. 00:03:35.480 --> 00:03:37.870 align:middle line:84% But again, if you're writing about the world, 00:03:37.870 --> 00:03:39.580 align:middle line:84% that's what you're writing about. 00:03:39.580 --> 00:03:41.500 align:middle line:84% I mean, for one thing, when I started 00:03:41.500 --> 00:03:45.940 align:middle line:84% thinking about neo-Nazis, there was no way 00:03:45.940 --> 00:03:49.952 align:middle line:84% to write about them without writing about social class. 00:03:49.952 --> 00:03:51.910 align:middle line:84% I mean because it seemed to me, the more I read 00:03:51.910 --> 00:03:53.380 align:middle line:84% and the more I thought, the more it 00:03:53.380 --> 00:03:56.540 align:middle line:84% seemed to me to have to do about with that than anything else. 00:03:56.540 --> 00:03:58.160 align:middle line:90% So once I knew that-- 00:03:58.160 --> 00:03:59.890 align:middle line:90% And then I realize-- 00:03:59.890 --> 00:04:01.870 align:middle line:84% I never know-- it's not like I ever 00:04:01.870 --> 00:04:03.700 align:middle line:90% have an idea when I start out. 00:04:03.700 --> 00:04:07.630 align:middle line:84% I have characters, and I'm just trying to get into their heads. 00:04:07.630 --> 00:04:10.138 align:middle line:84% But once I knew that I had this Human Rights 00:04:10.138 --> 00:04:11.680 align:middle line:84% Foundation, and Bonnie, and so forth, 00:04:11.680 --> 00:04:13.420 align:middle line:84% I knew that what I was writing about 00:04:13.420 --> 00:04:17.390 align:middle line:84% was the desire to be a good person, and to do good, 00:04:17.390 --> 00:04:18.769 align:middle line:90% and what that meant. 00:04:18.769 --> 00:04:23.980 align:middle line:84% And then once I had the kids watching TV 00:04:23.980 --> 00:04:26.950 align:middle line:84% and I had this talk show that probably, obviously, 00:04:26.950 --> 00:04:29.620 align:middle line:84% will become more important as the novel goes on, 00:04:29.620 --> 00:04:33.940 align:middle line:84% I knew that I was writing about the media. 00:04:33.940 --> 00:04:37.585 align:middle line:84% And also everyone in the novel is just like scamming everybody 00:04:37.585 --> 00:04:40.210 align:middle line:84% else a mile a minute in the way that people are actually doing. 00:04:40.210 --> 00:04:43.780 align:middle line:84% So that seemed to me just part of writing 00:04:43.780 --> 00:04:46.837 align:middle line:84% about the way we all live now without talking 00:04:46.837 --> 00:04:47.920 align:middle line:90% about the way we live now. 00:04:47.920 --> 00:04:55.090 align:middle line:90% 00:04:55.090 --> 00:04:57.370 align:middle line:90% Is that it? 00:04:57.370 --> 00:04:59.338 align:middle line:90% Yeah, John. 00:04:59.338 --> 00:05:02.472 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:05:02.472 --> 00:05:11.267 align:middle line:90% 00:05:11.267 --> 00:05:13.100 align:middle line:84% Oh, I know, I was on the subway in New York. 00:05:13.100 --> 00:05:16.370 align:middle line:84% And I saw these two skinheads on the subway, kids. 00:05:16.370 --> 00:05:17.733 align:middle line:90% And they looked terrified. 00:05:17.733 --> 00:05:19.400 align:middle line:84% I mean, they really did look like they'd 00:05:19.400 --> 00:05:20.690 align:middle line:90% been dropped in from Mars. 00:05:20.690 --> 00:05:21.780 align:middle line:90% And they're on the subway. 00:05:21.780 --> 00:05:24.920 align:middle line:84% I mean as if they got off the wrong bus or something. 00:05:24.920 --> 00:05:27.380 align:middle line:84% And I became incredibly interested in who they were. 00:05:27.380 --> 00:05:30.203 align:middle line:84% But I had a really, really strange experience 00:05:30.203 --> 00:05:31.370 align:middle line:90% after I'd finished the book. 00:05:31.370 --> 00:05:33.245 align:middle line:84% I guess, I read from-- one of the first times 00:05:33.245 --> 00:05:35.990 align:middle line:84% I read from it was, last summer it's [INAUDIBLE].. 00:05:35.990 --> 00:05:39.200 align:middle line:84% And the poet, Alan Shapiro, who some of you may know, 00:05:39.200 --> 00:05:41.960 align:middle line:84% told me that his sister had worked for the Wiesenthal 00:05:41.960 --> 00:05:42.590 align:middle line:90% Foundation. 00:05:42.590 --> 00:05:44.360 align:middle line:84% And a neo-Nazi had turned himself 00:05:44.360 --> 00:05:46.220 align:middle line:90% into the Wiesenthal Foundation. 00:05:46.220 --> 00:05:49.130 align:middle line:84% I knew that, but I didn't know that it's his sister. 00:05:49.130 --> 00:05:51.740 align:middle line:84% And that she was a single mother with two kids. 00:05:51.740 --> 00:05:54.680 align:middle line:84% And she had become romantically involved with the guy, 00:05:54.680 --> 00:05:58.310 align:middle line:84% the way my character-- and he essentially 00:05:58.310 --> 00:06:01.550 align:middle line:84% told me my whole novel having happened to his sister. 00:06:01.550 --> 00:06:06.410 align:middle line:84% And neither of us could barely breathe while he was-- 00:06:06.410 --> 00:06:11.630 align:middle line:84% I mean that happens, life imitates art and the other way. 00:06:11.630 --> 00:06:14.420 align:middle line:90% I mean after the fact. 00:06:14.420 --> 00:06:16.130 align:middle line:84% And you think you're on the right track 00:06:16.130 --> 00:06:17.505 align:middle line:84% when something like that happens. 00:06:17.505 --> 00:06:19.760 align:middle line:90% 00:06:19.760 --> 00:06:22.910 align:middle line:84% I did research, so I mean this frightening thing, 00:06:22.910 --> 00:06:26.930 align:middle line:84% you google Aryan and you get like 150,000 websites. 00:06:26.930 --> 00:06:28.310 align:middle line:90% It's terrifying what's going. 00:06:28.310 --> 00:06:31.910 align:middle line:84% We all lead-- many of us lead sheltered lives. 00:06:31.910 --> 00:06:33.870 align:middle line:84% But if you just look at what's out there, 00:06:33.870 --> 00:06:35.570 align:middle line:84% it really makes your blood run cold. 00:06:35.570 --> 00:06:39.070 align:middle line:90% 00:06:39.070 --> 00:06:41.000 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:44.330 align:middle line:84% Do you tend to overwrite your characters, [INAUDIBLE] 00:06:44.330 --> 00:06:47.090 align:middle line:84% searching for them, do you maybe write 00:06:47.090 --> 00:06:53.490 align:middle line:84% much more about them than what [INAUDIBLE] novel [INAUDIBLE]?? 00:06:53.490 --> 00:06:55.960 align:middle line:90% Yeah, I'm always cutting. 00:06:55.960 --> 00:06:57.820 align:middle line:90% I'm cutting way back. 00:06:57.820 --> 00:07:01.640 align:middle line:84% And it's again, like why does the reader need to know that? 00:07:01.640 --> 00:07:04.360 align:middle line:84% I just want to put exactly as much as someone 00:07:04.360 --> 00:07:06.785 align:middle line:84% might need to know to make the character make sense or be 00:07:06.785 --> 00:07:07.285 align:middle line:90% coherent. 00:07:07.285 --> 00:07:09.850 align:middle line:90% 00:07:09.850 --> 00:07:13.960 align:middle line:84% I read somewhere that someone, I can't remember who it was said, 00:07:13.960 --> 00:07:15.700 align:middle line:84% I know everything about my characters. 00:07:15.700 --> 00:07:18.610 align:middle line:84% I know like how many spoonfuls of sugar 00:07:18.610 --> 00:07:19.760 align:middle line:90% they put in their coffee. 00:07:19.760 --> 00:07:23.620 align:middle line:84% And I think if they're not going to drink coffee in the novel, 00:07:23.620 --> 00:07:25.060 align:middle line:84% why do you have to know all that? 00:07:25.060 --> 00:07:29.125 align:middle line:90% So I try to keep it spare. 00:07:29.125 --> 00:07:31.740 align:middle line:90% 00:07:31.740 --> 00:07:34.265 align:middle line:90% Yeah 00:07:34.265 --> 00:07:37.130 align:middle line:84% [INAUDIBLE] said earlier today that you really 00:07:37.130 --> 00:07:41.600 align:middle line:84% try to capture the way your head sounds, 00:07:41.600 --> 00:07:42.800 align:middle line:90% like your inner thoughts. 00:07:42.800 --> 00:07:45.420 align:middle line:90% And you do that really well. 00:07:45.420 --> 00:07:47.390 align:middle line:84% So I'm wondering-- I know you said, 00:07:47.390 --> 00:07:51.090 align:middle line:84% you start writing [INAUDIBLE] So I'm 00:07:51.090 --> 00:07:54.570 align:middle line:84% wondering that is your writing maybe just to start off 00:07:54.570 --> 00:07:58.080 align:middle line:84% more formal and then you have to work to almost 00:07:58.080 --> 00:08:01.260 align:middle line:84% make it more colloquial, as you are revising, 00:08:01.260 --> 00:08:04.650 align:middle line:84% is that part of how you revise it to make it [INAUDIBLE] 00:08:04.650 --> 00:08:07.890 align:middle line:84% Yeah, well but the thing is-- but again, it's language. 00:08:07.890 --> 00:08:12.210 align:middle line:84% If I'm going for the exact word that I think that character 00:08:12.210 --> 00:08:14.040 align:middle line:84% would use about something, it does 00:08:14.040 --> 00:08:16.000 align:middle line:84% become more colloquial but at the same time, 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:18.210 align:middle line:90% it becomes more energized. 00:08:18.210 --> 00:08:20.740 align:middle line:84% I mean the more obviously the more precise the word choice, 00:08:20.740 --> 00:08:23.365 align:middle line:84% the more energized the language, the more energized the sounds. 00:08:23.365 --> 00:08:25.260 align:middle line:90% So yeah. 00:08:25.260 --> 00:08:27.240 align:middle line:84% I wouldn't say it starts off more formal, 00:08:27.240 --> 00:08:30.580 align:middle line:84% but it's vaguer in earlier drafts. 00:08:30.580 --> 00:08:34.080 align:middle line:84% I'm more abstract and more boring. 00:08:34.080 --> 00:08:37.539 align:middle line:90% 00:08:37.539 --> 00:08:38.690 align:middle line:90% Yeah, Jonathan. 00:08:38.690 --> 00:08:40.650 align:middle line:90% Got a craft question. 00:08:40.650 --> 00:08:43.730 align:middle line:90% This is a present tense novel. 00:08:43.730 --> 00:08:46.880 align:middle line:84% I just happened to like your story collection [INAUDIBLE] 00:08:46.880 --> 00:08:49.310 align:middle line:84% looking to it looks like they're all present tense. 00:08:49.310 --> 00:08:51.410 align:middle line:84% Do you want to talk about use of present tense 00:08:51.410 --> 00:08:53.397 align:middle line:90% versus the past tense? 00:08:53.397 --> 00:08:54.980 align:middle line:84% I don't really like the present tense, 00:08:54.980 --> 00:08:55.940 align:middle line:84% even though I use it all the time. 00:08:55.940 --> 00:08:57.690 align:middle line:84% I find it irritating when other people do. 00:08:57.690 --> 00:09:01.100 align:middle line:90% 00:09:01.100 --> 00:09:05.960 align:middle line:84% But I do it only because it's easier, it's cinematic. 00:09:05.960 --> 00:09:08.930 align:middle line:84% That's the same reason I don't like it. 00:09:08.930 --> 00:09:10.370 align:middle line:84% When I write in the present tense, 00:09:10.370 --> 00:09:13.340 align:middle line:84% it's as if I can actually see the scene unrolling 00:09:13.340 --> 00:09:14.000 align:middle line:90% before my eyes. 00:09:14.000 --> 00:09:16.220 align:middle line:84% So it becomes much easier to sort of transcribe it. 00:09:16.220 --> 00:09:18.410 align:middle line:84% And I've tried with several things 00:09:18.410 --> 00:09:21.050 align:middle line:84% to translate it back into the past 00:09:21.050 --> 00:09:25.840 align:middle line:84% just because I would like it better, but it doesn't work. 00:09:25.840 --> 00:09:28.500 align:middle line:84% Earlier in your career [INAUDIBLE] in the past, 00:09:28.500 --> 00:09:29.620 align:middle line:90% did you not? 00:09:29.620 --> 00:09:31.300 align:middle line:84% Yeah, and the book I'm working on now 00:09:31.300 --> 00:09:34.000 align:middle line:84% is in the past tense, which may be one of the reasons 00:09:34.000 --> 00:09:34.780 align:middle line:90% it's so hard. 00:09:34.780 --> 00:09:36.190 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:09:36.190 --> 00:09:39.070 align:middle line:84% But you do whatever's easier for you, it seems to me. 00:09:39.070 --> 00:09:43.300 align:middle line:90% 00:09:43.300 --> 00:09:44.091 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:09:44.091 --> 00:09:47.528 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:09:47.528 --> 00:10:03.010 align:middle line:90% 00:10:03.010 --> 00:10:06.970 align:middle line:84% The very last draft or the very last draft, what I do 00:10:06.970 --> 00:10:09.730 align:middle line:90% is I just have the manuscript. 00:10:09.730 --> 00:10:12.760 align:middle line:84% And I do this thing where I just open it at random. 00:10:12.760 --> 00:10:14.290 align:middle line:90% And I just read a sentence. 00:10:14.290 --> 00:10:16.030 align:middle line:84% And I'll just change that sentence. 00:10:16.030 --> 00:10:19.300 align:middle line:84% So I've completely lost any sense of what the whole is, 00:10:19.300 --> 00:10:22.813 align:middle line:84% but I'm just working on it still sentence by sentence. 00:10:22.813 --> 00:10:24.730 align:middle line:84% And I'll start anywhere, because the thing is, 00:10:24.730 --> 00:10:27.220 align:middle line:84% the big temptation, and you see it in books 00:10:27.220 --> 00:10:31.600 align:middle line:84% all the time, is the endless revision of the first chapter 00:10:31.600 --> 00:10:33.710 align:middle line:84% and then the rest is like nowhere. 00:10:33.710 --> 00:10:35.087 align:middle line:90% So to avoid that-- 00:10:35.087 --> 00:10:36.170 align:middle line:90% now it's one way to do it. 00:10:36.170 --> 00:10:40.150 align:middle line:84% I'll just open it 3/4 of the way through and start rewriting. 00:10:40.150 --> 00:10:41.500 align:middle line:90% And I'm very-- 00:10:41.500 --> 00:10:45.025 align:middle line:84% I'll just fuss with that last comma forever. 00:10:45.025 --> 00:10:49.790 align:middle line:90% 00:10:49.790 --> 00:10:51.290 align:middle line:90% Anything else? 00:10:51.290 --> 00:10:53.110 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:10:53.110 --> 00:10:58.000 align:middle line:90%