Yann Martel is famous for writing Life of Pi, which wasn't just a standout book but also an Academy Award-winning movie. What stood out to me about him is that he's strikingly well-read, and he's developed a unique approach to storytelling.
Many writers say it's all about character, but Yann says other things are more important. Where other writers obsess over beginnings, it's the endings of stories that he truly falls in love with. If you want to learn about place, plot, people, and prose, you're in the right place.
Transcript
00:00:28 The envelope method
00:05:34 Scenes are the story unit
00:11:43 What’s so special about animals
00:19:31 How to hooks readers in
00:27:12 Using punctuation with intention
00:32:52 Break the rules artfully
00:37:19 Why Yann won’t use AI
00:44:55 Genre vs literary fiction
00:48:55 Yann’s relationship with reviews
00:52:38 What Yann learned from plays
00:54:59 Why you should stop describing characters
00:57:54 Story vs facts
01:02:40 What makes a good ending
01:08:20 Why artists can’t be indifferent
David (00:28-00:38)
Can you paint a picture for me? If I walked into your office or stepped into your mind, what would I see? What is the architecture of what goes on there?
Yann (00:38-04:08)
I developed a system that worked for me, which is a blend of computer and analog methods. For Life of Pi, my best-known book, I conducted extensive research. This included animal behavior, zoo biology, survival at sea, and various religions—the faith experience, conceptions of the divine in Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity.
As I read, I took notes, sometimes quoting from books, sometimes just jotting down a single word. For example, I noticed that Indians often use a slightly old-fashioned, colorful English, by North American standards. I remember hearing someone use the word ‘bamboozle,’ which we rarely use here. I thought, ‘That’s a lovely Indian English word; I should have a character use it.’
Sometimes it’s a word, sometimes it’s a specific fact. I’d research things like, ‘What kinds of tortoises and turtles are found in the Pacific?’ The answer: Ridleys and greens. Other times, little scenes would come to mind, and I’d quickly write them down in an uncensored way.
After about two and a half years of this research for Life of Pi, I accumulated roughly 400 pages of hodgepodge material. I printed it all out, took scissors, and literally cut it into constituent parts. Sometimes it was a tiny snippet, other times several pages. I’d cut the bottom of one page, the top of another, tape them together, fold them up, and then sort them into various envelopes based on their content.
If it was a factual detail, like ‘turtles of the Pacific,’ I’d have a manila envelope labeled accordingly. Most of what fit into the story’s chronology, however, would go into specific chapter envelopes, forming the backbone of each chapter.
So, in my office—and I’ve used this method for every book—you’d find numerous envelopes, each with a rough description of its contents and where it belonged in the narrative. They would be arranged in a line, from the beginning of the novel to the end.
When I begin writing, I don’t just start from nothing. I open an envelope, pull out the snippets—which could be several pages, a complete scene, or even just a single word like ‘bamboozle.’ I collate them and decide how best to use them. For Life of Pi, I began with an envelope labeled ‘Author’s Note,’ containing all the elements I wanted for that section.
Having this background material laid out around my computer, I then start typing. All these envelopes provide a structured starting point. When I start writing, I know exactly where I’m going. When I wrote the first sentence of Life of Pi—even that slightly clunky one—I already knew how it would end. I knew there would be 100 chapters, and that Chapter 100 would be an excerpt from an investigator’s report on the ship’s sinking in the Pacific, outlining their conclusions. I had my destination clear.
Sometimes, the envelopes’ positions would shift. For instance, in the Pacific section, it didn’t strictly matter when Pi saw a whale versus when he saw a ship, so those elements could be moved. For Son of Nobody, some envelopes were stacked because they contained footnotes or fragments that interconnected. If a fragment was particularly long, it might even have its own dedicated envelope.
Ultimately, you’d see a whole series of envelopes in my studio. These represent the discrete elements that most writers would typically manage using a computer file or a program like Scrivener.
David (04:08-04:32)
How much surprise is there as you’re writing? Do you feel like you’re the sole architect, dictating every aspect of the story, or does the narrative take on a life and direction of its own? Do you, as the creator, ever need to surrender to the story’s evolving path?
Yann (04:33-04:57)
Yes, that definitely happens. The story comes to life. The envelopes provide the story’s starting point, not its conclusion. I might discard some snippets, expand on others, or move them to different sections where they fit better.
It’s like planning a trip to New York with my family. We’d get guidebooks and thoroughly research it.
David (04:57-04:57)
Right.
Yann (04:57-05:08)
But there’s plenty of space for spontaneity. As we walk around, we might discover, “This is where Friends was filmed!” I wouldn’t have known that otherwise. There are discoveries along the way that enliven the trip.
David (05:08-05:09)
That is a good analogy.
Yann (05:09-05:09)
Right?
David (05:09-05:11)
It’s like a trip. You plan the trip.
Yann (05:11-05:11)
Yes.
David (05:11-05:15)
You have your reservations, your destinations, you’re...
Yann (05:15-05:16)
Well prepared for it.
David (05:16-05:21)
There’s enough leeway in a good trip for it to unfold and take its own course.
Yann (05:21-05:24)
We might decide, “We’re not going to do this today. Instead, we’ll do this.”
David (05:24-05:27)
Right. But you can’t miss the reservation at...
Yann (05:27-05:32)
The three-star Michelin? If you can afford it, you certainly don’t want to miss that reservation. You’re right.
David (05:34-05:36)
You keep using the word “scenes.” Why?
Yann (05:37-06:01)
Stories take place in scenes, within these envelopes. They are clearly separate from each other, representing different scenes or parts of the story. You play with them as you would with cards.
The unit of a story is a scene—those little bits of unity in time, action, and place.
David (06:01-06:03)
How do scenes relate to chapters?
Yann (06:03-06:17)
There would be several scenes in a chapter. Some scenes were short; I recall the author’s note for Life of Pi was just a single envelope. However, more elaborate scenes might encompass several envelopes, and within those, I might order the smaller scenes differently.
David (06:17-06:25)
In Hollywood, the advice for a scene is to get in as late as possible and leave as early as possible. Do you think that applies to writing?
Yann (06:26-08:17)
You don’t want to over-write, leaving nothing to the reader’s imagination. That’s often the issue with cinema. Movies are unbelievably powerful, but they can also be overwhelming because they supply everything.
When you read a book, you create a movie in your mind. You develop a hazy vision of the characters and the setting. This act of creation is very engaging; you’re actively involved. This is why the written word is so powerful—it leaves so much for your imagination.
A movie, however, provides all the visuals. If it wants to manipulate your emotions, it adds music. For instance, the buildup of a cello playing dun, dun, dun, dun before the shark appears emotionally manipulates you. If the camera focuses on a phone, you instantly know it’s going to ring. It supplies everything. This can be delicious because you become submissive and compliant, simply swept away without having to do anything.
However, you don’t want to be too kidnapped by a film. A great movie still leaves a lot of mystery for you to figure out yourself. When films, even those on Netflix, provide everything, they become forgettable because you haven’t worked enough for them.
In contrast, a great film, like a French art film, is compelling because you have to work hard to understand it. As you said about writing, it is concise and leaves much for the viewer’s imagination to interpret. That’s a sign of a truly good movie. It doesn’t supply everything. The more a film withdraws, the more the viewer has to meet it halfway, and they enjoy that engagement, that co-creation of the story.
David (08:17-09:04)
The word that came to mind for me was “possess.” With a book I love, I feel like I possess part of it because it’s been a partnership. If I read a book and imagine the story and characters, that book lives inside of me as a part of me. This is different from an experience I merely witnessed.
For example, with the book The Great Gatsby, it feels like Fitzgerald and I, despite the hundred years between us, created it together. The movies with Leonardo DiCaprio or Robert Redford, however, are simply something I witnessed. It’s like visiting a neighborhood and then telling you about it, rather than an experience I co-created with the writer.
Yann (09:04-10:07)
Absolutely. A book is a co-creation, which is why it’s wonderful that two people can read the same book and experience it entirely differently. One might hate it, one might love it, because their personal engagement shapes the experience. The book you described as “possessing you” is one that truly speaks to you. Yet, another person might find that exact same book boring, unconvincing, and dislike it entirely.
A movie, however, offers less room for this kind of subjectivity. I just got back from England, and on the plane, I watched a fantastic movie called Begonia. I loved it; Emma Stone is amazing, and so is Jesse Plemons. He plays a conspiracy theory kook with his mentally disabled cousin. The acting was phenomenal; all three characters were so well done. Great movies truly shine when they allow excellent actors to deliver raw emotion.
Nonetheless, there’s only so much variety in reaction to a film. There’s less room for subjectivity, so most people will enjoy it in a similar way, much like a visual gag.
David (10:07-10:25)
That’s a great point. I was thinking of the Shire. If we both read The Lord of the Rings, and you describe the Shire, and then I do the same, our descriptions will be very different, very contrasting. However, if we both watch the Peter Jackson movie, our descriptions would be much more similar.
Yann (10:26-11:31)
Exactly. The Lord of the Rings is a good example. I never finished those books; I found them so boring, yet an entire generation loved The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, treating them as their bible. I started them as a kid but just couldn’t get into them.
What’s wonderful is that there’s more of a personal reaction to books than to cinema. Perhaps cinema, as a spectacle, is more something you experience collectively. There’s an individuality to reading that makes books, in a sense, less unifying. They don’t necessarily unite people. Bibles and Qurans might unite people, but otherwise, books don’t unite in the same way a song might.
You have national anthems, songs that unite a people, but you don’t really have national books. There’s no single book that defines a country. You can’t reduce the United States, Canada, or France to one book, even with their diversity of great writers.
Americans are rightly proud of their Constitution; it’s a very well thought-out document, but—
David (11:31-11:32)
It’s a different thing.
Yann (11:32-11:42)
Nevertheless, that’s as close as you get to a national book, and that’s just a constitution. You don’t have national books because, as I said, reaction is very private and diverse. That’s what’s wonderful about literature; it’s such a personal thing.
David (11:43-11:49)
How about animals as characters? So often, we think of animals in children’s books.
Yann (11:49-12:49)
Animals are great because most people like animals. It’s unlikely to say someone hates all animals. People either like domesticated animals, anthropomorphizing them heavily as companions, or they love wild animals. We hold wild animals to be beautiful and pristine, something perfect, whereas we’ve sullied our existence and our globe with who we are.
I’ve used animals simply because they’re good storytelling vehicles. People aren’t as cynical about rhinoceroses and giraffes as they are about people from Texas, France, India, or Muslims. We’re full of prejudices that simplify our lives but are also very cruel and distort reality. People are rarely cynical about animals. They might say, “Oh, I hate scorpions; they’re terrifying,” but that’s slightly odd. Lions are also terrifying, but we hold them to be beautiful. We find lions attractive nonetheless.
David (12:49-12:50)
They’re majestic.
Yann (12:50-13:33)
They’re majestic, and we tend to project onto each animal. We say hyenas are cowardly and ugly, which is purely subjective. Lions are beautiful, majestic, as are tigers and elephants. They come in such different shapes. An animal character is very plastic; you can do a lot with it, which is why there’s so much in children’s literature.
It’s funny, though it used to be much more common to use them. I just mentioned Kafka in terms of my next book. Kafka used animals all the time. The Metamorphosis is an obvious example, where Gregor Samsa wakes up as a dung beetle. There’s also one I mentioned in this next book called Josephine and the Mouse People; it’s about mice. He constantly uses animals. Jack London used animals.
David (13:33-13:43)
Do you feel like you have a different sense of range when you’re working with animals? In what way does it expand or contract what you’re able to do? Is that the right way to think about it?
Yann (13:44-15:47)
It’s just very versatile. One of my novels, Afterlife of Pi, was called Beatrice and Virgil. There, I used a donkey and a monkey. They were heavily anthropomorphized and spoke. They traveled together, even though the monkey was a howler monkey, a South American monkey, and there are donkeys in South America, but you don’t necessarily have howler monkeys and donkeys hanging out.
So, there was completely the traditional use of animals as vehicles for human thought. I chose them for what they might symbolize. We hold monkeys to be clever, and donkeys to be stubborn and enduring. This was, after all, a metaphor for the Holocaust. One thing you can say about Jews is that they’ve been extraordinarily clever as a people. They have any number of Nobel prizes; they’re a very creative people. Donkeys are enduring and stubborn, and the Jewish people have survived for centuries despite adversity.
In a positive way, one can stereotype them as being as clever as monkeys and as enduring and stubborn as donkeys. I wanted two animals that might symbolize and stereotype Jews in a positive way because this was an allegory on the Holocaust. So there, I used animals in a childish way, in a sense, as masks for human beings.
In all my other books, I try to use them as wild animals, including in my latest novel, Son of Nobody. There, I use a variety of animals in parks. It’s also a nice break if you always have human characters. Animals can be very emotional in themselves.
I remember a scene where a character, who has just transitioned from being a woman to a man, is leaving her lover, a man. She’s dropping the key through the mail slot, and the dog is desperate, wanting to go with her, licking her hand. The dog allowed me to express need, want, and a feeling of abandonment in a very open way, without encroaching on her too much. We don’t mind leaving a pet behind. If it were a person saying, “Please don’t leave,” I would want something short and abrupt. So, this dog desperately sniffing her hand as she dropped the key allowed me to make an emotional point in a very forceful way.
David (15:47-15:50)
Why do you think animals work so well in Animal Farm?
Yann (15:51-16:21)
Well, there, once again, it goes to stereotyping. Pigs are clever and evil, and they want to take over. We project onto them. There was the old horse who was hardworking, loyal, and a little bit blinkered. It allowed us to see different animals. We find animals very engaging, and we project onto them. As I said, if you use it in an artful way that has the animal be what you think it might be, you take it on very easily. I find that as soon as you have an animal character, people suspend their disbelief and are willing to believe it.
David (16:22-16:45)
That’s what was coming to mind for me. Animal Farm is about a very heavy topic, but the entire time we’ve been talking about animals, I’ve had this low-grade chuckle. They’re funny, they’re light. That allows you to access heavier topics in a way that the history of astonishing Russia wouldn’t allow you to do. It’s so overwhelming.
Yann (16:45-17:25)
And with Beatrice and Virgil, it was the Holocaust. I deliberately chose that because I find how you represent the Holocaust problematic. We know what happened historically very well. It’s been analyzed endlessly and still is by historians. People have written fiction, usually in a single mode of historical realism, featuring human characters living between 1933 and 1945 in Middle and Eastern Europe, telling the same story over and over again. There’s nothing wrong with that; that’s exactly what happened both historically and in social, realistic, fictional terms. But it gets repetitive. I find that with the Holocaust, there’s a feeling of “been there, done that.”
David (17:25-17:26)
Sure.
Yann (17:26-19:04)
The emotional tone of Holocaust stories is always the same: tragedy. While that reflects what happened, it’s always the same tone, the same geography, the same characters. These are satanically evil Nazis and endlessly innocent Jews who are just trying to live their lives.
In these stories, individual character doesn’t matter. Whether you were good or bad, an engineer or a student, fat or thin, beautiful or ugly, accomplished or not, even a criminal, it didn’t matter. If you were Jewish, you were dead. Similarly, for the Nazis, it didn’t matter if you loved your wife, played the violin, or had a pet cat; if you were a guard, you were horrible. Character doesn’t matter in Holocaust stories, which makes them very limiting.
So I asked myself, how can we discuss it using all the tools of art so it doesn’t appear both tragic and dull? I thought, well, I’ll use animals once again. They are engaging and clearly symbolize that this is an allegory. A talking animal is obviously an allegory, a metaphor, because animals don’t talk. This creates a certain distance from the subject, allowing for different approaches.
I was trying to do with the Holocaust what George Orwell did with Stalinism in Animal Farm. He told a light, engaging, and delightful story about a very heavy topic, quickly conveying the essence of Stalinism: the use of propaganda, coercion, and lies. It showed what went wrong in Russia under Stalin.
You could read seventeen tomes about it if you have the patience and interest, or you could simply read Animal Farm in 92 pages and grasp what happened to the Russians. I believe we need a similar approach for the Holocaust. People get nervous about it, especially if they aren’t Jewish. I’m not Jewish, and at some point, you have to be careful what you say to avoid accusations of trivializing the Holocaust. This creates nervousness.
David (19:04-19:04)
Sure.
Yann (19:04-19:31)
I understand that you don’t want to trespass on people’s sensibilities, but at some point, we must be allowed to make mistakes and engage in a process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. If you say something stupid, you’re corrected, and you learn. That’s how we progress, and we must be allowed to do that, even when discussing the Holocaust.
So how best to do that? I decided to use animals very clearly, allegorically. An allegorical approach allows a certain lightness while still discussing a heavy topic, exactly what Orwell did with Stalinism.
David (19:31-19:56)
When you’re writing a story, whether it’s Life of Pi, Self, or this book about the Holocaust, what matters most in the opening pages to set the scene? I don’t mean to trivialize it, but if you had a checklist for the first five or ten pages—things you want to accomplish—what would they be to draw a reader into the book?
Yann (19:57-21:02)
Sometimes stories start with big opening sentences: “Call me Ishmael,” or “Aujourd’hui, maman est morte.” (Today, Mother died.) Or, “For the longest time, I went to bed early,” as Proust wrote. Some opening sentences truly stand out. Others are one long paragraph, simply setting a scene.
I don’t really know how I start. I never liked the first sentence of Life of Pi: “This story was born as I was hungry.” It doesn’t work particularly well as a sentence; it doesn’t stand out. It’s neither here nor there. I never particularly liked it, but I couldn’t think of anything better, so I just moved on.
I don’t really know how to answer what makes a good opening. Each time, you want to introduce an interesting character or an interesting turn of phrase. Sometimes dialogue is a good way to start because it puts you right in media res, in the middle of the action. It just has to work somehow.
David (21:02-21:03)
Tell me about in media res.
Yann (21:04-21:23)
The Iliad starts in the middle of the argument; you leap right into the action. Sometimes authors slowly build a setting, and then the action begins. Other times, you start right away.
As I always say, I plan everything. I don’t necessarily dwell on the beginning; I dwell on the entire story. Ultimately, everything has to work and be connected.
David (21:23-21:59)
When we discuss how you architect your books, we talk about having the facts, the research, and the scenes. But then, as you write, the material elevates into a story—an emergence. You mentioned reading The Lord of the Rings and not being hooked. When you consider a story—perhaps focusing on character or plot—what elevates it beyond a mere series of events? What makes a reader truly care about what’s going to happen next?
Yann (21:59-24:51)
Emotional investment is important. I love Agatha Christie, for example. She’s a writer whose ambition was perfectly matched by her accomplishment. Her murder mysteries are utter delights; they’re well-written, funny, and insoluble.
Only with her short stories have I managed to read them and figure out, “This is the murderer.” None of her murder mysteries have I ever been able to solve on a first reading. Even when Poirot reveals everything, you exclaim, “I missed that! That was so obvious!”
In Murder on the Orient Express, for instance, there’s a scene where a porter knocks on a cabin door. Inside is a coarse Chicago gangster. When the porter asks, “Are you all right, Mr. McGregor?” the gangster replies in French, “Non, ça va.” The porter accepts this and moves on. Once you reach the end and the mystery is resolved, you realize, “Of course, why would a coarse Chicago gangster speak French?”
Agatha Christie is so artful in how she presents clues that you don’t notice it. She includes many little red herrings, making you think, “That’s definitely something important,” as she lures you into misdirection. Her work perfectly engages your curiosity.
I prefer things that are narrowly focused; I don’t particularly enjoy grand epics. Some of the great books of my life have been very individual stories. Consider Yukio Mishima’s The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea. It’s the story of a sailor who meets a woman and moves in with her during his time ashore. Her son perceives his mother’s new relationship as a betrayal and poisons the sailor.
It’s a single, individual story, but through it, you see a prism on life—a child’s warped perception of success, masculinity, and his mother. It’s narrow and small, yet it reflects the universe.
Another wonderful book that transported me was Knut Hamsun’s Hunger. Hamsun, a Norwegian writer who won the Nobel Prize, wrote about a homeless man in Christiania, the old name for Oslo. The story focuses on his searingly subjective perceptions as he wanders the streets of Oslo.
Set in the early 20th century, long before homelessness was a widely recognized issue in a bourgeois society, it depicts a man with no home, no possessions. It’s a slightly delirious vision of the city, the people he meets, and his experiences.
I prefer few characters and delving deep into their experiences. The Lord of the Rings felt too symphonic, too grand; I preferred a solo. Ultimately, it all comes back to subjectivity—the wonderful subjectivity of art.
David (24:52-24:57)
It is really nice, though, when there’s a story that’s really simple and easy to follow, but somehow it contains the universe in it.
Yann (24:57-25:49)
Art is not about answers; it’s about questions. That’s why, belatedly, I became interested in religion as a secular person. I see both religion and art as magical thinking.
You can posit a fantastical school like Hogwarts with a wizard named Harry Potter, creating alternate worlds that still resemble ours. You have to go beyond rationality, but doing so makes us more sane. We transcend the rational to regain our sanity and live effectively in this world.
Religion operates similarly. It has reasonable mechanisms, like theology as an attempt to understand the divine, but it extends far beyond the rational. To me, both are magical thinking and both are about the sublime. They aim to move us beyond what seems obvious and comprehensible, towards a sense of awe, a true sense of the sublime.
David (25:50-26:07)
Regarding magical thinking, if you attend a Greek Orthodox church, they often speak of the sacred mysteries, an acceptance that certain equations may not square themselves. We believe it’s true, yet we cannot fully comprehend the how or why.
Yann (26:07-26:19)
And that sense can be achieved. Just this morning, I recalled the song “Turn! Turn! Turn!” by Mary—I forget her last name. It quotes the Bible: “To everything there is a season.”
David (26:20-26:31)
“Turn! Turn! Turn!” My dad played that song at his mother’s funeral last year. It speaks of a season for everything.
Yann (26:31-26:36)
“To everything there is a season and a purpose under heaven.” It’s a beautiful, lovely song.
David (26:36-26:37)
It has a very ecclesiastic feel.
Yann (26:37-27:12)
It was written by Mary—I forget her last name. Paul McCartney discovered her and championed her work. It’s a lovely English song.
The lyric “To everything there is a season and a purpose under heaven” is profound. We readily understand the concept of seasons in life—being born, growing up, getting old. But “a purpose under heaven” suddenly elevates it. It prompts questions: “Is there a purpose under heaven? What does that mean? How do I interpret that?”
This idea suggests that the sublime can be achieved quite simply if one is open to it. Religion and art excel at putting us in that state of awe, that sense of the sublime.
David (27:12-27:26)
When you’re writing and considering flow and pacing, what role does punctuation—periods, semicolons, commas—play in shaping the reader’s experience?
Yann (27:27-27:31)
That’s a nice, nitty-gritty technical question. I love punctuation.
David (27:31-27:32)
I know you do; that’s why I asked.
Yann (27:32-28:52)
I love punctuation. We all know words like “table,” “camera,” or “sunny”—their meaning is clear to everyone. But writing is about marshaling those words together, creating a rhythm, much like music.
In music, the tempo is literally marked on the bar. In spoken language, our breath dictates the tempo; you can’t speak a super long sentence without losing your train of thought and needing to breathe. In writing, punctuation provides that rhythm. I’ve always found punctuation to be incredibly rich and enjoyable.
One must be sparing with the exclamation mark because it’s highly manipulative. It signals a big emotion, and very occasionally, you can use it to telegraph intense feeling or a shout to the reader. However, it should be used sparingly. The colon is useful for introducing a list. The semicolon is interesting because it connects related thoughts, but using too many becomes tiresome. You also don’t want too many short sentences in a row.
David (28:52-28:59)
What was striking, reading your thoughts on this, is how the comma injects a sense of propulsion into the writing.
Yann (28:59-30:46)
Commas are the toughest. Everyone understands the full stop, but consider the Oxford comma, for instance. In a list like “Joe, Jack, and Judy,” do you place a comma after the second name before “and”? Yes, you do. However, if a phrase like “the Bishop of Bath and Ancaster” functions as a single unit, you wouldn’t separate it with a comma. The comma is the punctuation mark I agonize over the most.
This is so nerdy, but my approach to commas is to use them sparingly. Fewer commas generally improve flow, but too few can lead to confusion.
In my next book, Forgiven and Forgotten, which is about my mother’s alma mater, each entry is a single sentence. There are no question marks because, while tone can indicate a question, the mark itself usually ends a sentence. Here, a single period concludes each entry. Consequently, I make extensive use of commas, as they provide the necessary flow.
I also incorporate paragraph breaks. I dislike books with dense, single columns of text; they’re difficult to read. Even though each is a single sentence, paragraph breaks are essential. The commas function like a drummer in a band, providing the rhythm for the sentence.
The period dictates the length of your sentence. One writing rule I try to follow is to vary sentence length. Avoid a series of equally short or long sentences; it quickly becomes boring. Instead, alternate between longer and shorter sentences, varying them gently. This is all determined by the full stop.
David (30:46-31:07)
When I was teaching writing, we had an exercise called “reading the right edge.” Instead of a paragraph, we would format every sentence individually—one sentence, then a line break, then the next sentence, and so on. You would then observe how far each sentence extended across the page.
Yann (31:08-31:08)
Right.
David (31:08-31:39)
You want to create an accordion-like visual effect by varying sentence length. Varying sentence length astonishingly improves writing flow. Once you understand the distinct capabilities of long versus short sentences, and how an ensemble of long, medium, and short sentences can work together, it becomes one of the simplest and fastest ways to improve your writing.
Yann (31:39-32:21)
It is. Readers, whose eyes simply glide over the page, actually notice these variations. It truly rhythms their reading.
I’ve resisted certain writing nostrums. My partner loves creative writing, and I recall once reading an unfortunate piece of advice: that when describing a landscape, the best approach is a slow, camera-like pan from left to right, top to bottom. Describing elements like “the farmhouse here, the mountain there,” supposedly isn’t as satisfying as this specific panning motion.
David (32:22-32:22)
Yes.
Yann (32:22-32:32)
Reading that now annoys me. If I ever have to describe a landscape, it irks me to know there’s this so-called rule about description.
David (32:32-32:33)
It’s too clean.
Yann (32:33-32:52)
Do I follow it, or do I deliberately jump around simply because the alleged rule annoys me? Or do I follow it and feel like I’m adhering to a formula? Don’t tell me what to do. Maybe the next time I’ll write ten five-word sentences in a row. It just has to work. Perhaps ten sentences, all exactly the same length, will achieve the desired effect.
David (32:52-32:53)
Have you done any photography?
Yann (32:53-32:53)
Never.
David (32:54-32:55)
Do you know what the rule of thirds is?
Yann (32:56-32:56)
No.
David (32:56-33:09)
It’s a core photography rule. In an image, you overlay a grid, creating nine different boxes.
Yann (33:09-33:10)
Okay.
David (33:10-33:19)
It’s a three by three grid. The temptation in photography is often to center your subject.
Yann (33:19-33:19)
Right.
David (33:19-33:45)
When you do that, you don’t achieve a certain kind of motion. Instead, you might go towards the bottom right, top right, top left, or bottom left.
This illustrates that it’s one of those rules where, once you learn it, you’re delighted to know about the rule of thirds. Every time I take a photo, my brain instinctively goes there first. However, I don’t want to take every single photo using the rule of thirds and become a slave to it.
Yann (33:45-33:45)
Exactly.
David (33:45-33:51)
I’m happy to know it so that when I break the rule of thirds, I do so deliberately.
Yann (33:51-34:53)
That’s exactly it. You want to be aware of rules, generally speaking, so you can artfully break them. That’s a good point, because you can’t break every single rule.
You can break the rule of thirds, but then you adhere to other rules in photography concerning, say, composition or something else. The same applies to writing. You can play with spelling, like “thru” instead of “through.” You can play with punctuation, or even have none at all. But you can’t break all those rules simultaneously. That results in truly arduous work.
I remember the French nouveau roman movement in the 50s and 60s, which disregarded setting and character. You can see it’s different, a distinct way to tell a story, but it’s difficult for such work to survive and endure because it eventually becomes tiresome. You don’t necessarily want familiarity, but you do want a few handrails to guide you into the story and move along with the writer.
So you want to break some rules, but not all of them. The rule of thirds is a good example: be aware of it, and then artfully break it when it suits your purpose.
David (34:53-35:01)
What other rules do you think of and sometimes follow, but also sometimes willfully ignore when you’re at the keyboard?
Yann (35:03-37:19)
None, really. I’ve never taken creative writing and never thought about writing as a craft. I learned how to write—it sounds stupid, but—just by reading good books as a kid, books that moved me. Eventually, I sometimes noted things, like Conrad’s use of punctuation. But I didn’t go looking for rules about it. I just figured, “This is fun to play with. I will play with it and see what that yields.”
It’s nice playing with parentheses and em dashes. Some people really like their parentheses, or things in brackets. I don’t have any rules. I just stumble my way to something that seems to work, which sometimes means I’m reinventing the wheel. But it also means my approach feels fresh every time I write something. I think, “This looks great. This works.”
I’ve been lucky. In some cases, my editors have agreed; other times, they haven’t, telling me, “This is terrible.” For example, in Life of Pi, Pi is in a lifeboat with a tiger. He then meets another person in a lifeboat, a blind Frenchman. They’re both blind and realize they’re there, so they start talking.
As their boats are moved by the currents, I thought, instead of having the dialogue simply indented and falling down the page in a straight line, why not have their bits of dialogue float around the page? Initially, they’re like this. As they talk, the dialogue slowly comes closer, then crosses, exactly like their lifeboats. So you would visually see what they cannot: that they’re moving through space while talking.
I thought, “That’s brilliant! I’ll even have the dialogue start off the margins, right on the left and then right in the gutter, and move around.” I considered it wonderful, a really cool experimentation that would yield something. My editor hated it, saying, “You’re just masturbating on the page, thinking you’re really clever. It’s just annoying.” So we had that dialogue flush left. She said it really didn’t work.
Initially, I resisted. Then I realized, “Oh no, wait a second. You’re right, that doesn’t work.” So I try all these things, and sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. But I try not to have rules, except to feel for the text, to feel that it’s somehow coming alive to me. As a writer, you’re the first reader. If you like what you’ve done, then, fingers crossed, other people will too.
David (37:19-37:22)
Have you written with AI at all?
Yann (37:23-37:23)
No.
David (37:24-37:26)
Why not?
Yann (37:26-38:58)
Why would I? It would be like hiring someone to have sex for you. I love writing; I love the materiality of it.
My partner volunteers for many organizations, so at one point, she had to draft governance papers for a charitable organization—all that legalese, small-print kind of stuff about how their board works. She used AI to generate that because AI could access the rules a charity needs for its operation, ensuring it’s legally protected. For completely non-creative tasks like that, sure, I’d go to AI. If my shoulder hurts, I might go to AI on the computer.
But for anything creative, why would I want to use it when I love the creative language itself? So I’ve never used it, and I suspect people will tire of it quickly. I’d rather read a bad short story by a human than a good one by a computer.
After all, what you want in art is connection—connection with another human being. A chatbot as your boyfriend or girlfriend is short-term; long-term, you don’t want that. You want that human connection. I think AI will probably be a useful tool in medicine, and possibly in the legal system.
But for creative endeavors, even music—I understand AI music can be quite good. It’s a question of whether you know it’s AI. It’s the deception. If I’m told it’s AI music, and it’s just ambient background stuff, then possibly I’ll listen. But if it’s something meaningful, I want it to be human, because it’s precisely that imperfection I desire.
David (38:58-40:00)
The question that comes to mind when considering how much I want to read something written by AI is: how much does it matter to me that there’s a human on the other side of this? I need to draft a contract later this week. I’ll probably use AI to help me, to think through the finances and similar details.
When I send that out, the recipient isn’t looking at me and asking, “David, did you dig into the depths of your heart and soul to write this?” However, if a friend is getting married, the situation changes. A few years ago, when AI was still early—around the time of ChatGPT-3—this happened to me.
We were at the wedding, sitting around a table with probably 100 people in attendance. At every single table was a personalized note from the bride and groom, explaining why we meant so much to them. I sat down and opened it. It was about 80 to 100 words, and I thought, “Wow, that is so touching that they did that.”
Yann (40:00-40:02)
Don’t tell me it was AI.
David (40:05-40:37)
Later that night, after we had some drinks and were out partying, I went up to the groom. I told him, “That was one of the nicest things I’ve ever seen at a wedding.” He gave me a wink and said, “Yeah, we got AI to write it.”
I was just stunned. I thought, “Dude, I would have so much rather you written something half as sincere, filled and littered with typos, than to have AI write that.” It felt like a violation and a betrayal.
Yann (40:37-40:57)
It’s like when I was a little kid, long before computers, and we had homework that required research. You’d go to an encyclopedia. The obvious temptation was to just copy what they’d written and pretend it was your own work.
But obviously, a teacher would much rather have something misspelled and poorly punctuated, yet genuinely from you, showing your effort, than simply copying from an encyclopedia.
David (40:57-41:02)
Consider how parents hang up crappy drawings their kids have made.
Yann (41:02-41:04)
Exactly. It’s about authenticity, the connection.
David (41:04-41:09)
It’s not a Picasso, it’s not a Rembrandt, but it’s from my son, or my daughter. This is what they created.
Yann (41:09-41:35)
Once you know something is AI-generated, it’s like special effects in movies. My kids watch movies with special effects and just shrug. We know a computer can generate anything, so a kind of inflation sets in, and we become less and less impressed.
Then you see a great actor performing with no special effects, and it’s truly amazing. It just works. I just mentioned that movie inflation.
David (41:35-41:36)
Inflation.
Yann (41:36-42:32)
The value of special effects diminishes because they’re so common now; their currency is devalued. As I said, movies with special effects often just make me shrug. They might be kind of cool, but then I shrug and forget them. What really has an impact is an actor emoting, revealing authenticity.
I just gave the example of Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons. When they’re acting, the camera is right on their faces, close up. In a scene, she’s speaking to this conspiracy theorist psycho, who believes she’s an alien. She says, “Okay, yes, you’re right. I am an alien. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
You can tell she’s lying, but she’s trying to appear truthful to this dumb-witted conspiracy theorist. It’s incredibly rich for a person to witness such emotion. We want that authenticity. We don’t want the AI, the special effects AI can give to prose. If you don’t know it’s AI, you might fall for it. But once you know, as you said, it becomes devalued. You want authenticity.
David (42:32-43:26)
Here’s a thought experiment: In art, with the invention of photography, which could capture the real world so clearly, artists stopped painting realism. They then moved into Impressionism, which evolved into Kandinsky.
Eventually, you see Rothko, Pollock, and modern art where the focus is on a unique style and vision. Does this metaphor suggest that AI will become so skilled at replicating human writing that humans will then have to write in very strange, esoteric ways?
Will writing sort of devolve as modern art has? Instead of trying to communicate something, will writers merely try to show their distinctiveness, how different they are, to prove they’re not a computer?
Yann (43:27-44:55)
I don’t know; we’ll have to see. I would argue no, because we’re very visual animals. As we move, we see things, and their creative authenticity isn’t necessarily apparent.
For example, you have a New Yorker poster on your wall. I assume it was done by a human, simply because it’s the New Yorker and probably an older piece, but it could have been generated by AI. I’ve taken that in passively.
Reading isn’t passive, however. While I might glance and see the word “New Yorker,” with something longer, you have to want to read it. There’s a much greater engagement required from the reader. I don’t think readers will want to engage with something deliberately weird just to contrast it with a “super smooth” AI-generated text.
One thing that’s going to happen is with publishers. There was a recent scandal involving a book that was found to be partly or heavily AI-written. It immediately lost credibility, and the publisher, Hachette, pulled it off the market.
I think publishers will start saying, “You cannot use AI beyond spell check and minimal assistance.” Readers will agree with that. Those who cheat will be seen as cheaters. They won’t be published, or even if they manage to get published, they won’t be read. They won’t win prizes or good reviews. It will be pointed out that this is not the way to do it. But who knows? We’ll see.
David (44:55-45:00)
Tell me about the difference between genre fiction and literary fiction, and why that distinction is important.
Yann (45:01-45:03)
Genre fiction follows rules.
David (45:04-45:05)
How would you define them?
Yann (45:05-45:12)
Familiarity. When you read a murder mystery, a fantasy, or a romance, you enter into a familiar world.
David (45:12-45:13)
This is genre fiction.
Yann (45:13-46:39)
Genre fiction comes with certain expectations. In a romance, for instance, love is a core element. This doesn’t necessarily mean a man and a woman; it could be gay, lesbian, or even a man falling in love with a rock or his dog. The essential element is love.
In science fiction, you expect alternate realities with a strong technological component. There are clear rules and expectations. We often read genre fiction for comfort. A Harlequin Romance reminds us that love can be wonderful, especially when characters are unbelievably beautiful and their romantic experiences are amazing. We want to be reminded that love can be like that. These certain expectations must be fulfilled.
In literary fiction, there are no rules. This can be problematic; sometimes, a work doesn’t resonate because its subjective or individual nature makes it difficult to connect with. However, this lack of rules also allows for exhilarating experiences when a piece truly succeeds.
When you start a great work of literary fiction—a novel, novella, or short story—you don’t know where it’s going, and it has the potential to speak to everyone. For example, I once sent books every two weeks to Stephen Harper, a former prime minister of Canada, to demonstrate the power of the written word.
The first book I sent was Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Though by a “dead white male,” it’s an incredible story. It describes Ivan Ilyich’s slow death and the reactions of those around him. You cannot read that book without emerging wiser.
David (46:39-46:39)
I agree completely.
Yann (46:40-47:31)
Anyone who reads it will be transported and emerge wiser. They will reflect on their own life and strive for improvement. With literary fiction, you don’t know its ultimate destination, and anyone can read it.
Genre fiction, on the other hand, appeals to those seeking a specific product, like a Louis L’Amour cowboy story or a murder mystery. It operates within certain parameters, providing comfort and reinforcing a familiar world. Readers want that sense of the known.
Literary fiction takes you to new worlds. This is precisely why it can be distressing, disorienting, or even upsetting. Its greatness lies in having no rules, allowing it to transport you to entirely new experiences.
Genre fiction, while it can push boundaries, still largely remains within the confines of its specific world—be it horror, murder mystery, or another genre. We need both types of fiction; we crave variety. You don’t always want three-star Michelin Cordon Bleu; sometimes you want your “junk food.” Not that genre fiction is necessarily junk food, but you appreciate a bit of everything.
David (47:32-48:21)
It’s interesting that you used the word “product” to describe a book. I was walking back from a Nets game, passed Barnes & Noble, and looked in the window. There was a popular nonfiction book on display that had sold tens of millions of copies. I found myself wondering about it: why were people frustrated by it, yet why had it done so exceptionally well?
It occurred to me that it wasn’t a “book” in the traditional sense. Instead, it was a perfectly delivered product, solving a specific problem for readers in an almost pill-like textual form. Until you spoke, I hadn’t considered that fiction could also be viewed as a product.
Yann (48:22-48:54)
A book just has to work, but predicting what will succeed is impossible; it always comes as a surprise. Speaking of punctuation, do you remember Eats, Shoots & Leaves? Who would have thought a book about punctuation could be so successful?
We are surprising creatures, our curiosity piqued by the oddest things. This is why publishing remains such a gamble. If we knew what would become a bestseller, it would be simple. Of course, publishing the next Stephen King offers a degree of certainty because he’s a known quantity. But otherwise, who knows what will genuinely succeed? We might think a book is good and it doesn’t work, while another unexpectedly thrives. What works and what doesn’t is always a surprise.
David (48:55-48:59)
What is your relationship with reviews? Do you read them, and how do you process them?
Yann (49:01-50:05)
Not really. I find there are four kinds of reviews. First, there are positive reviews for the right reasons. These are excellent. Someone has read your book, understood it as intended, and praised the aspects you value. These are truly the best.
Then there are positive reviews for the wrong reasons. People misunderstand your book and attribute qualities you don’t recognize, which is slightly jarring. Third, bad reviews for the wrong reasons. The reviewer misunderstood the book and disliked it for those incorrect reasons, which is annoying. Finally, and worst of all, are the bad reviews for the right reasons. These point out weaknesses you hadn’t perceived, which can be disheartening.
Regardless, there’s always something jarring about reading reviews. Even with positive ones, you don’t want your ego to become inflated. Success on one book doesn’t guarantee it for the next; each new book is a fresh start. My new book, Son of Nobody, is coming out, and my publishers and agent are passing along reviews. My agent even told my publishers that he doesn’t read all of them himself. He just sends them to me, and I can use them for promotion elsewhere. I usually just glance at them to see if they’re positive. If so, that’s good.
David (50:05-50:05)
Okay, I see.
Yann (50:05-51:26)
But I don’t look at them too closely. It’s not about praise.
Art is a gift. When you create something, like a meal, you gather disparate elements in the kitchen. You could create just for yourself, but if it’s an elaborate meal, it’s meant to be offered to others. It’s a gift.
You don’t give a gift expecting one in return. You give it to the world, and the world is entitled to do what it wants with your gift. Hopefully, it will be liked. But if they don’t, if they take your offering and throw it in the garbage, then I suppose that’s what they needed at that moment.
It’s like the Buddhist concept of passionate detachment: you give all you can to your art, then you release it to the world and walk away.
Right now, the book has just come out. I’m gratified that the buzz is very positive. After that, I’m done. That’s good enough.
I don’t look at them particularly because I don’t know what I gain from them. It’s up to the reader to interpret it as they wish and take what they want from it.
Readers will always bring something surprising that you didn’t expect. I saw that in spades with Life of Pi. For example, my books did really well in Korea. I have no connection to Korea whatsoever, but they read Life of Pi, and obviously it meant a lot to them. They brought something to it, and that’s their business.
It’s not for me to interpret the book for them. People often ask me, “What did the island mean in Life of Pi?” or “What is Richard Parker?” Ultimately, I ask them, “What is he to you?” I may have an opinion, but I’m just one reader among many. In a sense, you decide; it’s your book.
David (51:26-52:12)
I’ve been thinking of stories a lot like dreams, where you’re creating a dream.
Historically, there have been dream interpreters. Once you’re in the realm of dreams, you’re dealing with archetypes, symbolism, and guesses at different levels of confidence.
Perhaps that’s what a story is: a very conscious, vivid dream you’re giving the world. Certain parts of dreams can absolutely be revelatory. For example, if your best friend was attacking you in a dream, you might think, “Wow, I didn’t realize we had so much tension and conflict in our lives. Clearly, that’s what that dream is telling me.” But if the world was upside down, you might have no idea what that means.
Yann (52:13-52:37)
The word I’ve used over and over is that a book is a co-creation. You bring something to it and, therefore, you make it your own.
It’s not the writer’s role to say, “That’s wrong” or “That’s right.” You run with it, you make of it what you want. It’s your business. I see every book as a co-creation. Everything I read, I co-create in the sense that I see what I want to see in it and disregard things I don’t want to see. I believe every reader does that.
David (52:38-52:42)
How much have you taken from plays? I know that was a big part of your early writing process.
Yann (52:44-54:33)
I became a writer as a result of a movie in the ‘80s, Reds. The film focused on an American communist journalist who wrote Ten Days That Shook the World about the October Revolution.
It was turned into a movie by and with Warren Beatty, and Jack Nicholson was in it, playing Eugene O’Neill. A young, charismatic Jack Nicholson played Eugene O’Neill.
There was a scene where Nicholson, as O’Neill, is at a desk in his hotel room working on a play. Diane Keaton, who plays an actress in one of his plays, enters, and they have an exchange about it. I had happened to take a theater course that summer where I read O’Neill’s plays, and I’d never before connected a work of art with a conscious artist, a writer.
Here was this incredibly charismatic actor playing Eugene O’Neill, whom I had just read. I suddenly thought, “Hey, maybe I can do that.” So I lamely went home and started writing a play. It was terrible; I’m not a playwright at all. Moving a plot strictly through dialogue in a way that increases and decreases tension is a knack I do not have.
I wrote a couple of dreadful plays and then moved on to prose.
But I’ve always been attracted to plays. You’re talking about setting to start a conversation. What I love about plays is that it’s only dialogue. It takes place in a space that can exist solely in your head. While it’s performed in a theater with four walls, ideally it’s just in your mind. Our head is shaped like a theater with four walls, and our eyes are opening windows. So a stage can be portable; a play can be anywhere. It’s just human beings speaking.
There’s a spareness to plays, an orality that I find very attractive. My book Beatrice and Virgil even turns on a play. I started with plays, but I quickly found prose much easier to handle.
David (54:33-54:40)
How does what you learned about writing dialogue from plays show up in your prose?
Yann (54:40-54:58)
In prose, dialogue can serve a much simpler purpose: just conveying information or an emotion as spoken by a character. It doesn’t need that seesaw of increasing tension. Dialogue in prose doesn’t have to sound natural while simultaneously being crafted to convey information without being too heavy.
David (54:59-55:21)
As you try to bring characters to life, from the initial mapping of the novel to the first draft and the constant refinement that goes into writing, what are the things that you’re doing to give a character texture and also to make the reader care about the character?
Yann (55:21-57:27)
I don’t think about that at all. In Life of Pi, Pi was secondary to my concerns; I wanted the idea of someone who was religious. All my characters are somewhat similar. When I read fiction, I don’t like completely unique characters. Remember Carson McCullers, in the book with a little person?
My perspective is I want to look at life in a very personal way, to understand it before the lights go out. I’m not interested in characters with strong ‘blinkers’ — for example, the character who is blind, or a dwarf.
I’d rather have someone who is a vessel. Imagine I’m in a car with you, you’re the driver, and I trust you as we look out. I want someone who knows how to drive on clear roads. I prefer an ordinary character facing extraordinary circumstances.
Pi is a perfect example. I never dwelled on Pi’s specific quirks. I want a character who is obviously interested in the world, open to it, and then things happen to them. This is preferable to a really weird or curious character to whom banal things happen.
In Life of Pi, there’s a shipwreck. In Beatrice and Virgil, the Holocaust befalls two characters. These two people, symbolized by a monkey and a donkey, are ordinary. They just want to get by, have their three meals a day, and be loved. They are completely banal, even boring. But then something appalling and extraordinary happens to them.
I find that more interesting because it resonates with readers. We all think we’re normal. The person you might perceive as strange thinks they’re totally normal. So what we want brought to our attention is the extraordinariness of life. That’s where I focus, not on character. I never focused on the character of Pi.
In my latest novel, Son of Nobody, the scholar Harlow Dunn has a dissolving marriage, a daughter, and is studying. I never thought about him in terms of his peculiarity. That’s why I never describe my characters. Novels that describe someone in great detail are pointless, in my opinion, because words are terrible at description. If you emphasize a character’s nose, you suddenly imagine an enormous nose. If you imagine a little scar, you envision a great cut.
David (57:27-57:28)
It’s a caricature.
Yann (57:28-57:53)
It becomes a caricature. It’s very hard to subtly describe someone’s appearance because words aren’t good at that; photography is. Words are much better at conveying thoughts and emotions. In Life of Pi, there’s a lot of thinking about divine emotions, which is great.
I never dwell on characters. I never describe Pi, nor Harlow Dunn. Each is merely a vessel to observe something, and what they are looking upon is what truly interests me. I never think of character in that descriptive way.
David (57:54-57:58)
Can you tell me more about the extraordinary moments?
Yann (57:58-58:04)
What makes for a good extraordinary moment in a story? One I’ve read, or one I’m creating?
David (58:04-58:15)
Either one you’re creating or one you’ve read. I like that idea of ordinary characters having extraordinary moments. What distinguishes a good extraordinary moment from one that feels contrived?
Yann (58:15-58:48)
All kinds. For example, Son of Nobody has an unusual format. At the top of the page, there are verse fragments of this last Trojan War epic, so it looks like poetry with a ragged line. At the bottom, footnotes comment on the text.
These are unusual footnotes; they include dialogue and describe Harlow’s dissolving marriage. A wonderful moment for me was realizing I could elevate the humble footnote.
I like footnotes – not technical ones, but those that illuminate something that can’t quite fit into the main text. They can be truly illuminating. I remember endlessly enjoying the footnotes when reading Dante’s Divine Comedy because they fleshed out what Dante was talking about.
David (58:48-58:50)
You’re talking about David Foster Wallace.
Yann (58:50-58:51)
Exactly.
David (58:51-58:53)
He just goes crazy in the footnotes.
Yann (58:53-59:52)
Yes, I like footnotes. At one point in the novel, for a moment of wonder, I wrote the line: “We’re all footnotes to a greater story.”
To me, that’s deeply true. We are all minor footnotes; I’m just one little person, a footnote next to countless others. Yet, collectively, that is everything. The American nation, for instance, is the result of 300 million footnotes creating the texture that appears on the top of the page, forming this great American civilization.
I like this idea. One moment of wonder came purely from theoretically devising the page layout: verse at the top, footnotes at the bottom, elevating the humble footnote. As a writer, you always have sentences you’re particularly happy with, that are artfully told and speak a truth that resonates with you. The line, “We’re all footnotes to a greater story,” resonated with me as a statement about who we are as human beings.
David (59:52-59:55)
Take me back to what makes a good extraordinary moment.
Yann (59:55-1:02:40)
The foundations of Western civilization are Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and the Gospels. Regardless of whether you’ve read them or believe in them, these two narratives form the bedrock. Half of our identity stems from Greece, through the Iliad, the Odyssey, and subsequent Greek philosophy. The other half comes from the story of Jesus of Nazareth. Liking them or not is irrelevant.
Remarkably, neither narrative is supported by historical facts. No historical facts surround Jesus’s life. We don’t even know his birthdate. December 25th originated from the Romans mistakenly observing the winter solstice, which is actually the 21st, not the 25th. They reasoned, what better day for Jesus to be born than when winter days shorten and light returns to the world? Here was a new God bringing more light each day, so they placed his birth on the winter solstice. They got the date wrong, and it was devised 300 years later.
We also don’t know when he died. People suggest “Easter Friday,” but that’s a day, not a fixed date, and the day he dies varies annually. Unlike most people, who die on a specific, unchanging date—Warren Harding, for instance, died on August 2, 1923, and that date remains constant—Jesus’s death varies. We know nothing about most of his life.
It’s intellectually illuminating to realize these foundational stories lack factual basis. No historical facts support the narratives of Troy or Jesus. What they both possess is story. There’s an inherent quality that compels us to endlessly retell them. Conversely, some events might have countless facts but fail to resonate with us.
Take Warren Harding, a forgotten U.S. president. We can find a million facts about him, but no one discusses him. He’s forgotten because his story lacks compelling narrative. There are facts, but no story. This offers intellectual illumination: you don’t necessarily need facts—though you certainly don’t want lies—but facts only go so far. Ultimately, you crave a story.
Then there are moments of emotional intensity. In Life of Pi, when Pi reaches the beach, the tiger leaves without saying goodbye. We desire closure, a proper farewell. If I were to simply leave now, you’d want that final punctuation mark. So, in Life of Pi, when the tiger—
I hadn’t planned that scene extensively; it happened spontaneously. The tiger is an animal; it wouldn’t turn around and growl a goodbye. That would be anthropomorphic. He simply walks off into the jungle, a Mexican jungle, hoping to survive. He doesn’t say goodbye, but Pi is devastated by this, and readers share that feeling. It’s a powerful emotional discovery.
Pi had constructed this story with his tiger, not realizing until that moment that the tiger hadn’t necessarily co-created it with him. The tiger simply wanted to survive, and having finally reached land, it departed. That was a moment of emotional wonder, pleasing to encounter and create. These moments often happen spontaneously; you try to plan them, and sometimes they materialize, sometimes they don’t.
David (1:02:40-1:02:42)
As we begin to wrap up, what makes
Yann (1:02:42-1:03:42)
for a good ending? It should properly conclude a reader’s expectations without answering everything. You want a degree of mystery regarding what might happen next, or even what has just transpired. You want closure, like at a funeral, but without forgetting the deceased or the events that just occurred.
Avoid rushed or completely unexpected endings, as these leave the reader feeling that they haven’t understood what came before. I find endings easier to craft than beginnings. You asked about beginnings earlier; I can barely remember them, yet I distinctly recall the ending of each of my stories.
For Life of Pi and Son of Nobody, I clearly remember what I intended for their conclusions. Ultimately, you want the reader to be left with a sense of wonder and questioning, while still feeling their expectations were fulfilled.
David (1:03:43-1:03:57)
I was also thinking of detective stories as you spoke—all the little strands that appear. We discussed this earlier: the things you initially miss that eventually come together.
David (1:04:00-1:04:19)
There’s a certain sense of almost pleasure, that “wow” moment when this person connects all those things I’d seen but didn’t realize would come together. I hadn’t even consciously thought about those elements, yet they all coalesce, providing new ways of seeing. Then, boom, it all comes together at the end.
Yann (1:04:19-1:05:27)
In genre fiction, the conclusion must very clearly fulfill the reader’s expectations. If you’re writing a sweet romance with a lovely couple, and then on the last page, he cuts off her head, puts her in the oven, eats her, and throws her head in the bin, the romance reader would be horrified, exclaiming, “This is not what I wanted!” They want confirmation that love is beautiful. In a murder mystery, you expect the crime to be resolved.
I recall watching a murder mystery with my partner—I believe it was by Jane Harper, not Tana French—where one crime was resolved, but another, against a child in a forest, was a very prominent part of the narrative yet remained unresolved. That was truly strange. Perhaps it worked in the book, but in the adaptation, it failed, leaving me wondering, “Who killed the little kid? How can you not address the question of who killed the little boy?” while other matters were resolved.
So, in genre fiction, you want a confirmation of your expectations. In literary fiction, it’s dicier because the expectation isn’t always clear, but the writer must make it somewhat clear towards the end.
David (1:05:27-1:06:14)
The words that come to mind for me are satisfying and mysterious. There is a certain satisfaction to a good ending. As I was saying about detective novels, everything comes together nicely.
However, as you mentioned earlier, a story needs a certain mystery to truly resonate. If there’s a sense of mystery, if not everything is wrapped up, then the story truly begins to live within you. You grapple with it; it becomes a part of you. It lives on in your mind, a puzzle you can continue to solve over the years.
Satisfying and mysterious almost feel like antonyms, or at least in contradiction. Yet, a good ending can hit both notes.
Yann (1:06:14-1:08:07)
Absolutely. Consider the ending of Moby Dick, which describes the ocean endlessly rolling and hitting the beaches. That’s perfect contemplation of the ocean, its ceaseless movements, and the eternality of time. It works wonderfully; it’s exactly what you want.
You want the reader to behold something at the end of a story, yet not have everything fully resolved. The ending should still glow with a degree of mystery, wonder, and invite pondering.
A work of art is ultimately a thoughtful, emotional product. You must feel something, but if the emotion is too overwhelming, it settles and you forget it. It also needs to be thoughtful.
A good example of this is Gregor Samsa from The Metamorphosis. Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning as an enormous insect in his bedroom, to the horror of his parents, who reject him. He now lives in his room, and because he no longer works, they must hire boarders. His sister plays the violin.
There’s a wonderful scene where his sister plays the violin for these rather arrogant boarders. Gregor, still human despite being a beetle, is trapped in his room but drawn by the music. He feels his sister’s melody. He edges out into the light, horrifying the boarders. His father throws an apple at him, which gets stuck in his carapace. This marks his downfall; he then dies.
The story has a clear beginning, middle, and end, following the arc of birth, life, and death. That’s satisfying. But what do we make of that story? Why did he become a beetle? What does it mean to us?
It’s a perfect example of a resolved ending that still retains its mystery. We live with Gregor Samsa’s plight; its absurdity resonates with us because, in some ways, we are all touched by absurdity. You want resolution, but not a resolution that resolves everything.
David (1:08:07-1:08:15)
What’s the famous line: “You want an ending to be surprising in the moment, but inevitable in retrospect.” Does that resonate with you?
Yann (1:08:15-1:08:19)
I’ve never heard that one; it’s excellent. Yes, it certainly resonates.
David (1:08:20-1:08:24)
Let’s conclude here. Indifference: why can’t artists be indifferent?
Yann (1:08:25-1:10:02)
Artists cannot be indifferent about what they’re writing about; passion is essential. The mistake is believing artists have valid opinions about things beyond their art. For instance, I have opinions about what I’ve written in my book and what I might be trying to say. But my opinion on Donald Trump or AI is no more prescient than any other citizen’s, perhaps even less so.
Artists are solitary agents. We have no obligation to anyone but ourselves, which is why we are free agents. This means we can create outrageous rock and roll songs that scandalized people in the 60s because they were about sex. We want to talk about sex; we enjoy it. We don’t want to be repressed like old people.
Art breaks rules precisely because it has no obligation, no constituency, except the artist themselves. We are free agents, which is exactly why tyrants fear us. We say whatever we want, shocking some but delighting others. This is the way of staying free.
Art is inherently free because we owe no one anything. The downside is that because we have no constituency, we represent only ourselves. Our opinions are simply ours and may not reflect a greater, wiser judgment.
In a political body, you want cohesion—people voting for a unified set of policies. You don’t want random artists doing whatever they want. That’s not good for governance. It’s beneficial for freedom of mind, but not necessarily for a functioning society.
David (1:10:03-1:10:04)
Yann Martel, thank you very much.
Yann (1:10:04-1:10:05)
My pleasure, David.
David (1:10:05-1:10:06)
It’s good to meet you.
Yann (1:10:06-1:10:07)
The same to you.
