Teaches Storytelling and Writing

Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie Teaches Storytelling and Writing

Salman introduces himself and shares his hopes to teach you the shortcuts and lessons he’s learned through decades of writing.

1. Meet Your Instructor

Meet Your Instructor

Salman explains his philosophy: A big story should drive your writing. Learn the essential questions he asks himself about a new story before sitting down to write.


2. Determine How to Tell Your Story

Determine How to Tell Your Story

Build the framework of your story through a well-planned plot with Salman’s techniques to help you avoid setbacks.

3. Flesh Out Your Story’s Structure

Flesh Out Your Story’s Structure

Salman discusses the unique value of opening sentences and shares successful examples from literature as well as his own work.

4. Opening Lines With Power

Opening Lines With Power

Explore influential forms of traditional storytelling, including the “Frame Story” represented in Arabian Nights, global mythology, and India’s rich history of oral storytelling.

5. Drawing From Storytelling Traditions

Drawing From Storytelling Traditions

Salman discusses the “write what you know” dictum in relation to character and encourages you to embrace characters whose realities differ from your own.

6. Conceiving Characters

Conceiving Characters

Think of your characters as real, dynamic people and work to understand the internal motivations that drive them.

7. Bringing Characters to Life

Bringing Characters to Life

Learn the elements that help you reveal more about your characters than adjectives alone can.

8. Revealing Character

Revealing Character

Learn how to approach place with the same depth and description as you would for any of your characters.

9. Setting as a Character

Setting as a Character

Examine your personal perspective, values, and experience to understand one of your strongest assets as a writer: your unmistakably unique worldview.

10. Your Unmistakably Unique Worldview

Your Unmistakably Unique Worldview

Salman shares practical tips for observing sights and soundscapes to gather material for rich descriptions.

11. Observing the World

Observing the World

Salman teaches techniques to translate your personal voice into your own unique style of prose.

12. Developing Your Narrative Style

Developing Your Narrative Style

Salman encourages you to take advantage of surrealism as a device and “let the carpet fly.”

13. Building a Surrealist Story

Building a Surrealist Story

Go beyond the internet when conducting research for fiction. Salman shares ideas for where and how to look.

14. Researching the Novel

Researching the Novel

Discover Salman’s approaches to rewriting and learn how his work habits have changed over time.

15. All Writing Is Rewriting

All Writing Is Rewriting

Get practical advice for working with an editor and discover the power of working past your inhibitions to receive feedback from an objective person.

16. Editing and Feedback: The Confidence to Share

Editing and Feedback: The Confidence to Share

Salman discusses his approach to finding motivation, the value of experimentation, and his tips for working through writer’s block.

17. Develop Your Relationship With Writing

Develop Your Relationship With Writing

Salman makes the case for a new global canon and discusses works of fiction that have inspired him personally.

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