Somya Desai

Yann Martel is the author of Life of Pi, which won the Man Booker Prize and was adapted into an Oscar-winning film. When I asked him about writing with AI, he said: "Why would you do that? That's like hiring somebody to have sex for you." We talked about why he knows how his book is going to end, what books can do that movies can't, why animals work so well as characters, and what great endings have in common. Timestamps: 0:28 The envelope method 5:34 Writing good scenes 11:43 Why animals are good characters 19:31 How to hook readers 32:52 Breaking the rules of writing 37:19 Should you write with AI? 44:55 Genre fiction vs. literary fiction 48:56 When should you read reviews? 52:38 Writing lessons from plays 54:59 Beware of describing characters 57:54 Facts don't make for good stories 1:02:40 What makes for a good ending? 1:08:20 Artists can't be indifferent — — Highlights: 1) Commas function like a drummer in a band, providing the rhythm for the sentence. 2) What makes for a good ending? "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." 3) Beware of describing people in writing: "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. It becomes a caricature." 4) Why animals work well as characters in fiction: People aren't cynical about animals. They don't hold the same prejudices about giraffes or rhinoceroses as they will 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. 5) How much should you plan a piece of writing? Yann says it's like travel. It's worth doing research and making reservations, but it's the discoveries you make along the way that give the trip life. I've shared the full conversation with Yann Martel below. If you'd rather watch it on YouTube, or listen on Apple / Spotify, check out the reply tweets. Enjoy!

AI + Astrology will be a billion-dollar category. And the rationalist builders who laugh at this will miss all of it.

Started this book today. What are you reading?