Colm Tóibín on Writing

The award-winning Irish writer Colm Tóibín here shares his meticulous approach to writing, and how a novel can begin with - and build on - just one perfectly shaped sentence: “It moves into rhythm when you least expect it.”
“You could be on your holidays, or you could be on a Friday night about to go out, and suddenly would come a sentence. And the sentence would have the full weight of a novel in it - it’s like a melody.” When you have the inspirational sentence, it’s all about slow, careful work, where you put things into the book, while focusing on creating “a sort of melody that’s working in the prose, that isn’t monotonous or doesn’t draw the reader’s attention to it.” In order to avoid that it seems literary or forced, you have to constantly make decisions and excisions: “Working becomes a form of erasure as much as a form of addition.”
Colm Tóibín (b. 1955) is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, journalist, critic and poet. Among his novels are ‘The Heather Blazing’ (1992), ‘The Story of the Night’ (1996), ‘The Blackwater Lightship’ (1999), ‘The Master’ (2004), ‘Mothers and Sons’ (2006), ‘Brooklyn’ (2009), ‘The Empty Family’ (2010) and ‘Nora Webster’ (2014). He is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including the 2004 Lambda Literary Award (for ‘The Master’), the 2006 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (for ‘The Master), 2009 Costa Novel Award (for ‘Brooklyn’) and the 2011 Irish PEN Award for contribution to Irish literature. Tóibín has also been shortlisted for the Booker Prize several times. He works as a professor at the Humanities at Columbia University in the U.S. For more about him see: www.colmtoibin.com/
Colm Tóibín was interviewed by Tonny Vorm in connection to the Louisiana Literature festival at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark in August 2015.
Camera: Jakob Solbakken
Edited by: Klaus Elmer
Produced by: Marc-Christoph Wagner
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2016

[@leslieu4089]

The beginning of this video is how writing poetry works for me. Sometimes a poem just tumbles out - but more often than not, it follows this process. Since finding this video - when I need to focus but everyday stresses are in my way - I watch this. Thanks, Mr. Toibin.

[@francescagillon2018]

Charles Dickens' books were written to be read aloud to the family circle. His books were serialized and published on a weekly basis in "Household words", the weekly magazine edited by Charles Dickens himself.

[@joeroganconnoisseur7364]

Wow!!! He just prescribed the best formula for writing

[@jamesmccarthy6764]

The genius. There's always a big smile on his face when he's talking about writing. He adores his craft. So many writers do it for ego reasons, it's really refreshing to listen to him speak!

[@angelrallovallejo4804]

To call someone a genius is often wrong. An exaggeration. Not in this case: I suspect that Tóibín is really one of them.

[@candy9986]

He's a Gem 💎

[@jpd8739]

What a brilliant man. I feel like such an idiot.

[@mrplatink]

You too, huh? lol

[@infinitafenix3153]

@@mrplatink Here is another one... idiot, I mean.

[@mrplatink]

@@infinitafenix3153 We, too, can learn

[@tristanstarks8827]

He literally gave a masterclass in 15 minutes!

[@mrplatink]

"You don't really exist when you're working...that will be seen in the future THAT WON'T BELONG TO YOU." How dare you, Colm! You just pointed out why I haven't finished my novel....because I thought it belonged to me.

[@SuperBlackguard]

This man explains the juggling and easing out of ideas without getting too heavy, very enlightening

[@22grena]

Love the way he can convey an idea. If the Irish have a genius for writing anything it is in their ability to bring the mysterious into plain veiw. The abiliy to pull away the curtain to reveal the bones.

[@darklingeraeld-ridge7946]

Compulsive creative process viewing - wonderful.

[@JohnCBrown-ct4bw]

Beautiful.

[@francescagillon2018]

I love the first sentence of "the Magician" : " His mother waited upstairs while the servants took coats and scarves and hats from the guests". Doesn't it evoke the film made from "the Dead" by James Joyce ?

[@lyricalwit404]

Great video..

[@Eudaimonia88]

Amazing!

[@wanjooalexkim]

Agree completely with the intensity of smell as a trigger of memory. Not sure I agree with equating reading out loud with narcissism. Interesting interview with an accomplished author.

[@mercurial5810]

He's wonderful

[@xtradelite903]

I think a great line for the thief character to have is for him/her to introduce them-self to a city person (I.e. “I’m a thief”, “I used to be a thief”, etc...).

[@elifarmbruster7080]

Genius. Love his mind.

[@sashabystrzhitskaya]

♥️

[@thijmenvanderhoeve857]

5:30

[@suttree3233]

Sir...this is a McDonald's restaurant...

[@gavinwilson2832]

Your help during this difficult time won't be easily forgotten.

[@nononouh]

3:30