All language subtitles for Masterclass Margaret Atwood Teaches Creative Writing - 18.Speculative Fiction

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So there's speculative fiction
and there's science fiction.

And there's science fiction
fantasy and there's fantasy.

And you might put them
all under a big umbrella

called wonder tales.

So wonder tales
are not naturalist.

They're not the world that
we find ourselves in here

They're not the world that
we find ourselves in here

and now today.

Speculative fiction is a way
of dealing with possibilities

that are inherent
in our society now,

but which have not yet
been fully enacted.

You can look at books like
"Brave New World," Zamyatin's

"We," and "1984,"
things for which we've

got the technology more
or less, and arranged

got the technology more
or less, and arranged

in a space on the planet
we happen to be living on.

Science fiction,
usually we think

of other galaxies, other
planets, other sorts of things

entirely.

And I write
speculative fiction not

because I don't
like the other kind,

but because I can't write it.

It's not within my skill set.

It's not within my skill set.

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If you're interested in writing
speculative fiction or even

science fiction, look
around you at what's

happening in the world.

Read some newspapers.

Often the back pages of
the newspapers, or even

a magazine like "New Scientist"
or "Scientific American"

a magazine like "New Scientist"
or "Scientific American"

will open the doors
to some of the things

that people are
working on right now,

but may not have
succeeded in doing yet.

But it does show what they're
interested in achieving.

And you can take that
idea, and just move it

a little further down the road.

My mother, I found, when
going through her effects

after she had died, had
saved two whole newspapers.

She saved the whole newspaper
about the moon landing,

She saved the whole newspaper
about the moon landing,

and she saved a newspaper
about a report made

by the Club of Rome in 1972.

And what the Club
of Rome was saying

in 1972 was if we don't mend
our ways in relationship

to the environment,
by the year 2010,

things are going
to be like this.

And we didn't, and they are.

And we didn't, and they are.

Unfortunately, human beings
are quite short-term thinkers,

and especially politicians
are short-term thinkers.

So had I been writing a
spec fic about social media,

it would have been quite
easy to predict that somebody

was going to steal
all the data and use

it to manipulate elections.

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Speculative fiction is fiction,
and therefore, all the rules

Speculative fiction is fiction,
and therefore, all the rules

that apply to writing
fiction, including

making it interesting,
making it plausible,

making it accurate to
itself, all of those things

apply to it.

Just because it's speculative
fiction does not mean

it's going to be
automatically interesting.

There is a whole category of
readers who won't read it.

They just say, I
don't read that,

which is kind of silly
of them, because there's

nothing about genre that means
that a genre book is a bad book

nothing about genre that means
that a genre book is a bad book

or that it's a good book.

It's a book, and it has to be
good on its own terms, period.

So by saying, I don't
read that, they're just

excluding a lot of
pretty good books

from their reading experience.

If you're writing speculative
fiction or science fiction,

you can't violate the rules
that you yourself have set up,

you can't violate the rules
that you yourself have set up,

or just to take it back
to "Gulliver's Travels,"

one of the origins of
this kind of writing,

if it's a society of horses
and the horses are virtuous,

you can't show an evil horse.

If the horses are,
by nature, virtuous,

they're incapable of
these bad behaviors,

and you can't therefore show
one doing those bad behaviors,

unless you're changing the
story pretty radically.

unless you're changing the
story pretty radically.

So if I say it is so that
women aren't allowed to read,

I can't show them
gaily reading books

in public, just for instance.

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Are there some themes that are
common to speculative fiction?

It depends whether the
speculative fiction

is a utopia or a dystopia.

So in a utopia,
you're portraying

So in a utopia,
you're portraying

a world that is supposed to be
better than the one we live in.

And in a dystopia,
you're portraying

a world that is supposed to be
worse than the one we live in.

So a single person alone on
an island is not a dystopia.

Dystopias and utopias
are all about societies,

or groups of people, either
living better or living worse.

And it's also true that
one person's utopia

And it's also true that
one person's utopia

is going to be another
person's dystopia.

So "Brave New World"
is a case in point.

The people in "Brave
New World" think

they're living a pretty
good life, the character who

comes in from outside
and looks at them

thinks they're
degenerate and soulless.

So it depends who's looking,
and it's also usually true

that within every
utopia, there's

a little dystopia, quite
frequently located in the past.

a little dystopia, quite
frequently located in the past.

This was the horrible past.

This was the awful thing
that we needed to fix.

Or it can be in a dystopia
also located in the past.

This was the better world
that has now been destroyed.

It's a yin yang arrangement.

If the world is
worse, in comparison

with what is it worse?

If it's better, in comparison
with what is it better?

If it's better, in comparison
with what is it better?

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The story of "Oryx and
Crake" is that our hero,

whose name began by
being Jimmy, but who

has renamed himself as
Snowman, is living in a tree.

And around him in
his vicinity are

living some
bioengineered humanoids

living some
bioengineered humanoids

who have been designed
so that they don't have

the built-in human
problems that have got us

into so much trouble.

So for example, they
don't require clothing.

They've got built-in sunblock
and insect repellent.

I would love that.

And so they don't need clothes.

And because they
don't need clothes,

they don't need to grow
any of the materials

from which clothing is made, or
create any of those materials,

from which clothing is made, or
create any of those materials,

or kill any animals
to get their skins.

They don't need
to do any of that.

They are vegetarian, so
they don't kill any animals.

And not only are
they vegetarian,

but they can eat
leaves, like rabbits.

And therefore, they don't
need to cultivate any crops.

They are egalitarian.

They have no interest
in kings, leaders,

or any people of that kind.

They're peaceful.

They mate seasonally, like
other mammals, but unlike us.

So there's never
any no means no.

There's never any can't
go out with you on Friday

because I'm washing my hair.

Nobody gets rejected.

And when it's not the
season for mating,

nobody's interested in sex.

So they don't have marriage.

The children are
the children of all.

The children are
the children of all.

And when mating season
approaches, parts of them

turn blue like parts of a lot
of other mammals and creatures.

They go into mating
plumage, as it were.

And mating is group
mating, like that of cats.

So there isn't any
patriarchy because nobody

knows who is their daddy.

knows who is their daddy.

So no property ownership.

Everything is shared.

And those are the people
that Jimmy is living next to.

And as it turns out, he
finds them pretty boring.

So then we get
Jimmy's back story.

And that is the story of how
these people were invented

and how our kind
of human being then

had to be destroyed, because we
know from looking at history,

had to be destroyed, because we
know from looking at history,

particularly the
history of colonialism,

what happens to peaceful,
egalitarian types of people

when weapon-wielding,
hierarchical other people

appear in their vicinity.

Usually they get
slaughtered or enslaved.

So that's not going to
happen to these people

because their creator
has annihilated

because their creator
has annihilated

most of our kind of humanity.

That's the sort of
deep back story,

but the front story is how
we follow Jimmy, Snowman,

in his day to day adventures.

And then what happens when
some other human beings like

him show up, what will he do?

What inspired this
book was rumination

What inspired this
book was rumination

on extinction, which there
is a lot going on right now.

And also, rumination
on what gets people

into the kinds of problematic
situations they so frequently

seem to find themselves in.

So how would you get rid
of the characteristics

that we have that get
us into these problems

that we have that get
us into these problems

if you were bioengineering
a new race of people?

I was asked to address a
meeting of some geneticists.

And I was talking about
my use of this in fiction.

And I gave them
about seven examples

of new things that
could be created.

And some of them actually
already had been created.

Some of them exist now.

Some of them I had invented.

Some of them I had invented.

So I gave them this
list, and then I said,

I made up four of those.

And they went, hurray--

[LAUGHS] --because they
couldn't tell themselves.

For speculative
fiction, for me, it

has to have its roots in
things we can already do

or on the road to
being able to do.

So the growing of
human organs in pigs

had already started by the
time I wrote "Oryx and Crake."

They had not quite
succeeded, but now they have.

They had not quite
succeeded, but now they have.