All language subtitles for Masterclass N. K. Jemisin Teaches Fantasy and Science Fiction Writing - 04.Micro.Worldbuilding Conceiving The Culture And People

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N.K. JEMISIN Differences are
observable in every species

on our planet.

The question becomes whether
our culture ascribes any meaning

to those differences.

Now that we've got our macro
world set up in our environment

and we've chosen the place
where this culture is going

to develop, micro
world building is

where we begin the process of
actually creating the people

who will populate this world.

We create the culture, we
create the power dynamics,

and then we can go from there
on creating a character.

So with macro world building,
you started with the planet,

and with micro world
building, you also

start at sort of the most
macro scale, which is

the development of the species.

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You can decide whether you
want to deal with humans

or nonhumans, but for
the sake of the exercise,

we're going to talk about
humans because I just

want to make it clear that
even small changes in the way

that these humans
interact with their world

is going to create a wildly
different culture from anything

that you've ever
seen on this planet.

So we'll start with species.

The human species, we kind
of know what humans are like.

We're still figuring out
things about ourselves,

but for the most part,
we pretty much understand

how the human species operates.

There's no reason
why you can't tweak

that a little bit, though,
because the morphology

of the human species, the
ways in which our bodies work

and are developed, are
constantly changing with time,

i.e.

evolution, and are
constantly changing

in response to our
environment as we

try to adapt to the things
that change around us.

So there's no reason why you
can't, for example, create,

as I did in "The Broken Earth"
series, a human species that

is adapted for life on
a very seismic planet.

All the people in "The
Broken Earth" trilogy

have an organ in their brains
that we don't in our world,

or at least not that we know of.

But they have an organ in
their brain that is reacting to

or is able to kind of give
them a little bit of advance

warning about seismic activity
that's about to happen.

And in creating that particular
variation on the human species,

I literally just
looked at other species

on our planet which
do react early

when they perceive an
earthquake or something coming.

And when you look at birds
and other animals that

react to those
seismic vibrations,

they do have a little
organ in their brain

or they've got
senses or abilities

that kind of warn them in
advance that this is coming.

So I just transferred
that into people.

So even though you're dealing
with the human species,

it doesn't have to be
exactly humans like us.

But then when you're dealing
with their morphology, the ways

in which their body is developed
that's different from ours,

you need to think about
whether these people are

aware of those differences.

Human beings are
endlessly curious.

Our own species learned rapidly
what our bodies were like

and how they worked.

We can see evidence in
the earliest cultures

of people kind of
figuring out where

the organs are, how the organs
operate, and things like that.

So these people would be aware
of the particular uniqueness

of their morphology.

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Then we start getting into
the more subtle breakdowns

of humanity.

We can get into raciation.

In our own planet,
for example, one

of the morphological
changes that we've

developed to respond
to our environment

is that we've developed
different skin coloration based

on the amount of UV
exposure that we've got.

People who are from cultures
that developed at the equator

where they get a lot more
sunlight or a lot more intense

sunlight tend to
have darker skin

so that they are more protected
against UV rays, whereas people

who developed in
cultures further

from the equator, closer
to polar regions and things

like that, developed lighter
skin because they needed

to get more light
through their skin

in order to develop Vitamin D.

So that's an example of a
nonsignificant difference.

We're still the same species.

We can still have
children together.

There's absolutely
no real difference

between lighter skinned
and darker skinned people.

These differences are observable
in every species on our planet.

We see melanistic jaguars
and jaguars with rossettes.

We see elephants come in
different colorations,

and different head
shapes, and so forth.

These are natural
differences that exist just

simply because of evolution.

The question becomes whether
our culture ascribes any meaning

to those differences.

And then we're starting
to get into what

we call acculturation.

That's where the
culture begins to decide

whether these minor,
insignificant differences

between the ways that our
species develops are important

or not.

To go back to the
example of skin color,

there was a time in our
world when skin color meant--

or skin color differences
just simply meant

that those people
were from far away

and they probably had
interesting stuff to trade.

So we didn't have the kinds
of negative associations

with dark skin that we do now.

If you go to the Cloisters
here in New York,

a great medieval art
museum, you can see art

from the 1200s or
the 1000s where

you see that different
people or people from Africa

were treated as kind
of welcome guests

because they showed up with
gold and they showed up

kind of styling with interesting
colors or interesting clothing

that we didn't see--

or that Europeans didn't
see at that point.

So you can see an example of
how that cultural difference was

not what we consider
it to be right now.

And then that culture or
those differences or those

values that we ascribed to those
skin colors began to change,

and these are things
that can change again.

So one of the things that you
need to decide at this point

is how is your human
species constructed.

Are they the same
as in our world

or are they wildly
different from in our world,

and what values do the people
in this world ascribe to those

differences?

You can make up
stuff completely.

It doesn't have to be the
same kinds of differences

that exist in our species.

Again, an example from
"The Broken Earth" series,

I created a people
that has hair that

is naturally air filtering,
what they call ashblow hair.

They can draw a piece of
their hair across their face

and it can work as a
kind of respiratory mask.

But-- so that's an
example of a way

that you can create a
completely human species,

minor cosmetic differences,
but wildly different

from our own world.

You also have to consider the
fact that these differences are

essentially arbitrary
and the meanings that we

choose to ascribe to them
are essentially arbitrary.

In our own world,
for example, we

know that there are people
who can digest lactose

and those who can't,
like me, and we

know that this difference
makes a difference in what

those people can eat, and
how much nutrition they're

able to get, or what kinds of
nutrition they're able to get,

but we don't seem to ascribe any
real value to it beyond that.

We don't treat it as people
who don't digest lactose

are superior to people who can
because those people grew up

with cows.

They're terrible people.

You know, we don't do that.

And we don't ascribe differences
to face shape or configuration

in general.

So you need to decide whether
the people in your world

are going to ascribe
any kind of value

to the normal, minor differences
that exist in their species.

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So as an example of
raciation, again,

from "The Broken Earth"
series, let's look

at the difference between
Orogenes and the Guardians

or people that become Guardians.

It turns out that when Orogenes
have children with people

who aren't Oregenes,
the result is

a child that isn't
necessarily an Oregene,

but they still have a little bit
of the morphological difference

that makes them slightly
different from regular people.

In this world,
you've got Orogenes,

who have a very
highly developed organ

in the back of their brains
that allows them to affect

seismology, and then you've
got regular people that

have the same organ, but
it's much less developed.

Guardians are somewhere
in between those two.

And because they are
just different enough

and because they can pass
on the trait of orogeny

to their own children,
the societal value

that they've
ascribed to Guardians

is that you need to be
kept out of the gene pool

and we also need to
put you to good use.

So, for various reasons that
are elucidated in the book,

for various reasons,
the Guardians

are sequestered or
taken away early

and brought to a place where
they are modified mechanically

in order to suppress their
ability or potential ability

to develop any kind
of orogenic powers,

and they can actually then
suppress orogenic powers

in any Orogenes
that they encounter.

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So now that we've
created our culture

and we've created the location
in which this culture develops,

we need to figure out the ways
in which this culture will

be wildly different
from our own world.

And so for the sake
of our exercise,

I want you to select
one characteristic

of a culture that's
going to be drastically

different from anything
in our own world.

This can be its
religion, its economy,

its ways of thinking about
how human beings were created,

so its cosmogony.

Cosmogony is another
significant way

that cultures
develop differently.

Cosmology is determining
where we came from

or figuring out how the world
and the universe was created.

And in a lot of
cases, each culture

is going to develop
its own creation

mythos and its own religion
kind of as a result of that,

so that's one big difference
between different cultures.

You have to think about the
fact that, in our world,

there are similar cultures that
develop in similar environments

and yet they're still
wildly different.

Why?

This is because
human beings tend

to react in sort
of predictable ways

to the presence of
other human beings

and there are predictable
sociological things

that happen when two cultures
are close to each other.

One of the things that
affects how a society develops

is syncretism, is
basically building

on what has come before.

All societies do that to
some degree or another,

but it's a question
of how much they

choose to forget or
leave behind whatever

it was that they used to do.

Differentiation is important.

From those people over
there, lots of people

don't want to be like
the culture that's nearby

because that's their rival.

They're competing for the same
resources and in some cases,

they may have had conflict
at some point in the past

or potentially in
the future, so they

want to be wildly different
from each other just

to kind of develop that
whole us versus them dynamic

that human beings tend to do.

If you've decided to set
your culture, for example,

in a desert and there's
a swamp area nearby,

these people are going to
be the anti swamp people.

They may have decided to develop
their culture in such a way

that swamps are
evil, mud is bad,

where they venerate sand over
mud, something to that effect.

So this is one of the ways
in which culture develops.

And then there's the economy.

How do they get resources?

How do they distribute and
disseminate those resources?

How do they trade resources with
organizations or groups nearby?

All of these things
have an impact

on the culture that develops.

If you just change one
cultural aspect of any society

relative to the
societies on Earth,

you're going to see pretty
substantial differences.

So right now, select
one characteristic

that you're going to run with
as the drastic difference

between that world
and our world.

If it helps, here's a graphic
of different characteristics,

societal characteristics,
that you can choose.

Pick one of these and then write
down how drastically different

or how different it's
going to be from our world.

It can be a subtle
difference, but you're

going to see the ways in which
it affects the society as you

start to work with it.

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Some examples of ways that the
social or sociological factors

will change in your world.

Let's run through the idea
of water people living

on a world that was
mostly desert or a world

where there was
very little water.

You're going to have--

let's say that you want to
try and play with what kind

of language they would develop.

They might develop a language
that centers and venerates

words having to do with water,
or humidity, or moisture.

They might develop
negative language or curse

words centered around the sun,
or sand, or burning to death,

or dying of thirst.

So this is a society
where, instead of F bombs,

they might drop thirst
bombs or something.

Let's say that the same
society decided to--

or developed a religion
that was centered

around venerating water
or venerating this one

particular lake or small
inland ocean that is kind

of like their main environment.

They might talk about
it as a sacred place.

It might be that only
certain people get

to travel to the middle
or the bottom of the lake

and everybody else
has to kind of, like,

make do on the
edges of the lake.

Or they may gather all
on the edges of the lake

to pray every evening,
and this is a factor

that you've got
build into the story.

Let's say that these
water-bound people developed

a different sense of
gender compared to humans

or compared to the
cultures that you

might be most familiar with.

So let's say that they--

well, if they're water
people on a desert planet,

they may not be human.

If they are amphibious
or something

and they probably lay
eggs at the water's edge,

they might be intersex or,
as we call with animals,

hermaphroditic.

With people, we
don't use that word.

So depending on what kind
of environment you've got,

that's going to make
a huge difference

in how those sociological
characteristics are expressed.

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Here's an example of a way
in which element X can affect

pretty much everything from
that tier of the world building

process on down at the micro
level or the macro level.

Micro level or the macro level.

So with my
"Inheritance" trilogy,

the element X actually intrudes
at the universal level,

at the level of the
laws of physics,

in the way that I constructed
the gods of this universe

and their decision to create
the universe or the way

that they created the universe.

They formed out of effectively
nothingness created

by a kind of giant whirlpool
called the Maelstrom,

and then they decided
from there that they

were going to fight
with each other,

and the fighting
created the universe.

And the gods continue to
interact with this universe,

so you see their intervention.

You see their involvement
in the universe

at pretty much multiple
levels of the story.

There's one part
of the story that's

told from the perspective of
a god who talks about the fact

that he likes to steal
planets and suns.

He's got a pet son that he has
named that he carries around

on a little chain, or he
rides around as a little ball,

or he plays with all the time.

He has an orrery of
planets that he's

stolen from actual solar
systems that's floating around.

They're miniaturized
a little bit

and they float
around his chosen son

and he just does this for fun
because that's what he does.

The culture on this world
has developed around the idea

that the gods are real.

They're not in question.

You have no choice
but to believe

that they exist because you see
the evidence of it all around.

However, this world does
actually have atheists

and I had to do
a lot of thinking

about how a world with
confirmed, present, visible

gods could possibly
have atheism.

Well, I mean, these
are people who've

decided that they know
that the gods exist,

they just don't care.

It doesn't matter.

They're not important.

They've decided that people
are more important than gods

or they want to focus their
energy on understanding how

people work, and
they'll just leave

the gods do their own thing.

So that's how atheism
works in that world

and that's the way that
element X can be incorporated

at multiple levels.