All language subtitles for Masterclass N. K. Jemisin Teaches Fantasy and Science Fiction Writing - 09.The Psychology Of Characters

[MUSIC PLAYING]

N. K. JEMISIN: You can
learn by observing people,

by understanding people.

You need to understand
the limitations

of your own
understanding of people

if you're going to
convey people right.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

So now that you have
created a physical world,

and you've created a culture
to populate that world,

and you've decided within this
culture what kind of person

would be the most
interesting person to center

on for storytelling purposes--
someone powerful, someone not,

someone who's at the
center of the society,

or someone at its margins--

now that you've decided
kind of what kind of person

will exist in this
kind of world,

now you actually
need to narrow it

down and decide
who your viewpoint

character is going to be.

Now this will not necessarily
be your only character

and they will not necessarily
be your protagonist.

Viewpoint character and
protagonist are two completely

different things.

They can be the same, but
they don't have to be.

Before we get into
this too deeply,

I want to point out that my
own background is not in coming

from formal writing training.

What I did end up going to
school for was psychology.

My bachelor's degree is in that.

I went on to get
a master's degree.

And I worked in higher ed
for, oh gosh, like 20 years,

working with students,
late adolescents,

young adults who are going
through that whole transition

into adulthood.

And so my understanding
of how people develop

is rooted in psychology and
this is one of the things

that I use to develop
how I develop character.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Some older science
fiction novels

tended to have not
great characterization

because in a lot of
cases, those novels were

written by people who didn't
know very much about people.

And the values of
science fiction

back in the golden
and silver age

were that you centered on
getting the science right.

It was important to make sure
that you got the science right.

And not so much with the people.

It's no longer
acceptable to have

spot-on science but characters
that read like cartoons.

Now it's important that you
have characters that feel real.

In a lot of cases, characters of
mine will come to me in dreams.

With the "Inheritance
Trilogy," for example,

I dreamed up several of
the gods that we ended up

following as characters
throughout the story.

And in the dream,
they were just images.

They were just a visual of a
man with stars in his hair.

And you knew that, in the
dream, that if you reached

into his hair, your
hand would be in space,

and if you fell into his hair,
you would fall into space

and die.

This was a dream that I had.

And I dreamed of
another character

who was the child
that stole planets.

And he was playing
with little planets

that he just sort of juggled
and made spin around in the air

just because he could.

But I needed to develop
personalities for these people.

And I needed to understand
their backgrounds.

I needed to
understand the trauma

that they were dealing with.

Because these gods were
corporeal beings who,

in this particular case, had
been forced into human form

and kept from being as
powerful as they normally were,

which I imagined would be
pretty traumatic for a God.

And I have some experience
in working with people

from traumatized experiences,
or traumatized backgrounds.

And I was able to kind of
at that point extrapolate

that okay, this person has
been forced into a shape that

does not adhere to them.

They've been forced to do
things that they don't want,

including sexual experiences
against their will,

violent experiences, torture.

I needed to explore
what that was

going to do to
someone who previously

had complete freedom, even
freedom over their bodily form.

So I was able to kind
of go from there.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I think it's absolutely
crucial that science fiction

and fantasy writers
understand the humanities.

You don't have to go
to school for them.

You don't have to
major in English,

or history, or any of
those social sciences.

You do have to
understand them, though,

and you do have to
respect them as sciences

just as important as natural
sciences, or physical sciences.

And if you don't
know people, you

can learn by observing people,
by understanding people,

by making sure that your
preconceptions of people

aren't coming from
something shallow or false,

like stereotypes.

Making sure that
you actually have

tried to engage with the
complexity of people.

People are three-dimensional,
people are contradictory,

people don't always behave in
ways that television or media

suggests that they behave.

I don't know that this is
a thing that everyone does,

but you know, go sit down in
a coffee shop at some point.

And try not to be
skeevy about it,

but just observe
how people interact.

Observe people who are not
from your own background.

Observe people who have
different bodies from yours,

different possible
perspectives from yours.

Maybe sit down and have
a conversation with them.

You know, talk to
your friends who

come from those backgrounds.

Hopefully you have some.

If you don't, maybe you
should work on that.

Another really
important thing, though,

and I touched on
this briefly before,

but another really important
thing that writers should do

is read.

Read books from people
from different backgrounds.

Read books written by people
from those backgrounds,

read people--

read books that are about those
other cultures and other parts

of the world, anthropological
books and things

like that, history
books that are complex,

and that ask questions,
and don't just

present propaganda to you.

You need to understand
the limitations

of your own
understanding of people

if you're going to
convey people right.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

It's absolutely crucial that
you avoid stereotypes, cliches,

and just wrong information
about how people genuinely are.

So a good example is,
for whatever reason,

people in our society have
this preconception of what

traumatized people look like.

We see how this impacts our
society at multiple levels.

People who experience
rape aren't

believed if they aren't behaving
a particular way-- shaking,

crying, freaking out.

And the truth of the matter is
that trauma doesn't normally

look like what we think
it dramatically does.

You know, what we
see in the movies

and what we see of trauma
in entertainment is not what

it really looks like in life.

In a lot of cases, people
who've come from backgrounds

of abuse or torture present
in this completely calm

or measured way.

They are controlled.

They have good reasons to
need control in their lives.

And in a lot of cases, we hear
stories about police or judges

not believing in rape or
other kinds of trauma victims

because they seem so controlled,
so visibly, outwardly safe

and together.

But it's important to understand
that that's how trauma

frequently presents itself.

Trauma is often
calm, unpleasant--

because people who've
been traumatized

have a good reason
to keep others

at bay, or at arm's length.

Unpleasant, unfriendly,
sometimes hilarious.

Sometimes people who have been
traumatized tell great jokes.

You know, I've heard that a
lot of really great comedians

come from backgrounds of trauma.

And it's partly because
if you can't overcome

this horrible, harmful thing
that's happened to you,

you might as well laugh at it.

It's important that
a lot of us kind of

reexamine the ways
in which we think

people behave and make
sure that they actually

do behave that way.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

If you were creating
a character,

iceberg theory
doesn't really apply

because every part of a person's
background and personality

is immediately and
visibly relevant

to how they present themselves
over the course of a story.

You don't necessarily--
they're not necessarily

going to spend a lot of time
talking about their childhood,

but their childhood
has an impact

on the adult that
they have become.

And you, as the author,
need to be aware of that.

So let's say that you decide to
create an unlikable character,

as I did with Essun
in "The Fifth Season."

Essun comes across
as standoffish,

cold, angry, sarcastic.

She has a deeply traumatized
background, and one of the ways

that her trauma sort
of communicates itself

is in a combination of trying
to kind of keep other people

at arm's length and flashbacks.

If something triggers her
trauma response, she can--

and does throughout the story--

kill hoards of people.

She doesn't necessarily
intend to do it.

She's not necessarily
trying to do it.

It's just the way
that she was trained

and it's the way
that her body reacts.

This is a thing that I
know as a counselor, which

is that if you have
been traumatized

to the point of PTSD, you
tend to react to small threats

the same way that you did to
that big threat that caused

the PTSD in the first place.

And so you know,
minor things happen

to Essun over the course
of the story in some cases,

and she overreacts wildly.

And I deliberately made her
behave in these ways on purpose

because I know that this is what
traumatized people are like.

And I wanted her to be
realistically traumatized,

even if it made her an
unlikable character.

[OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING]

So in "The Fifth
Season," when we're

following Essun's
plotline, Essun

has run away from her community.

The world is slowly
descending into the state

of being in a fifth
season because

a terrible, huge
earthquake has happened

far to the North that
has started to blot out

the light in the sky.

It's getting colder.

She's on the road traveling,
away from her old village,

looking for her daughter.

And at some point,
there an incident

where she wakes up and finds a
weird kid sitting next to her,

sitting at the fire that
she's been keeping all night.

So this is her first real
chance to look at Hoa.

She wakes up in the middle of
the night and finds him there,

but then the next
morning, she can actually

get a good look at him.

"Hoa also has icewhite eyes.

Real, actual icewhite.

Scared you a bit when you
woke up in the morning

and he looked at you--

all that dark mud
surrounding two points

of glaring silvery-blue.

He doesn't look quite human, but
then people with icewhite eyes

rarely do.

You've heard that in Yumenes
among the Breeder usecaste,

icewhite eyes are-- were--

especially desirable.

Sanzeds liked that icewhite
eyes were intimidating,

and a little creepy.

They are.

But the eyes aren't
what makes Hoa creepy.

He's inordinately
cheerful, for one.

When you rose the morning
after he joined you,

he was already awake, and
playing with your tinderbox.

There was nothing in the meadow
with which to make a fire--

only the meadowgrass, which
would have burned up in seconds

even if you could
have found enough dry,

and probably touched off a
grassfire in the process--

so you hadn't taken the box out
of your pack the night before.

But he had it, humming
idly to himself

as he twirled the
flint in his fingers,

and that meant he'd been
digging in your pack.

It didn't put you in the
best of moods for the day."

So this was the
way that I decided

to introduce this character,
for a couple of reasons.

First of all, I wanted
you to understand

that part of his
uniqueness, or part

of what makes him an
interesting character,

is the fact that he's
visually distinctive.

He turns out to be from a
race that Essun has never

seen before.

He's got physical
racial characteristics

that she's seen, but never like
kind of all in one collection

before.

He's wearing a coating
of mud because--

you know, he looks
like he's been

through some kind of
disaster obviously,

but he's a kid who's been
through a disaster who's

somehow cheerful.

There's a tendency
for people to assume

that those who've been
through trauma all

have a very predictable
and recognizable pattern

of behavior.

That they're going
to be distraught,

that they're going to be
crying, or maybe catatonic,

or not speaking very much.

And you know, this is a child
who's been through, obviously,

some kind of terrible thing, if
he's covered in mud and naked.

But obviously, he's
having fun, and he's

digging through people's stuff.

So you know, his behavior
is a little disturbing,

not quite what you
expect it to be.

And I wanted to let audiences
know, kind of through Essun's

perspective, that
there's something

really weird about this kid.

And that there's maybe
something worth paying

attention to about him.

He's not just a
normal child who's

decided to join her for fear of
being alone after a disaster.