All language subtitles for Masterclass N. K. Jemisin Teaches Fantasy and Science Fiction Writing - 12.The Hierarchy Of Characterization The Character Arc

[MUSIC PLAYING]

N.K. JEMISIN: We instinctively
feel more connection

with a person who we see going
through this process of trying

to decide who they want to be
and then making that decision

and then going forward.

We like to root for an underdog.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

When you're trying to
create a new story,

or when you're trying to create
the-- the plot of a story,

you've probably
heard people refer

to a typical
three-part plot arc.

That's just basically
a beginning, a middle,

and an end.

You start off with the
character in a basic state.

You carry the characters through
a period of rising action.

You hit a climax.

Usually that's where there's
a big fight or something that

happens.

Then there's a period
of falling action,

and then maybe you have a coda
or a resolution thereafter.

And a typical character arc
follows a similar format.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

A character plot
arc can take both

the internal and external form.

We're going to talk first about
the externally-driven character

arc.

Now, that also comes in three
stages, a beginning, a middle,

and an end.

What I use as
terminology for this

is the character's
first in a steady state.

It can be a kind of
complacent state,

where they feel
comfortable, are just

going about their daily lives,
their day-to-day commute,

whatever.

Then there's an
inciting incident,

something that impacts them
on a-- on a huge level.

Inciting incidents can take
a lot of different forms,

and not all readers are going
to be interested in all inciting

incidents.

This is why when you do see
an externally-driven character

arc, usually it's kind
of important to spend

some time establishing
that this character is

interesting and worth
following, worth caring about.

So it's a good idea with an
externally-driven character arc

to actually start in that
steady state with the character,

because then you have time to
explore the person's character,

make them someone that the
audience will empathize with,

and then when this
terrible thing happens,

then we care what
happens to them.

There are all sorts of
disaster movies out there.

There's so many disaster
movies that it's actually

hard to care when a character
ends up in, you know,

aliens attacking or whatever.

But if we've had some time
to get to know the character,

get to like the character,
then we can move forward.

In the movie "Independence Day,"
we spend a good bit of time

with the protagonist,
Will Smith.

There are several
protagonists in that movie,

but the most time that the
camera kind of focuses in on

is showing us his life, his
partner, his relationships,

his adoptive son.

And then the inciting
incident happens in a moment

that we can completely
empathize with.

He's gotten up.

He's going to the bathroom.

He's just going about
his regular day.

We see in every way
that he is an every man,

and then we feel that kind of--

the-- the visceral,
scary, disturbing moment

when he realizes that his entire
world has changed forever.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

In order to talk about a--
a typical, internally-driven

character arc, once
again, I'm going

to refer to
psychological theory.

There are several
theories out there

about how particular kinds
of identities develop.

And the most typical identity
development theory models

have certain stages to them.

And people progress
through these stages

over the course of
their lives many times,

sometimes repeatedly.

They can regress at
some certain points.

That's not necessarily
a bad thing.

They can go through these
stages and then have to pause

and kind of reconsider how they
resolved them the first time

and then resolve them
again a different way.

So don't feel like these
stages are in any way rigid

or-- or constricting.

But a typical identity
development theory--

and identity development
models originated

with Black racial
identity development,

so this gives you a
kind of an idea of what

we're working with--

begin with a sort of steady
state of complacency,

where you're comfortable with
the way that life has been.

You have not had any reasons
to question what's going on.

Things are safe.

Things are-- they
seem "normal" to you.

And this usually
changes when you have

something called an encounter.

Now, with racial identity
development theory,

typically that's a person
of color's first experience

with racism.

For a white person, it can
be their first encounter

with racism too,
noticing someone else

going through that.

But in-- regardless of the
identity development model,

it's a traumatic moment,
where the person is running

into something that tells
them that the world is not

as normal and safe as
they once thought it was.

This can cause a-- a period of
kind of groping and flailing

to try and figure out
what the heck is going on,

or a-- a feeling of just
generally not being happy,

which we call disintegration.

And during the disintegration
phase, in a lot of cases,

you'll--

you'll hear people questioning
their existing identity,

wondering why their identity
is somehow unpleasant,

or why this bad thing happened.

For a lot of Black children,
for example, at this stage,

they will question,
why was I born Black.

And I'm sure many of you have
heard of the experiments where

Black children would see
dolls, like little toy

dolls of different races,
and would invariably

choose the white
doll, because they

identify with the white doll
and don't want to identify

with the Black doll.

That's an example
of disintegration,

and it does typically
happen quite

young in-- in some people.

Reintegration,
though, is when you

start to absorb ideas about
what this identity should be

from sources around yourself.

That can come from parents.

That can come from
pop culture or media.

It can come from books.

And in reintegration, the
person begins to try and find

a-- a sense of self
that feels more positive

or at least reassuring.

It may not necessarily
be a positive identity.

They could latch
on to a stereotype.

They could latch on to
something really negative

about themselves and
decide to run with that.

But it's something
that gives them

a sense of power and control.

And in the final stage,
which is resolution, you--

you run into people
who are, basically,

at a point, again, of--

of steady state, of
comfort, of feeling stable.

They may not necessarily
be in a good place,

but they feel stable
again, and they

feel able to deal
with future encounters

if they do have that moment.

So I decided to use a variation
of this identity development

model, where a character who
is in a steady state basically

encounters something
that forces them

to rebuild who they
are as a person

and decide on a new
path for themselves.

This is the basis of the
internally-driven character

arc.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

A state of complacency
is just simply

a state of maybe not being
aware that your identity is

meaningful.

You know, for-- for a
great many white people,

they go through their lives
not thinking of themselves

as white, or not thinking of
themselves as racial at all,

or racialized at all.

And, you know, having that
moment where they're suddenly

confronted with the
idea that you're white,

and this means something-- not
necessarily anything negative,

just means something--

it can be a moment of
kind of shock and--

and sort of discomfort
for some people.

Identity development
models exist

for queer people who
go through their lives

maybe thinking of themselves
as straight and then

suddenly have the moment
where they suddenly realize,

oh, maybe I'm not.

[LAUGHS] Or it can happen
with disabled people,

often at the point--

the encounter point is often
when they become disabled,

or when they begin to realize
that their disability marks

them as different
from other people.

In general, the
state of complacency

is the state that we expect
most people to be in.

So you don't necessarily
need to explain complacency.

Most people are expected
to just kind of go

through life sort of
blithely, not aware of racism

or other forms of bigotry,
or just being treated badly

by other people.

Most people expect that at
most points in their life,

they're going to
be treated okay.

But the-- the moment of
suddenly realizing somebody

doesn't like you, or society
doesn't accommodate you

because of who and what you
are, can be a real shock.

And it's-- you know, for the
purposes of storytelling,

it can be a very
dramatic moment.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

We instinctively
feel more connection

with a person who we see going
through this process of trying

to decide who they want to be
and then making that decision

and then going forward,
and, if necessary,

taking up arms [LAUGHS]
to-- to make that happen.

Because, you know, we-- we
like to root for an underdog.

And a person who is
at war with themselves

or unhappy with themselves
in some ways is an underdog.

We want people happy.

We want to see people make
themselves better and--

and stronger.

To refer back to
the Mad Max model,

Furiosa is past
complacency and encounter.

It's very likely that the
period of the apocalypse,

whenever that was, was
her encounter moment.

We don't know whether she
was born after the apocalypse

or-- or what, but, you know,
kind of coming up in the world,

realizing that her
status as a woman

puts her in a-- a
dangerous position.

That life as a woman in
the post-apocalyptic world

can be terrible, and
she's adapted to it,

but we see she's not happy.

In our first-- her-- our
first scenes with her,

she just seems miserable.

Definitely not in a state
of happy complacency.

And she begins the
process of reintegration

over the course of the film.

She first decides that she
wants to rescue the other women

around her and take them to
the place where she remembers

last being happy, the place
where she was last complacent.

But once she gets
there and realizes

that that place has
effectively been destroyed,

and her only choice is to
go back and reform the place

that she came from,
reform Immortan Joe's

community, that's her
moment of reintegration.

She has formed a
new identity around,

yeah, okay, the post-apocalyptic
world is terrible for women.

We're going to change that.

We're going to make it better.

And then we see her resolution
throughout the course

of the film, at the
end of the film.

That's a great character
arc, and it's only

like the last two stages of
that identity development model.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

We have to acknowledge
the fact that there

are certain characters
in our society

who have a much harder
time establishing empathy

with the audience,
and that's largely

because the audience
has not been introduced

to certain kinds of characters.

This is an issue of the
center and the margins again.

Our society gives lots of
opportunities for readers,

consumers, viewers, to empathize
with cishet white guys,

with able-bodied people, with
young, attractive people--

and when we say attractive, we
mean conventionally attractive,

thin, you know, sexy, whatever
you want to call that.

And our society does not
provide a lot of opportunities

to empathize with
other kinds of people.

For example, we see
lots of characters

who are overweight depicted
as villains or comic relief.

They're not
necessarily the people

who you want to see as the
hero, powering through things,

because that's not what
we've been seeing a lot of.

We don't read a lot of that,
and so we're not used to it.

And-- and there is a sort
of preprogrammed response

as-- as a result
of that, where when

the audience sees a
character who is overweight,

they feel primed to
laugh at that character

or primed to suspect that
character of villainy

or something.

And so it can be
difficult to establish

that this character has stakes
that are worth caring about.

But it's important
for us to do this,

because without
actually showing more

of these characters in
empathetic moments, then we--

we find it harder to empathize
with these people in real life.

All right.

So now I'm going to read a
passage from the beginning

of "The City We Became."

"I paint the city.

Back when I was in school,
there was an artist

who came in on Fridays to give
us free lessons in perspective

and lighting and other shit that
white people go to art school

to learn.

Except this guy had done
that, and he was Black.

I'd never seen a
Black artist before.

For a minute, I thought
maybe I could be one too.

I can be, sometimes,
deep in the night,

on a rooftop in Chinatown,
with a spray can

for each hand and
a bucket of drywall

paint that somebody left outside
after doing up their living

room in lilac, I move in,
scuttling, crab-like swirls.

The drywall stuff I
can't use too much of.

It'll start flaking off
after a couple of rains.

Spray paint's better
for everything,

but I like the contrast of
the two textures, liquid black

on rough lilac, red
edging the black.

I'm painting a hole.

It's like a throat
that doesn't start

with a mouth or end in lungs.

A thing that breathes
and swallows endlessly,

never filling.

No one will see it except
people in planes angling

toward Laguardia from the
Southwest, a few tourists who

take helicopter tours and
NYPD aerial surveillance.

I don't care what they see.

It's not for them."

This is a kid whose
identities are only

slightly overlapping with mine.

I am not a queer homeless kid.

I'm not a teenager anymore.

[LAUGHS] I-- well, he's
actually in his early 20s,

but I think at the
time that I wrote this,

I never really
explained his age.

But you know, I'm
not young anymore.

I'm not an artist who does
exterior or outdoor stuff.

I don't use spray paint.

I don't know what [LAUGHS]
living room paint really

feels like, [LAUGHS]
because I haven't

tried using it on a rooftop.

So, you know, in
a lot of ways, I'm

appropriating the
identity of someone that

is very different from myself.

And in a lot of ways,
this is a person

who is more marginalized
than myself.

And so I had to
do a lot of things

to try and make sure that
I was speaking accurately

with his voice, if I did.

I have a number of experiences
in working with populations

of young people from
this background,

so I at least have
spoken to people who--

who speak like this and
who have these concerns

and who have these experiences.

I'm not using any particular
person or a real-life person,

so I'm trying not to
appropriate real people here.

But I am speaking in a
voice that possibly could be

told better by another person.

The story in "The
City We Became"

is not about him being a
Black, queer, homeless person.

That's background material.

And I feel like all
writers have an obligation

to write people from different
backgrounds into their stories,

because that's what
we see in real life.

This is a story that is meant
to be true to the New York

that I live in.

And the New York
that I live in is

full of people who
aren't very much like me,

so I'm going to write
about those people,

and I want to write about them
respectfully and accurately,

in a way that kind of
feels true to their voice.

But I'm not going to tell
their specific stories,

their identity-specific stories.

And so, you know,
this isn't about him

being a homeless person.

At the end of the
story, he's not suddenly

going to get the
ability to live in--

in a fancy, nice place on his
own power and on his own dime.

He's not suddenly going to
get whisked off to art school

on a scholarship.

[LAUGHS] That's not
what this is about.

So, you know, it's
possible to write

about people who
are not yourself,

write people who
are the other, and--

and not steal their
voices and not

steal their story arcs
or the pieces that

are fundamental to that--

that identity, while also
still giving them a place

that they deserve,
that they should have,

in any description of humanity.