Character Arcs, via N.K. Jemisin
N.K. Jemisin’s MasterClass is sixteen short modules on speculative fiction writing, from worldbuilding to characterization, to finding an agent and publishing your work. I’ve done a few other MasterClasses in the past, and I gotta say, Ms. Jemisin’s is loads better. And I’m not just saying that because she’s one of the authors I admire most.
Her class spans the breadth of SFF writing and each segment is rich with concrete, actionable advice. For example, she breaks down worldbuilding in practical exercises that gave me a pretty compelling seed for my next novel project (but that’s a story for another time). She also shares her insight about what it means to be a non-white, non-cishet male writer in an industry that privileges a particular background and experience. I can’t convey enough how inspiring it was for me to hear her speak on that.
Screenshot via MasterClass, (c) 2021
Throughout her classes, Ms. Jemisin draws from her experience as a seasoned writer, as a black woman, and also as a person with training and professional experience in psychology. In particular, her module about characterization blew my mind. She introduced a rubric from black racial identity development theory, and showed how the stages of that development can track a character’s internal arc.
She discusses the five stages of the identity development model: 1) Complacency, when a person is in a state of comfort and safety about their identity; 2) Encounter, a traumatic moment that challenges that safety; 3) Disintegration, the questioning and the internal struggle that follows from the encounter; 4) Reintegration, when the person absorbs ideas and influences to form a new sense of identity that feels positive to them; and 5) Resolution, the new stable sense of identity. Ms. Jemisin then uses examples from media to show familiar internal character arcs that follow these stages.
Photo by Camila Quintero Franco on Unsplash
Memorable characters exhibit some kind of internal change, and it’s these progressions that I’m most interested in, both as a reader and a writer. So I was very excited to have a new way of thinking about how people change (I say people here and not characters, because it’s a psychological model, and because we want characters who read like real people). It’s particularly useful for my current project, which features a protagonist who I’ve been struggling with.
This character is a refugee and has a strong sense of this identity as a part of a displaced people in search of a new home. However, this identity crumbles when he discovers that he and his people might not simply be refugees, but invaders. (Thorny and relevant issues, I know.) I’ve been debating where to take that character following this discovery. After taking this MasterClass I realized that my initial plan seems to gloss over the disintegration that he’d need to undergo, and skips reintegration altogether—the character basically speeds onto action toward a new state of resolution. Now, I know to ask: how might one react when something so innate to their sense of self is challenged? What does that look like? What can he do to regain control or understanding of who he is? Learning the identity development model from Ms. Jemisin and seeing her apply it in fiction has unraveled that struggle for me, and now I’m pretty confident about what I’m gonna do next, and how.