N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth Trilogy isn’t just a significant work of speculative fiction; it’s a great example of narrative craft and thematic depth. Made up of The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, and The Stone Sky, the series managed the impressive feat of each book winning the Hugo Award for Best Novel. For writers seeking to craft detailed worlds, engaging characters, and compelling themes into a narrative that coheses and makes an impact, Jemisin’s work offers a valuable source of inspiration.
The Architect’s Blueprint: Jemisin’s Writing Process
N.K. Jemisin’s approach to building the world of the Stillness and its fractured societies demonstrates an intriguing blend of meticulous planning, intuitive insight, and a keen awareness of social and political issues.
1. Roots of Inspiration: Myth, Modernity, and Afrofuturism
Jemisin draws from a wide range of inspiration. She has a genuine appreciation for old stories, including mythology and creation myths from various cultures, which she views as some of humanity’s most sophisticated narrative forms. This respect for foundational stories grounds her work in something timeless. However, her narratives remain highly relevant today. Jemisin has stated that The Broken Earth was “born out of the same anger and pain” as the Black Lives Matter movement, with events such as the Ferguson unrest directly influencing her writing. This blend of the ancient and the current gives her work a distinctive strength.
What’s more, the trilogy is strongly connected to Afrofuturism, an aesthetic that looks at African diaspora themes in a technocultural and speculative way. She aims to give a voice to those historically unheard and to take a critical new look at the past and present of marginalised peoples, offering fresh perspectives on their hopes and dreams. The dedication in The Fifth Season—”For all those who have to fight for the respect that everyone else is given without question”—sums up this driving force.
For Writers: Don’t be afraid to mix different sources of inspiration. Old myths can shed light on today’s struggles, and personal reactions to current events can fuel deep fictional explorations. Consider how your cultural perspective can bring new perspectives to existing genres.
2. Worldbuilding as Thematic Resonance: The Stillness
The world of The Broken Earth, a supercontinent called the Stillness, is much more than just a setting; it’s an active force, a “character in itself”. Jemisin’s “holistic worldbuilding” carefully links the harsh, geologically unstable environment to the societal structures and the oppression within it. The recurring cataclysms, known as “Fifth Seasons,” aren’t just plot devices but strong metaphors for systemic instability and environmental crisis.
Jemisin conducted extensive research in geology to create a “scientifically plausible geological magic system” in orogeny—the ability to control seismic energy. This power is both a gift and a curse, the very reason orogenes are harshly enslaved and poorly treated. The sentient planet, “Father Earth,” is angry about how humans exploit it and the ancient loss of its Moon, reflecting worries about ecological collapse.
For Writers: Let your worldbuilding do some thematic work. How can the physical laws, history, or environment of your world mirror and boost the main conflicts and messages of your story? Research can ground even the most fantastical bits.
3. Narrative Craft: Innovation and Intuition
Jemisin’s narrative structure is as inventive as her themes. She starts with an outline for key elements but lets much of the final form develop by writing “test chapters,” playing with voice, tone, and energy.
The Fifth Season notably uses multiple perspectives and non-linear timelines, with the key reveal that the three main narrators—Damaya, Syenite, and Essun—are the same person at different, trauma-fractured stages of her life. This structure isn’t just clever; it shows themes of cyclical trauma and fragmented identity. The most talked-about choice is the use of the second-person present tense for Essun’s chapters, a decision Jemisin described as instinctive, aiming for an engaging, sort of poetic feel. This pulls the reader right into Essun’s experience of loss and oppression.
Jemisin is open about the self-doubt that can come with such experimentation, admitting she once feared The Fifth Season was “the worst thing I’ve ever written”. Her revision process is crucial, as she refines initial, more straightforward drafts into nuanced final texts.
For Writers: Don’t shy away from narrative experimentation if it helps the core of your story. Multiple points of view, non-linear structures, or unusual tenses can powerfully reflect a character’s internal state or thematic points. Embrace the revision process as a chance to refine and polish.
4. Character Conception: Voicing the “Less Seen”
Jemisin is a character-focused writer; the worldbuilding develops to inform their lives. She aims to create believable characters with developed inner lives and clear arcs, often choosing to centre on individuals less seen in speculative fiction, such as women of colour, mothers, older women, and individuals with disabilities. Essun, a grieving mother and powerful orogene, is a good example.
Her protagonists are quite flawed, shaped by trauma, and often make morally ambiguous choices. The mother-daughter relationship between Essun and Nassun is complicated, marked by misunderstanding and harshness born of a desperate wish to protect. Non-human characters, such as the Stone Eater Hoa and the powerful orogene Alabaster, also play essential roles, offering ancient perspectives that alter how you perceive the world. Jemisin also uses sensitivity readers to help ensure authentic representation for characters whose experiences differ from her own.
For Writers: Populate your worlds with complex, flawed characters, especially those whose stories are often untold. Authentic representation matters, and receiving feedback from sensitivity readers can be highly beneficial. Explore the messy, challenging sides of relationships.
Echoes in a Shattered World: Core Themes
The thematic landscape of The Broken Earth is as large and broken up as the Stillness itself.
1. Power, Oppression, and Liberation
Systemic oppression is a key element. The treatment of orogenes serves as a strong allegory for real-world hierarchies based on race, class, and ability, with many drawing parallels to the African American experience. The Fulcrum, the “evil Hogwarts” that controls orogenes, shows abuse built into the system. The trilogy explores how oppressors justify dehumanisation and how violence becomes a sad, sometimes needed, tool for the oppressed.
For Writers: Speculative fiction offers a good way to look at real-world injustices. Think about how your magic systems or societal structures can represent current issues of power and oppression.
2. Environmental Crisis and Ecological Consciousness
The recurring Fifth Seasons are a clear point about climate change and environmental damage—the narrative criticises how humans use the environment, shown by the enraged Father Earth. Importantly, Jemisin links the control of marginalised groups (orogenes) with the exploitation of nature, showing them as linked to difficult experiences.
For Writers: Your world’s environment can be more than scenery. How do your characters and societies interact with their natural world? What are the results of that relationship, and how can it reflect current ecological concerns?
3. Trauma, Survival, and Community
Trauma—personal, communal, and planetary—is a core part. Essun’s fractured identities (Damaya, Syenite, Essun) reflect a life shaped by constant abuse and the need to reinvent herself for survival. Motherhood is a tough test for these themes, portrayed with real complexity, especially the trauma passed down generations from Essun to Nassun. Despite the devastation, characters are always looking for and building new families and communities, like the sanctuary of Castrima, highlighting our need to stick together.
For Writers: Explore the psychological impact of your world on its people. How do they cope with trauma? How does the need for survival shape their morality and relationships? Show the power of community when facing adversity.
4. Memory, History, and Reimagining Futures
The trilogy deals with the importance of history and the cyclical nature of oppression. The past, if not dealt with, continues to affect the present. The narrative goes beyond human-centric views, exploring posthuman ethics through figures like the Stone Eaters and the sentient Earth. This suggests that real change needs a big break from destructive cycles and perhaps even a change in how things are. Some scholars even see the work engaging with abolitionist ideas, imagining futures that go beyond oppressive models by “jailbreaking the imagination”.
For Writers: How does the history of your world inform its present? Can your characters break cycles of trauma and oppression? Speculative fiction is a space for imagining radical new ways of being and organising society.
The Enduring Fracture
N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth Trilogy really shows the power of speculative fiction not only to entertain but to challenge, make you think, and explain. Her skilled mix of character, world, narrative structure, and theme creates a story that sticks with you long after the final page. For writers, it offers a good example of how to build worlds that are rich in meaning, create characters that reveal complex truths, and tell stories that bravely confront the brokenness of our world while searching for ways to piece it back together. It’s an encouragement to write bravely, with intention, and with an eye toward the futures we might forge.
The Original Writers Group 