Triste-chan
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- Posted: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 23:36:08 +0000
How to make your cultures exotic
This was originally posted in a thread. However, I clarified some of the points and added to it. If you disagree on any point, feel free to express yourself.
1. Have both variation and similarity. Very recently, my art teacher gave us an assignment for a circle design. We were to make a 12'' diameter circle and fill it with smaller circles, and put designs within those circles. Curing the pre-assignment lecture, she gave us a bit of advice: Namely, that we should choose one of the following:
1) A variation in pattern and similarity in color.
2) A variation in color and similarity in pattern.
I chose to have varying patterns but all warm colors, and it came out quite nicely. The point is that this can apply very nicely to cultures, like the culture you'll need to design for your fairies. There should be something unifying the culture in all aspects. Take fashion, for instance. Maybe the most formal possible outfit for a certain people(the equivalent of our gown and tuxedo) is a short skirt and sandals. Perhaps a certain word is taboo for them.
At the same time, there should be variation. You can do a lot with a short skirt: it can be any color, for instance (although some colors could be better than others in your culture), and surely some people don't care what words are taboo.
2. Morality, philosophy, values: all of these can (and often should) be different. Back in the Middle Ages, what was 'good' and 'bad' was often decided by what the church said. Today, the west is much more secular. The fairies aren't Americans, though, and they shouldn't have the same values as Americans either. Maybe your people think religion is silly and old fashioned, or maybe they're very superstitious.
Their views on violence may be different. They could be like people of the Middle Ages, who burned those who they thought were dangerous or different. This is more likely if the standard of living is low, by the way (see point three). They could also be at the opposite extreme, though you should try not to make them too sentimentaly perfect.
The most important part of this is actually living these things, rather than just saying them. In fact, you can make what they say and what they do very different. In America we all pay lip service to the environment, but few people actually give a s**t.
3) Different standard of living and general lifestyle. The standard of living is the amount of luxuries the average person can afford. It's fairly obvious. You could make the people have a high standard of living (which comes with it's own problems - you won't see many Middle Eastern girls with bulimia, but it's becoming an epidemic here), even higher than ours. Or you could make it lower so that even survival becomes more of an issue. Some things to consider here are:
1) Availability of food/water
2) Availability of jobs
3) Medical care
4) Personal freedoms
5) Education
A lower standard of living causes discontent and occasionally violence. A lack of education leads to all sorts of problems: look at what lack of AIDS eduaction has done to Africa. Personal freedoms will also effect general happiness. When living in a country like the USA, where we rarely have to seriously worry about the government or getting the things we need to survive (there are exceptions, of course), we tend to think that everyone's happiness will be like ours: defined by our relationships, our ideals, our self-image. It's hard for us to imagine that there are some women who don't give a damn whether or not they love who they're marrying - after all, he's going to keep her clothed and sheltered, and take care of her children.
You can also change around more basic, superficial things in their lives. For instance, do they attend school for the same hours as we do, if they have schools? Are the schools structured the same? Do they eat three meals a day? Do they eat together? What do they do for entertainment? That's a brief list, but you can think of other additions, no doubt. When building a culture, these are the things you can play with.
4. General behavior should be different from culture to culture. Picture this: A boy giggling and talking about fashion. A boy reading poetry. A boy kissing another boy on the cheek. A boy applying makeup - blush, sparkly eyeshadow, the works.
What was your first thought?
Yeah, I thought so. But think about this: there have been societies in the past where writing poetry and kissing other men on the cheek was acceptable and normal. In America, this isn't so. But when you're creating a new culture, you don't necessarily want to keep these mannerisms. America is hyperfocused on the concept of 'manliness,' but maybe elves aren't so much into gender roles. Or maybe they consider poetry to be a masculine art.
This applies to superficial mannerisms as well (bowing or saying 'hello' in greeting, etc.), of course, but it can also go deeper than that. An example of this can be found in George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. There is a society there (I forget the name, probably Quarth) where crying often in considered the mark of a civilized man. Here, it is the mark of a crybaby.
5. General behavior should be different from person to person. I'll keep this short, because it's somewhat obvious: not everyone in your culture should act exactly the same. Once again, there must be both similarity and variation. Not every elf should ve a carbon copy of the next. Don't get so caught up in the culture that you forget the character.
6. Language, accents, and even popular phrases will all be different. I'm horribly guilty of this, and someday, I'll comb through my writing and fix the dialogue so that it makes sense culturally. I just have trouble thinking of every aspect at once, damnit.
Anyway, excuses aside, this has three aspects:
1) Language itself. I know, I know, it's horribly inconvenient to have characters speaking different languages. It - GASP - complicates things. It may mean that you won't be able to have one character from every race in a party to save the universe from the Dark Lord. But damnit, fantasy should make some semblance of sense. So here's the deal: If two countries are very close together, they can speak the same/similar languages, especially if a more powerful country spreads their cultural influence over to the weaker country. If a country conquers or colonizes another country, it would make sense for them to speak the same language. If two countries used to be one country and got split up, it makes sense for them to speak the same language. Otherwise, no. People from the unknown island that no one has seen for 1,000 years are not going to understand your main character from the mainland. kthx.
2) Accents - this is fairly obvious. Try not to make it too annoying, please. I, personally, HATE when authors phonetically spell words the way their characters say them. Remember that they can make people hard to understand, please, and remember that your character probably won't have a very good one, so it's likely that others will know that they're foreign even if they speak the language.
3) Phrases - Many fantasy authors like making up new phrases for theur fantasy world. You know, "By the Goddess" for those goddess worshippers, or "Your mother was an Orc," if you want to be insulting. But people often forget that such phrases will change from culture to culture. Don't have everyone in the world using the same phrases if they're from different countries.
7. Make it yours. In addition to making a culture different from your own culture and the other cultures in the story, you also should make your culture different from all the other created cultures from all the other fantasy artists in the world. You have to give it something that is yours.
Now, how do you do this? The first thing is to focus on something that interests you or something you find cool. VonDarvi made an excellent thread recently on creating little bits of culture in your story. He gave a broad description of his world's overall culture: "So, mine is a sort of combination of Dune, Cyberpunk and Warhammer 40k." It has a basis in other things, clearly, as even he admits.
However, he also adds this: "The quirks come in the random stuff: For example, I'm a total gun lover, and I realized that the size of the most common anti-hard target sniper rifle's spent shell casing is similar, diameter-wise, to a shot glass. Hence, the "sniper shot", which is one of the casings filled with alchohol. It's a pretty hardcore drink- enough to blow someone's brains out. It's like shots of tequila, but bigger." VonDarvi took something he found interesting and created a new aspect of life for his world. A small aspect, admittedly, but a new one. For me, I added on a new level to my story when I added in a drug subculture to worry about.
Does this mean you have to go out of your way and make sure that your culture is like nothing the world has ever seen before? Well, no. Someone else may have done a desert community of fairies, but that doesn't mean you can't. You should, however, make sure that you're not just rehashing the old 'nature-loving elves' or 'hermit dwarves' without adding anything or taking anything away.
This was originally posted in a thread. However, I clarified some of the points and added to it. If you disagree on any point, feel free to express yourself.
1. Have both variation and similarity. Very recently, my art teacher gave us an assignment for a circle design. We were to make a 12'' diameter circle and fill it with smaller circles, and put designs within those circles. Curing the pre-assignment lecture, she gave us a bit of advice: Namely, that we should choose one of the following:
1) A variation in pattern and similarity in color.
2) A variation in color and similarity in pattern.
I chose to have varying patterns but all warm colors, and it came out quite nicely. The point is that this can apply very nicely to cultures, like the culture you'll need to design for your fairies. There should be something unifying the culture in all aspects. Take fashion, for instance. Maybe the most formal possible outfit for a certain people(the equivalent of our gown and tuxedo) is a short skirt and sandals. Perhaps a certain word is taboo for them.
At the same time, there should be variation. You can do a lot with a short skirt: it can be any color, for instance (although some colors could be better than others in your culture), and surely some people don't care what words are taboo.
2. Morality, philosophy, values: all of these can (and often should) be different. Back in the Middle Ages, what was 'good' and 'bad' was often decided by what the church said. Today, the west is much more secular. The fairies aren't Americans, though, and they shouldn't have the same values as Americans either. Maybe your people think religion is silly and old fashioned, or maybe they're very superstitious.
Their views on violence may be different. They could be like people of the Middle Ages, who burned those who they thought were dangerous or different. This is more likely if the standard of living is low, by the way (see point three). They could also be at the opposite extreme, though you should try not to make them too sentimentaly perfect.
The most important part of this is actually living these things, rather than just saying them. In fact, you can make what they say and what they do very different. In America we all pay lip service to the environment, but few people actually give a s**t.
3) Different standard of living and general lifestyle. The standard of living is the amount of luxuries the average person can afford. It's fairly obvious. You could make the people have a high standard of living (which comes with it's own problems - you won't see many Middle Eastern girls with bulimia, but it's becoming an epidemic here), even higher than ours. Or you could make it lower so that even survival becomes more of an issue. Some things to consider here are:
1) Availability of food/water
2) Availability of jobs
3) Medical care
4) Personal freedoms
5) Education
A lower standard of living causes discontent and occasionally violence. A lack of education leads to all sorts of problems: look at what lack of AIDS eduaction has done to Africa. Personal freedoms will also effect general happiness. When living in a country like the USA, where we rarely have to seriously worry about the government or getting the things we need to survive (there are exceptions, of course), we tend to think that everyone's happiness will be like ours: defined by our relationships, our ideals, our self-image. It's hard for us to imagine that there are some women who don't give a damn whether or not they love who they're marrying - after all, he's going to keep her clothed and sheltered, and take care of her children.
You can also change around more basic, superficial things in their lives. For instance, do they attend school for the same hours as we do, if they have schools? Are the schools structured the same? Do they eat three meals a day? Do they eat together? What do they do for entertainment? That's a brief list, but you can think of other additions, no doubt. When building a culture, these are the things you can play with.
4. General behavior should be different from culture to culture. Picture this: A boy giggling and talking about fashion. A boy reading poetry. A boy kissing another boy on the cheek. A boy applying makeup - blush, sparkly eyeshadow, the works.
What was your first thought?
Yeah, I thought so. But think about this: there have been societies in the past where writing poetry and kissing other men on the cheek was acceptable and normal. In America, this isn't so. But when you're creating a new culture, you don't necessarily want to keep these mannerisms. America is hyperfocused on the concept of 'manliness,' but maybe elves aren't so much into gender roles. Or maybe they consider poetry to be a masculine art.
This applies to superficial mannerisms as well (bowing or saying 'hello' in greeting, etc.), of course, but it can also go deeper than that. An example of this can be found in George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. There is a society there (I forget the name, probably Quarth) where crying often in considered the mark of a civilized man. Here, it is the mark of a crybaby.
5. General behavior should be different from person to person. I'll keep this short, because it's somewhat obvious: not everyone in your culture should act exactly the same. Once again, there must be both similarity and variation. Not every elf should ve a carbon copy of the next. Don't get so caught up in the culture that you forget the character.
6. Language, accents, and even popular phrases will all be different. I'm horribly guilty of this, and someday, I'll comb through my writing and fix the dialogue so that it makes sense culturally. I just have trouble thinking of every aspect at once, damnit.
Anyway, excuses aside, this has three aspects:
1) Language itself. I know, I know, it's horribly inconvenient to have characters speaking different languages. It - GASP - complicates things. It may mean that you won't be able to have one character from every race in a party to save the universe from the Dark Lord. But damnit, fantasy should make some semblance of sense. So here's the deal: If two countries are very close together, they can speak the same/similar languages, especially if a more powerful country spreads their cultural influence over to the weaker country. If a country conquers or colonizes another country, it would make sense for them to speak the same language. If two countries used to be one country and got split up, it makes sense for them to speak the same language. Otherwise, no. People from the unknown island that no one has seen for 1,000 years are not going to understand your main character from the mainland. kthx.
2) Accents - this is fairly obvious. Try not to make it too annoying, please. I, personally, HATE when authors phonetically spell words the way their characters say them. Remember that they can make people hard to understand, please, and remember that your character probably won't have a very good one, so it's likely that others will know that they're foreign even if they speak the language.
3) Phrases - Many fantasy authors like making up new phrases for theur fantasy world. You know, "By the Goddess" for those goddess worshippers, or "Your mother was an Orc," if you want to be insulting. But people often forget that such phrases will change from culture to culture. Don't have everyone in the world using the same phrases if they're from different countries.
7. Make it yours. In addition to making a culture different from your own culture and the other cultures in the story, you also should make your culture different from all the other created cultures from all the other fantasy artists in the world. You have to give it something that is yours.
Now, how do you do this? The first thing is to focus on something that interests you or something you find cool. VonDarvi made an excellent thread recently on creating little bits of culture in your story. He gave a broad description of his world's overall culture: "So, mine is a sort of combination of Dune, Cyberpunk and Warhammer 40k." It has a basis in other things, clearly, as even he admits.
However, he also adds this: "The quirks come in the random stuff: For example, I'm a total gun lover, and I realized that the size of the most common anti-hard target sniper rifle's spent shell casing is similar, diameter-wise, to a shot glass. Hence, the "sniper shot", which is one of the casings filled with alchohol. It's a pretty hardcore drink- enough to blow someone's brains out. It's like shots of tequila, but bigger." VonDarvi took something he found interesting and created a new aspect of life for his world. A small aspect, admittedly, but a new one. For me, I added on a new level to my story when I added in a drug subculture to worry about.
Does this mean you have to go out of your way and make sure that your culture is like nothing the world has ever seen before? Well, no. Someone else may have done a desert community of fairies, but that doesn't mean you can't. You should, however, make sure that you're not just rehashing the old 'nature-loving elves' or 'hermit dwarves' without adding anything or taking anything away.
