Transcription
Is your fantasy or science fiction world missing something? How can this be? We have a whole slew of races pilfered straight from the Silmarillion. We have a detailed map with magically splitting rivers and everything. Our cyberpunk setting’s international political borders were lifted straight from the 80s. We even have an alien ecosystem built entirely out of predators! Yet our evil empire seems a bit… flat for some reason. Could it be that their singular drive for world domination and complete lack of screen time has resulted in the imperial capital being blander than a 90s sit com? What could be the problem? Why is the chapter featuring the wood elves tree homes duller than, well, a tree? What is missing? Wait. I know! We didn’t build a culture for our fictional peoples!
World building can be intimidating to those who don’t spend every waking moment obsessing about it like I do, but keep calm and listen to me carry on about how easy world building a fictional culture really is! Seriously, don’t stress about world building cultures too much. Real world cultures are far stranger than anything ever written in fiction. Which means that any old half measure taken in world building is okay and will produced exceptional results. And by that, I mean that people won’t notice unless you really, really screw up. So let’s really, really screw up… I mean, really, really dig into to how to properly create a fictional culture!
Now, culture can be a collection of shared values, social norms, artistic achievement, mythologies, ceremonies, and customary beliefs. All of that sounds hard to world build, but all a writer has to worry about is mostly just a society’s dress and architecture. Just like smoke and mirrors, add those two items, and a writer is done! A reader won’t notice characters from the far future using modern day slang if we dress them up in funny hats and have them live in fractal shaped houses! Our future society has technology completely different from modern day, but their culture should still share the same values and taboos as our own. Or, maybe they only have hyper drive, and everything else is just absolutely the same because access to the huge vastness of the void between stars will change nothing about a society's perspective.
If an author worries that this won’t be enough, then just add a singular trait that the entire culture is built around! Need an antagonistic people to menace the heroes? Just build a culture obsessed with warfare at the cost of every other aspect of their society. How did these guys invent hyper-drive if they disdain all intellectual pursuits? Well, they stole it from the precursors or something. Look, you want thematically opposing foes for our scientific heroes, or what? Who cares if a culture’s core value is so singular and strong that it would cripple any chance of them becoming a major power? Our isolationists should easily have access to rare resources and technology, even if they can’t trade to get those things. Don’t worry about trying to compensate for these cultural weaknesses in interesting ways. We could, for example, give our isolationist people an untouchable diplomatic caste who has to deal with outsiders, but whose specialized expertise has resulted in the ascension of the very people who shun them. Wait. That’s dumb. I have an even better idea. Let’s make them all evil instead! A society built entirely around worshiping evil, torture, and death should function incredibly well. I bet a culture devoted to destruction is very good and building the infrastructure needed to wage endless war. Also, cultures where the only form of advancement is killing your superior must suffer no shortages of talent at all!
Is coming up with a monolithic culture built around a single trait too hard? I understand. Thinking up that one trait can be really difficult. Thankfully, a writer need not stress themselves out over putting the most minuscule amount of creativity into world building a culture when an author can simply steal one directly from the real world! Just borrow a contemporary or historical culture and transplant them directly into a fantasy world or the far future, completely ignoring the environmental conditions and historical context that shaped that culture in the first place! Don’t worry. I’m not suggesting we actually read about the real culture before pilfering it. Nah. Simply changing the name will dodge all accusations of appropriation! Or, at the very least, it will hold up in court. A writer need not worry about stealing another culture’s symbols because a proper author should be too lazy to use symbols in their fictional cultures in the first place! No need for rich heraldry, clever mottos, or emblems designed for instant recognition of a culture’s history or values. I suppose we could make a flag. Just slap some random shapes on there, and done! Wait. I have another great idea. Let’s over-design our symbols! Nothing like having so much crap on a flag that it becomes unrecognizable.
Nor should a writer worry about over-designing a culture as well. This never becomes a problem when an author becomes enamored with a culture to the point where they remove all flaws and have it represent what they believe an ideal society is. Yes. That never gets on anyone’s nerves, even when the people of the author’s personal utopia constantly educate the protagonist, and thus the reader, on their superior ways! Especially when the idealistic Pure Republic of Mary Sue is ideologically opposed by the Evil Empire of Strawmanopolis.
Immersing the reader into a fictional world can’t be done by showing how a society handles disease; how do they regard personal hygiene; what does their diet consist of; what kind of natural resources do they have access to; how said resources influence technology; how does environment shape their beliefs; how do their values differ from my own; what are this culture’s taboos; what values does this culture hold that not all of its members live up to; is their society stagnate or is it in the middle of a transformation? Could it be that things I had assumed were default human nature were in face merely a cultural perspective not shared by every human society? Studying real world cultures can truly open one’s eyes to the complexity of human behavior and enrich a writer’s world view. Which is really bad because that might accidentally happen to the reader as well and throw their fragile perspectives into chaos. Which brings into question how an author should handle controversial subjects on world-building, like a culture's religion or view on gender roles. Well, you are on your own because I’m NOT touching that on YouTube.