Cultures in Fiction

[Tiana Calthye]

When you're writing non-fiction and creating worlds it's often helpful to look to other cultural backgrounds to get a foundation. Asian settings, as well as ancient Europe, seem to be quite popular. What pieces of other cultures do you find interesting?

 

I would like to see more stories based around Indian (India) lore. Though I can't say I'd have wanted to live there, they have an interesting political system and facinating myths and religious things that are very unlike anything here.

 

I also find Native American bases interesting, though they can often be poorly done just for preaching "green" purposes. The nomadic lifestyle and life off of the land appeals to me for creating a fictional culture.

 

Though I write mostly fiction, and fantasy at that, historical fiction has always appealed to me for that reason--you get a look into another, very different culture. Though I also like urban fantasy for a similar reason: it takes things very familiar and twists them upside down.

[The Jedi Master]

The historical fiction I've written has tended to take place at the turn of the century (i.e., around 1900), typically anywhere between the 1880s and WWI. I find it to be a fascinating time, quaint by today's standards but somehow more sophisticated (maybe it's the Victorian clothing?). I would love to have lived back then, so often I'll implant a character based on myself into an historical situation, like the Spanish-American War.

[Amidala Skywalker]

I've never tried writing historical fiction (only SW historical fiction, lol). If I did...I think I'd be tempted to try something from medieval times. I think that could be quite interesting to write, because everything was so crazy back then.

[Tiana Calthye]

I'm not referring to historical fiction. I recall you posting an original fantasy novel, Ami. Did you ever consider what you were using as a basis to build up the culture of that city? What did you use to create this new world? How did you consider the culture and the people and the place? Did you just make things? What all went into the world development? Think about it. I'd like to know, since I did read some of it.

 

 

TJM: STEAMPUNK! Ah yes, one of my favorite historical settings. If you haven't read Geki's Tell No Tales, it's set in a sort of Victorian steampunky setting that I dearly love... that's a perfect example of the time and technological setting I love best.

[Jidai Geki]

Yeah, I was obviously really influenced by Victoriana and the immediate post-Victorian society that saw the British Empire slowly losing its position at the top of the pile.

 

Honestly, I think it's very difficult to try to base fictional cultures off cultures that you're not familiar with too much. I couldn't write a story based in China, really, even after having been here for five years. I think stuff like that necessitates a lot of research.

[Amidala Skywalker]

Oh, I see. Well...the world was totally just creative. I used to do stuff like that all the time when I was a kid. I'd create my own world, draw a map for it, and imagine all the adventures people could have there. That is what I did for my novel.

 

The race of non-humans in my novel (which don't come in until later, so I'm sure never made it to this site) were a mix between Tolkien's elves and Star Wars' Codru-Ji. They had the grace and finesse and attachment to nature from the elves, and the physical four-armed look from the Codru-Ji. The other race of non-humans that only show up as passing mentions in the novel I just came up with off the top of my head. Which is my favorite way of doing it.

 

Culture-wise...I pretty much thought of how the people would respond in the situation they were in with the government. My friend added the touch of Victorian styling to the main city. But I focused on how a culture would build up in that situation. I mean, if they are repressed, beaten down, etc, I figured they'd be downtrodden, stay in their homes, and maybe on rare occasions tell stories of golden days in order to retain a thread of hope. Once I thought about that, the culture was pretty much there.

 

The culture for the Fimbrethil (the elven-Codru Ji) was pretty much the Tolkien-elf culture plus magic. They have a deep connection with the land, they are great warriors, and are the ones who can use magic.

 

I was also influenced a little bit by the Eragon books. But mostly in terms of getting ideas for things to write about when they were traveling. I mean, I have a scene where one character sings an old song. I stole that idea directly from Eragon.

[jedi_master_gimpy]

It sounds like that stuff comes easy to you, Ami. I always struggle a lot with it - it's probably why I consistently fall back on Star Wars so much! I like that there is an established background, culture, and character or character-types, and yet they are created with such openness that you can easily fabricate new characters or planets to match what you need for the plot. That's easy for me.

 

It's much more difficult for me to create characters from scratch who are still very unique and defined, and even harder to create an entire culture! I always feel like to create a culture or even a manner of speaking (i.e. slang or sayings) I need to know the background of the place, and it is so difficult and takes so long for me to do so to my level of satisfaction that I quickly lose interest in any sort of attempt to write, plot, or continue. I've recently though more about trying to start from some sort of known base, as Tiana suggested, or basing at least parts of characters off of people I know in real-life. I'm hoping it will help... my plan is to try to write a completely original fic once I finish my massive edit/re-write of BLU. That is going to be so hard for me!

[The Jedi Master]

TJM: STEAMPUNK! Ah yes, one of my favorite historical settings. If you haven't read Geki's Tell No Tales, it's set in a sort of Victorian steampunky setting that I dearly love... that's a perfect example of the time and technological setting I love best.

 

I'm not so much talking about steampunk, just stories set in Victorian times. As I understand it, steampunk involves fictious, anachronistic steam-powered technology. I was referring to historical fiction.

 

As far as creating worlds, I wrote a few stories a while back that take place in the 23rd century and involved a group of fugitives traveling across the galaxy to a hidden, privately owned world. Along the way they visited places in the Solar System (floating cities above Jupiter, an outpost on Pluto) and then some worlds that I just made up. There was definitely some Star Wars influence in terms of technology, but it was kind of combined with our current technology.

 

More recently, I created a world that I called Erither and modeled its cultures after real ones: pretty much every major culture was represented at one point or another, and I expanded the history of this world over 1400 years. The most prominent cultures were modeled after European or American models: the dominant Echinian Empire parallels Rome and, later, Britain, and a former colony of Echinia, Errland, develops much like the United States. The Lobia continent is modeled after Africa, with a history of colonization and turmoil. Anyway, I could go on but I think you get the idea. Erither's history loosely parallels ours.