Hi! I've got a fantasy world in the making, and have a question about how to do the cultures etc. In at least one answer in the past, it was mentioned that you'd prefer fantasy cultures to not be based too much on the ones from our world; in another, though, it was said that instead of just using characters with Native American phenotype the writer should also take a look at the relevant culture. I'm aware that of course different mods may have different opinions, but... [1/2]
I’d still like to ask what the better way to go about this would be? Right now I’m trying not to base any culture too much on real life cultures. In the area the story starts in, the people are phenotypically what in our world would be Latinista, and one of the MCs is a Black girl who came to that country with her dad when she was little. Would it be better if I researched a fitting Latin American and a fitting African culture and based the fantasy cultures off of that? [2/2]
When to Code In Detail and when to Broadstrokes A Culture
It depends on the type of racism faced by various groups.
Some groups have faced a bunch of appropriation under the guise of “this is who we are, exactly, this is how X is” and it’s all wrong, so those groups are going to skew having a preference to looser coding and not trying to xerox real culture into fantasy
Other groups have faced a bunch of appropriation under the guise of “this is our ideas around what we think these groups are and we’re so not specific we’ve made up our own thing and called it real”, and those groups tend to favour close culture following.
In general, the wisest way to go about it is to recognize that what you’re creating in fantasy isn’t going to be the exact culture, but it should be recognizable to members who grew up in the culture as that culture. This means getting basic food, social rules, holidays, and customs correct.
The “social rules” thing can get tricky, because everyone has different definitions of it, but so long as you remember to do people instead of caricatures, you’re okay.
Personally, I’d start researching as if you’re going to closely code in order to break down your own assumptions for how cultures work, and loosen up the coding from there as you get more comfortable and your knowledge base deepens. By that point in time, you should have an idea what type of representation will be most appreciated by a group.
I will say, though, I still stand by that looks are a very weak source of coding and if you’re relying exclusively upon them your coding will likely miss the mark because that’s just painting different skin tones on white people—hence my suggestion to look into other cultural markers instead of just looks.
~Mod Lesya
“Perfect is the Enemy of the Good” is a good quote for this situation in my view. I think what can make writers (many of us who are already sensitive to criticism and the opinions of others) increasingly anxious is being judged, disliked, or heaven forbid, thought of as a bad person (!!). At the risk of providing armchair therapy I am not qualified to offer, I think it’s better to be realistic about one’s limits, skills and do the best that one can. Lesya’s advice provides a useful roadmap for this part.
However, the rest is the confidence to sit back and say “This is the best I could do, and those who think they can do better are welcome to tell me how.” And, when they do, listen.
Marika.