Shallee McArthur

Because I write mostly science fiction, building up the worlds in my stories is a huge part of the planning and writing. But even if you write contemporary fiction, your book is set in some kind of world-- a high school, a certain city, a flavorful region of the world.

There are lots of components to building that setting and world, and I've been thinking a lot lately about culture. Culture is basically the shared knowledge, values, and practices of a group of people, and it is a HUGE part of any fictional world (or at least it should be, in my opinion).

I didn't really understand how different culture could be until I traveled to Ghana for the first time. Before I went, I was all, "Culture shock? Ha. I can handle anything."

Then I got there and freaked out a little.

At first, I thought the culture shock came from having to bathe from a bucket in cold water, and cramming with six people I didn't know in the back seat of a taxi, and being asked why I didn't eat the chicken bones (they suck the marrow out). Then I realized that the biggest problem with culture shock is that I couldn't forgive Ghana and its culture for not being MY culture. I didn't understand the values behind the behavior, so I couldn't accept it. Once I was able to learn from the people around me, and to look at behavior or customs and say, "this is the way it is because of this reason," I was able to love it.

So today I wanted to talk about how you can look outside your own culture to create a new culture for your stories by using that basic principle. (If you're really interested in learning more, this is where I pulled a lot of information from.)

Building a culture in your story is as simple as this diagram. Ha! Okay, if only it were that simple. But once you understand and can identify these different things in your fictional world, voila! You've got the beginnings of your very own new culture. And it centers around, as I mentioned, values.

A value is anything a group of people considers important-- objects, conditions, thoughts, characteristics, etc. What do they identify as "good" and "bad"? Maybe they're a warrior culture and value the ability to be cunning and ruthless, or a culture of dispossessed jesters that value wit and sarcasm. Whatever values work for your story, your culture can value them-- or even NOT value them, if that's the point you want to make.

Rituals, in the next circle, are actions performed that have some kind of symbolic value as dictated by tradition. Maybe your high school crowd has a hazing ceremony for kids coming into a certain club. Maybe there's a certain greeting people exchange, like the hand-shake-while-snapping-fingers-together that I learned in Ghana. It could be birth and funeral customs. In The Hunger Games, the Games themselves are a ritual. Even if you never fully show them in your story, they're an important part of culture to develop.

Heroes-- well, that's easy. It's people (alive or dead) who are role models. They represent those values your culture prizes. They could be Oprah or Michael Jordan or Alastor Moody. Maybe some parts of your culture-- a certain class, maybe-- values one person, while another class holds up someone else as a hero.

Symbols are what we think of most often when we think of culture. It's dancing, or slang words, or objects, dress, food, hairstyles, or even events that define the culture and are significant to them. It's the dish fufu that is the national pride in Ghana that they insist every foreigner has to try, and the light sabers of the Jedi in Star Wars. It can even be national holidays that commemorate events (though this often ties into rituals as well).

These three things-- rituals, heroes, and symbols-- make up the practices of a culture. They are almost always tied to your culture's values. There are a lot of ways these things can show up in a culture: in gender roles, politics, and communication. They can vary in the same culture between social classes or generation gaps.

In other words, it can get really complicated.

Which, honestly, I like. Not every book needs a complicated culture; in some books, it might get in the way. But even if it only comes out through your characters, culture can strengthen a story. How does the main character feel about her world, in contrast to how other characters feel about it? How was your character shaped by the culture? Even if you can develop just enough culture that you can use it to strengthen your characters, you'll strengthen the whole world.

So, my friends, have you developed a strong culture for the world in your book? How do you approach worldbuilding? What books do you think did a particularly fantastic job of developing the world and culture?

On Monday, I talked about how fiction helped me have some of my teenage dreams. So today, let's talk about how to keep somebody immersed enough in your fictional world that they can feel it's real.

I was an English major in college, which basically means I spent five years of my life reading until my eyes shriveled up, and writing until my fingers cramped. And yes, I loved (almost) every minute of it.

One thing we talked about very early on was what's called "a willing suspension of disbelief." It's a term in fiction used to explain a reader picking up a book and willingly suspending their disbelief that dragons/spaceships/a handsome English gentleman named Mr. Darcy don't actually exist. We know it's all outrageous, but we are willing to hang up that knowledge and pretend for a little while that it's all real.

But have you ever read a book where you WANTED to suspend your disbelief, you WANTED to imagine it was all real, and you just couldn't? For me, those are the most disappointing books. It might not even be an outrageous premise, but maybe I just didn't buy that the character was real, or that events would actually happen that way. I'd start to sink into the story, and BAM, something would happen that would jolt me out, thinking, "Not buying it."

That's the last thing anyone wants to make a reader think when they write a book. So how do you make sure that you construct a premise, setting, plot, and characters that somebody will willingly suspend their disbelief for? Here are a few things that come to mind.

1. Make sure your setup is relatable.

The key to making someone believe the unbelievable is to include "human interest and a semblance of truth" (as per Samuel Taylor Coleridge). Depending on what you're writing, the world you create might be some fantastical place or it might be in our contemporary world. It doesn't really matter. What DOES matter is that the places, history, culture, people, etc. relate to the human condition. It needs to seem like it could be true, even if it isn't. If people in your story are awarded commendations for committing heinous crimes, you have to explain to the reader how the society came to be that way-- and it has to be something that the reader, as a member of the human race, can understand.

I once read a book with a fascinating premise that I hated because I just couldn't buy the backstory. The history of how society had come to be the way it was went completely against human nature. The vast majority of a society had agreed to do something that I could NEVER see the vast majority doing. It ruined the whole book for me. So make sure that your world, characters, and story have a setup that is relatable.

2. Include specific and meaningful details.

Incorporating small but meaningful details into your story is what makes it real to readers. You can describe the most outrageous two-headed, toothless, six-armed, tailless furry bird that exists in the Amazon jungle, and nobody will buy it. But if you mention the bird sheds like a German Shepherd and your characters track it by following the fur clumps...well, that suddenly makes it a little more believable. (Or not, in this example. But you get my point.)

In re-reading Harry Potter, I've found the magical system is easy to believe because of small details we get about it. The way words are pronounced matters (WinGARdium LeviOsa), certain spells require specific wand movements, and there is theory behind it all (in book 4, Harry has to write a report on how transfiguration must be modified for trans-species changes). All of those small, specific, meaningful details make me believe this magic could be totally real.

3. Don't step outside your world.

Stepping outside the world you created is one of the quickest ways to prompt any reader to pick up their disbelief from where they hung it by the door. This can be done in any number of ways. Remember the whole "show, don't tell" rule? There's a reason for that. When you TELL the reader something, that's you as the author stepping in, just a little, to explain. When you SHOW the reader something, they're seeing it through the character's eyes, so it stays within the world.

Point of view slips (such as describing something your POV character wouldn't know/see/understand) are another way you might accidentally kick the reader out of the world. If you want to keep the reader in the book, make sure that every single word happens within that world so that you, as the author, are invisible.

So, my friends, have you ever read a book that really suspended your disbelief, and became real to you? Have you ever read a book where you absolutely COULDN'T suspend your disbelief? Do you have any tips of your own that help you keep readers believing in your story world?

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