Worldbuilding Through Culture

FINDING YOUR STARTING POINT - Character-Led

As I said in a previous chapter, all the worldbuilding in the world won't turn your idea into a story. You need a character or two to follow to do that, and a reason we're following that particular character.

What kind of story do you want to tell? A high-fantasy quest narrative? An emotional literary fiction tale about love and loss? A science fiction action adventure? What sort of person does your protagonist have to be to fit that kind of story? What occupation or talent do they need to have in order to be active in the plot? Or, more interestingly, how could you work with a character who doesn't fit in, or isn't usually featured, in this kind of story?

Some more things to mull over:

● What gender is this character?

● What biological sex?

● What age?

● What class?

● What ethnicity?

● What stage of their life are they in, and does your fictional culture measure life-stages the same way your real-life one does?

● What is it that the character wants, and how is the character going to work to get it?

● Who or what is going to get in their way and how will they deal with being denied what they want? How will they overcome this obstacle?

● What do they fear most, above all else, and what would happen if they were to be forced to endure the thing they fear?

● Why do they fear that thing? What's the socio-economic reason, the culture-based reason, rather than the personal-backstory-trauma reason?

● Why does this person need to be your protagonist, and not say, their sibling, or neighbour, or oppressor, or slave, or pet?

● How close are they to their immediate family, what is their relationship with them like, and how obligated to that relationship are they? How will that relationship influence the decisions that your protagonist makes in later moments of crisis?

● How integrated in their community is your protagonist? How obligated to that community do they feel, and how will that relationship influence the decisions that your protagonist makes in later moments of crisis?

Basically: who is this person, and why them?

These are a lot of questions, I know. You don't have to answer them now–there's actually space set aside for all that later in the workbook. But I want you to start thinking about them now, because everything you do in terms of worldbuilding will be framed and disseminated to the reader through the viewpoint and experiences of your protagonist.

In answering these questions, you'll begin to world-build alongside this; to know why your character fears X instead of Y, you'll need to decide what that means in the scope of their culture and upbringing. You can get at the culture by building it up around the character, bit by bit.

If culture-led starting points are like a kernel of popcorn, then character-led starting points are like a sand castle, piled bucketful by bucketful around the stick or pile of rocks that is your protagonist, until you can shape and finesse the final outward edifice.

Another great way to worldbuild via character is by allowing your protagonist to experience things they don't understand, or aren't familiar with. Much of a protagonist's beliefs and way of life can be exposed and explained to the reader in context, by sticking them in a place where those same beliefs and way of life don't match those of the people around them.

How they react to new experiences, ideologies, or manners tells the reader a lot about their home culture, and how they were raised.

What confuses your protagonist? What offends them? What shocks or startles them? What happens that makes them think, "Oh, that's a much better way of doing it than the way my people do it!" What new food delights them, and which disgusts them? What fashion seems indecent, and what seems prudish?

Dropping your protagonist in a cultural situation that's unfamiliar to them also provides the opportunity to give the reader a better understanding of your protagonist's personal characteristics. Do they react to new things with delight, or fear, or anger? Does change thrill or scare them? What does that tell your reader about the kind of person they are, and how they'll react to later, bigger misunderstandings or changes? Can you use these sorts of reactions to convey character growth, by showing your character reacting one way the first time, and a different way later?

A protagonist's habits and preferences can fill out the world as you go. Use what you've decided about their world to explain why they do some of the things they do, and how those cultural differences may act as sources of conflict or revelation between the protagonist and other characters.