Most Common Writing Errors (ONGOING)

Your Country Isn't The Only Country

Read the disclaimer if you haven't already.

This chapter is going to be a bit harsher than usual because this topic annoys me more than most.

Today we're here to talk about worldbuilding. I told y'all I'd go more into detail about it, and today we're going to talk about countries.

Your country is not the only country, which means your way of life will not match the way of life from people from other countries. And that's okay.

I'm bringing this up because I have been hosting contests for four years, and over a year on Wattpad, and, naturally, I attract a lot of K-pop fanfic writers. Many times I'll read a book by a K-pop fanfic writer, and their story is set in Korea. Okay, cool. Fine. No problem.

Then, for some reason, it's written more like it took place in another country.

Many times I point out something in the worldbuilding where I say "This doesn't really happen in Korea," and the writer will reply with "Oh, that's how it works in my country." I don't think they're saying that to be defensive, more like just saying they did it because it's what they're so used to, but even though it isn't being used as a defense to criticism, it still makes me sigh.

Why are you writing your book in another country if you're just going to model it after your own?

Not only is that immersion-breaking, but it's irresponsible, especially when you're writing about South Korea. I don't know if there's another country in the whole world that has had its culture and language so blatantly ignored in creative writing, at least in recent years. For example, I've seen many fanfic writers have younger girls call their brothers hyung instead of oppa because, and I quote, they think it's "cringe."

Imagine someone not from your culture calling your honorific system cringe and changing it because they feel like it.

Do you see why that's massively offensive and irresponsible?

Koreans have been begging people online to stop changing their cultural terms. If you go on YouTube and look up if girls can use hyung, some of the first things that pop up are Koreans begging you to stop changing it around because you feel like it, and all the comments are the same way.

There are exception cases where girls say hyung, but it's rare, and that's also not the point. The point is people are changing it because they want to, not because there's a genuine character reason for it. It's irresponsible and offensive.

But let's move away from the stuff that makes me angry. In general, you should not make your story take place in a different country unless you are willing to research it. My stories almost always take place in America or a new sci-fi world because my fanfic is for relaxation, so I don't want to spend 24194823823423 hours researching a new country to have my story set in. I don't want to risk being offensive or irresponsible with my writing. 

There are so, so, so many cases of weird worldbuilding. The most common I see is the Korean education system. Because of the Korean War, the Korean education system has many similarities to the United States education system as they adopted some of our traits after the influx of American life and influence. Of course there are plenty of differences, but also similarities. So, no, Korean university is not just what you feel like it is. It has many layers and pieces of history you can incorporate into your work.

In general, college is one of the things I see written the most incorrectly. College kids can tell when you're not a college kid writing about college because it is such a vastly different experience from high school, and I've read many fics that make college identical to high school.