Hey Anj, how do I create culture in my world?
Can my world have different cultures?
What factors affect culture creation and how much can we borrow from real-world cultures without being disrespectful?
These are questions that came to me when someone I know began crafting a story that involved multiple fictional cultures and how their interactions played into the story. Now, a wise person once again, plot is simply the setting and the characters reacting to one another and the external events of the story. In this case, culture becomes a major part of the setting, in my opinion, but don’t take my word for it because I rarely create cultures in my writing. I can share hot takes and thoughts I have, but I would instead just recommend Hello Future Me’s video on the topic of world-building. I also reached out and got the opinions of Ragsweas who does create cultures or include romance in their stories and AUs. This is what they think, especially about my “hot takes” on culture and it’s use in a romance. Next up in this series, we will look at how to borrow respectfully from real-world cultures but that’s not the focus of this blog.
So that’s what this blog essentially is, some thoughts on the usage of culture in a romance and how to use your characters to create fictional cultures in your love story. Ready to roll?
Why Use Culture in the Context of a Romance
While I feel that, culture in storytelling can remain irrespective of genre, I also acknowledge that it can also add spice to your genre, especially if it is romance. One of my favourite tropes is “cultural differences” which played beautifully in The Seedling by Chrononautical on Archive of Our Own, where two characters from differing cultures end up thinking the other is rejecting them, when instead in their culture the start of a courtship is widely different. You can also see the interplay of culture, character, and romance in A Passion for Mushrooms by the same author. And while people hate the miscommunication trope, this is one of the places where it can seem authentic and shine.
Plus, I am someone who has lived through a cross-cultural romance, alongside reading a lot of it. Trust me, there is a lot of romance gold in this trope. Not to mention, scope for character development and social critique, even if it is in-world, and romance stories often provide interesting social commentaries and come from interesting social agendas, as fantasy-romance author Elizabeth Wheatley says.
This makes total sense. I mean, if one of your characters has strong feelings about something, they’ll critique it or fight against it. For example, Kore in Girl, Goddess, Queen, an enemies-to-lovers, fake-dating Hades/Persephone romance novel. Sometimes this “rebellion” can bring meaningful change in your world, or it can set up consequences for later, destroy relationships with some orthodox character, make new friends, or just allow for character growth if the thing they are against has a base they can agree with in another culture.
Put simply, it is fun to play in this sandbox as a writer and as someone who reads more romance than she writers, it is bliss. Slow-burn angst level bliss.
Moving on from salivating, let us…
Define culture in a romance
For this I am reaching out to the author of internet popular fanfiction When the Sun Rises, which has over 1000 reviews on Archive of Our Own. Yes, we are talking to Ragsweas.
I think that culture in romance is essentially the background, the rituals, the lifestyle where a character comes from. Of course, culture can be more widespread than “lifestyle” which can be a singular person too and people from the same culture can have different lifestyles, but in a romance, culture can be the social background where the character developed and the habits or thoughts they formed as a result. What do you think?
Ragsweas: I think that would be accurate.
My next question is how does culture impact the setting of the romance? And should it.
Ragsweas: It very much should. Even if you are writing a contemporary romance, where both are from the same culture, say both upper-case Hindus from India, but if they are from different parts of the country, their cultures are going to inform their choices, even if they have different ideologies, because said cultures will inform how they react to those ideologies. Even if not explicitly used as a plot-point, culture is an implicit part of the story.
Does culture also affect how the ideologies are formed?
Ragsweas: Yes.
Essentially culture dictates what a character considers romantic, what their perception of normal and loyalty is, what courtship rituals they follow and so on. This is why historical romance despite being one genre has so much variation, since it focuses on multiple different cultures. Time-period is of course essential to culture, as is technology available, the resources available, and what has happened to the people who inhabit that location in the past, where have the come from and so on and so forth. Once again, highly recommend Hello Future Me’s video on the topic or the short story by Anuraag Chatterjee, yep promoting my partner here, Deity Rhapsody which follows one deity across various time-periods and the interpretations different cultures give it and why. And while, as mentioned, I feel culture in different genres is still the same since it forms the basis of characters, Ragsweas disagrees and says that in a romance culture forms the perceptions of the character and who they’re while in other genres it can be more of a plot device. So, in that vein, let us look at…
How to Create a Culture in a Romance- Character-Driven
While I would simply look at how Avatar: The Last Airbender created and described cultures in their story and how that differs from but also informs The Republic City of Kora’s time, in The Legend of Kora, Ragsweas has some more laid out tips for our friends here. According to them, if you are starting from a character, instead of a plot bunny or a setting, you probably have a character sketch. In such a situation, they advise that you first see what kind of person the character is and then look at what informs that personality. Then you can see what parts of that are informed by their culture, in my opinion. Ragsweas adds that as a writer who is forming a culture, you look at how characters are responding to certain things in society and how those things themselves are, say how a female character’s culture treats her vs. a man and if there is a difference or you can see how see reacts to her class, social status, “caste” etc. After this, you can explore what she accepts and rejects. While this depends on whether the character is revolutionary or reactionary, answering these questions can lead to a good culture and character in one go.
Of course, as some writers have done for the dwarrow, you do not need to stick to real-world differentiators or festivals or celebrations or markers. For example, one author, I recall reading, came up with a different “gender” classification for the dwarrow based on their work instead of biological sex and ability to bear children, even if the latter was still a part of the system. It wasn’t their basis for gender. But there is no shame in taking from the real world either, as literature is often a reflection of society and in my extremely dark novel Siya: A Suicide’s Argument, that was an important part of why Siya struggled with her family. Ideological differences as she reacted differently to the cultural understanding of gender and powers than her family did.
Another example can be, Girl, Goddess, Queen, where the internal social circumstances, not sure if we can call them culture, drive the story, especially Kore’s choices. These are choices which perhaps are informed by the traditions of her people, showing how culture affects characters. Your romance could have a point where a character who isn’t overtly in alignment with their cultural norm falls in love specifically because someone from a different culture feels more aligned with them or is simply a breath of fresh air. And who says you have to stop at two cultures? You character can be indifferent to some, love some, hate some, and have complicated relationships with some- more likely their own.
So, what do you think? Was this helpful in writing a romance? Should we do a plot-driven character-based culture next? Let us know in the comments!
Author’s Note: Hope this was helpful! If it was, and you feel inclined to support my work, a like, share, comment goes a long way. Or you can pay what you want!
