Getting that cultural appropriation just right

One of the hardest parts of world building, when writing a novel, is figuring out the culture of your novel’s society.

Unless you are writing a novel set in the modern world, the world of your novel will not have the same culture as the world you live in. Even in the modern world, culture can change from country to country, city to city and even neighborhood to neighborhood sometimes. A country village won’t have the same culture as a megacity, and the attitudes and morals of your novel’s characters have to reflect that.

If you are writing a fantasy or a science fiction novel then your problems increase tenfold. The average fantasy novel is not set on earth so all the earthly holidays and reasons for morals have to go. The moral part is usually easily fixed by replacing earth’s religions with a fantasy religion but then you have to consider the effect of this religion on your world. What kind of religion is it? A Catholic type, with a hierarchy and priests? Do the priests go out into the world or stay in their temples. What are the punishments for blasphemy or nonbelief? Is it a true religion or a false one in the world of your story? Perhaps a more druidic natural religion fits your story better? Is it a cult or a religion?

Once you have your world’s belief system in place, you have to figure out their effect on the life of your characters? Are there holidays or holy days? Is there a rule against working more than four days in a row? You can’t use Christian holidays so Christmas is out. Most fantasy novels tend to fall back on the druidic/celtic holidays since they fit a more medieval time period: midwinter solstice, harvest festivals, summer solstice and the first day of spring. Science fiction novels set in the future have to come up with their own. Will colonists on a far planet four thousand years in the future be celebrating Christmas? Maybe, maybe not.

Some novels have a Christmas-like holiday. Take a look at Terry Pratchett’s Discworld universe. He has a quite detailed approach to the existence of gods on Discworld. One of his novels， Small gods, explains exactly how a god comes to power on Discworld. He also has anthropomorphic personifications such as Death, the fifth horseman of the apocalypse, Time and the Hogfather (discworld’s worlds version of Santa Clause) who appears for Hogwatch (Discworld Christmas). Other novels have entirely new holidays either based on their respective religions or on the culture as in The Lies of Locke Lamore’s Day of Changes or in Magician’s Choosing Day.

Whatever the case may be and whatever holiday makes an appearance in your novel, it has to be well integrated into the story. Characters should make reference to it, actions and conversations should reflect its existence. They can be used to mark the passing of time, like in all the Harry Potter novels, or can even be a pivotal day in the timeline of your novel.

In my upcoming novel, the first chapter takes place on a holiday which, at the moment, I am calling Citizen’s Day. The novel takes place in the star system of the Republic of Dorchas which is a futuristic republic where emphasis is placed on service to the Republic and becoming a citizen. The main festival is called Citizen’s Day. The culture is very militaristic. People are not surprised at violent acts and consider it the norm and sometimes even logical.

When I first started my novel, I knew that the first chapter would take place on a holiday but I didn’t know the name. At first I called it “Earth Remembrance Day” and it would have been a holiday that referenced when the Earth was destroyed. As I wrote later chapters I felt that the holiday was not exactly what it needed to be so it has now become Citizen’s Day to better reflect the society. Of course in my novel, it is not laid out like this and only after the first few chapters do you start to understand the culture of Dorchas. The novel itself only covers about a three month time span so there no other holidays and I think in Dorchas society there really isn’t any other big festivals.

Another thing to remember is that your society does not exist in a vacuum. Once you have one society’s culture you have to consider what their neighbor’s religion and culture are, and how they see each other. Don’t forget, culture also includes the kind of swear words people use, the names they call each other and the type of entertainment they watch as well as how they act towards each other.

The wonderful thing about creating your own world though is that you are not limited in what you put into it. You can research obscure festivals and religions and throw them in there just because they are fun, as long as they fit in the framework of your story.