Developing cultures for a fantasy novel. Help, please?

Question

I know just enough about anthropology to know that I'd be an idiot to just start sticking elements of cultures together in random environments. Where do I start? Please tell me what your background is when answering, but all input is appreciated.

Answer 1

Well my background is in art history (sort of relevant) but often times what defines a culture is its geography.  For instance, if a settlement is on the water, they could have lots of fishing, sea exploration, worship sea-creature like gods, etc.  Mountain dwellers would hunt, forage, look to the birds and the sky, etc. Think about how each group would be defined by where they are and then let your imagination run wild.  Good luck!

Answer 2

Read William Cambell-George Lukas did before he wrote Star Wars-Cambell analyzed Archetypes from the myths of many cultures and found common characters and traditions in each. I once did the very same thing and spent years writing ideas on little scraps of paper and filling a garbage bag with them. I got about halfway through.Good luck.----oops,guess I've been watching too  much TV  lately. This actually bothered me a bit but I let it go at the time.

Answer 3

Hmmmm. Interesting problem.

The cultural stuff first needs to serve your story, your plot.

So fix the elements you need to tell the story you're trying to tell.

Then reflect on those, and see if there are other cultural elements that fall out of them to some extent -- cultural elements sort of hang together into a single, coherent system.

Then brainstorm with yourself for how you can add unexpected and wacky elements to your cultures -- to give them their own flavors, as it were.

Then sit back, and reflect about whether your ideas WORK -- that is, could this bunch of elements yield a functioning culture. Tweak so they work.

Sorry, that's all I can suggest.

Also, steep yourself in works that have invented cultures -- sci fi and fantasy. It'll help inspire ideas, and you can also see how other such inventions do and don't work (some of them just seeming silly, others plausible).

But you need to have threads of logic running through things. Given the bits you know about a given people, what other stuff would fit -- help them in their particular environment, both maintain order and tradition, but also have ways of producing and managing change and development.

Answer 4

Culture is greatly influenced by the physical environment and what we have to do to survive in it. What you can eat, what wants to eat you, how you prepare for changing seasons and whatnot. Some spoiled meat your ancestors ate might lead to taboos concerning food preparation. A flood or volcano in the distant past becomes an angry god who requires a periodic sacrifice.

Answer 5

not sure what you're looking for exactly, but if you're wanting to build entire cultures from scratch I think thats too lofty...

you might need to start with basic things like environment, subsistence strategies, division of power...

you could try taking cues from existing cultures...

Answer 6

Not only is geography important in the development of culture, as someone has already mentioned, but Climate and environment are also other important factors as they will dictate things such as clothing, dwellings, subsistence strategies and dietary needs/habits, hunting and gathering techniques/strategies, burial customs and rituals, the raw materials needed for tool manufacture and use, etc.  

Other things to consider:

Are your characters nomadic, farmers, landowners or do they 'rent' their land for wages, produce/animals

Social rankings/stratifications

Social structures - matriarchy, patriarchy, both male and females are of equal status/rank within the family structure

That is all that I can think of for now - I hope that this helps.

WA

Answer 7

I am a black woman with 3 beautiful girls and a husband.  I really don't know if I am all that "cultural" to be honest.  The only thing I can think of would be our food culture.  I like soul food, like collard greens, black eyed peas, corn bread neckbones and cabbage.   Although this is not my favorite food, or favorite way to eat.  When I was growing up, we went to church almost everyday, lol.  Now that I am an adult, I hardly go (hangs head in shame).  

We used to celebrate Juneteenth.  But now, we don't think about it.  The only thing my immediate family does religiously is take long drives on Sundays to look at million dollar homes in the Atlanta area.  This is the closest we will ever get to one, lol.  But the people are very nice and they will let you walk through them even though they know you are not going to buy. We are also a military family and travel quite a bit, which could be good and bad.