WORLDBUILDING CULTURES - Terrible Writing Advice
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- Опубликовано: 20 окт 2024
- Don’t worry. All you need is a funny hat and some strange shaped buildings in the background.
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Don’t forget that everyone in sci-fi is an atheist, and everyone in a fantasy world is a Nordic warrior, and everyone in steampunk is British.
Or German, British or German.
Or in a urban fantasy everything is related to christianity and pop media monsters like demons, angels, vampires, werewolves...
To be fair, Urban fantasy is partially what turns some of these things into pop media monsters.
Urban fantasy is one of those things where done right can be interesting and captivating, but when done like crap it really REALLY shows. And 95% of urban fantasy is crap.
90% of anything is crap.
THE EVIL EMPIRE NEEDS ONLY THE COLORS BLACK AND RED! EVERY OTHER COLOR IS SUPERFLUOUS AND INFERIOR!
Terribly Agree XD !!!
What about dark grey?
BNOBLE981 Only if we absolutely must.
Pink is just a shade of light red in a way.
*actually makes the evil empire use argent, azure and dark red*
On the one hand: Yes, just stealing cultures and shoving them in places they super don't belong is jarring and can completely ruin a story
On the other: Space Cowboys
Ah yes
The space western
Actually good despite the above lol
It depends if you're going for realistic or rule of cool. For example if space cowboys showed in a series like Dr. McNinja (they don't) it wouldn't be that jarring or ridiculous.
Rainbow the wind sage honestly most good space western stuff ive seen is anime
But stuff like firefly is pretty cool too
The settings gotta support it like u said
@@d4arken3ds0ul You mean like Trigun? (And I totally forgot Firefly exists. Partly because while I repect the show's existence it doesn't really do anything for me)
Rainbow the wind sage trigun cowboy bebop outlaw star
Even wild arms (and the games it was based on)
Its a legit genre lol
Pro tip, your army can't surrender if your flag is entirely white.
LOL true
Or if it's mostly white. The CSA had that problem with one of their flags.
*My French ancestors:* Press Y for pride.
Red Viper
France🏳️
Well then, France was invincible for 30years
Pffft, There are two types of cultures: Bad culture and good culture. Good culture has the same values as mine and bad culture is different than mine.
There, world building done.
A Suspicious Avocado everyone who disagrees with me is an evil empire!
A Suspicious Avocado you just described Ancient Rome
Nailed it. "So what if they are a highly advanced society with high happiness index? Their attitude toward gender role is incompatible with mine! That makes them space Nazis!"
🙈 So freaking true. Sadly, I don’t think I can think of writer who hasn’t fallen into this trope. Can it even be overcome?
You just described humanity
"How should writer handle more controversial subjects, such as religion, or view on gender roles?"
"Well, you're on your own, because I'm not touching *that* on RUclips."
Good call, man. Good call.
Just goes to show the sad state of RUclips as it is...
Oh boy, do I like people censoring themselves in order to avoid backlash !
The dumpster fire is an accurate representation of the subject.
lord money bags69 your comment sound ironic, but i don't know it was, i mean you literal will make a rip off of the romans without any creativity; also psycothic extremists muslims like you know nowdays didn't exist until the last century
lord money bags69 That sounds like such an awesome novel! As a European history enthusiast, I've always wanted to read a book like that. Byzantines/Holy Rome is hard though... I personally prefer Byzantium irl, but the inner politics of the HRE can be so interesting if done well. However, I would suggest using the Byzantines for historical reasons. That shouldn't stop you from writing about the HRE though... maybe just add them in as a third country.
I love Worldbuilding even more than making plot
I can’t stop with it and get done with the plot, halp
yeah, for me, world building is the easy part. it's everything else that has me in tears.
i guess i picked that up from playing dnd for so long.
*So what you're saying is: You're in a love triangle with world building and making plot.*
I love worldbuilding even more than actually writing.
I'm stuck in the eternal dilemma of making awesome and complex worlds but not being able to show all my hard work to anyone cause I didn't bother actually writing the stories for them.
So have you ever thought about, writing everything down in the wikid and then you can read through and you can also show it off.
Some of the concept and other things of that kind.if you are interested you can Google wikidpad. Also it would be kind of lovely actually seen what you are created so if you do it. It would be really awesome if you send a link.
I wish you well in your endeavour.
And don't forget, every planet has ONE culture and civilization. It's not like culture is affected by differences of location, environment, mentality or circumstances on a planet, just like humans every part of every planet shares a universal culture, set of beliefs and values, etc. it's not like the way people act or their world view can be different in even as little space as one side of a town to another, that would be absurd.
It is more related to fact that every planet has one city as multicultural planets aren't as that rare.
To be honest, I can kind of understand why this is used a lot in sci-fi. If you already have 10 alien species, you do not want to make 10 different cultures for each of them. You only need to really flesh out the ones where your protagonist(s) come from. (Usually, this is Earth, so the work has already been done for you.)
Your protagonists will naturally have the perspective of a foreigner on all other alien cultures except their own, so they can't reasonably be expected to know about all the cultural and religious varieties existing on other planets. Most of what they will know about those aliens is stereotypes or cultural generalisations.
You can observe this on Earth too. What do you know about, say, India? Cool clothing, hinduism, holy cows, callcenters... These are just the stereotypes associated with India by foreigners. We do not even have an in-depth knowledge about other *human* cultures, and much less about alien ones.
So, it is not unrealistic to portray your aliens with monolithic cultures. After all, this is what your protagonists will likely see them as.
That's okay, because each of these planets conveniently only have one single biome, like jungles/desert/snow, from pole to pole.
@@TheRezro even fucking Dragon Ball had planets with more than one culture like the Sayian homeworld for example.
every planet have one environment everybody know that...
I mean look at star wars
thing that was not mentioned: cultural differences are easily affected by biology. switching up basic things such as dietary needs, erogenous zones/nerve clusters, likelihood of genetic variation, or the aging process could lead to INSANE differences.
'God forbid biology has an effect in culture, what would be of us if the world actually were consistent. We would be living under some evil (insert evil regime here, like nazism)!' Now seriously people don't tend to think that point, biology makes culture, and culture ends up modifying biology specially in areas of strong selection like when criminals are killed off for centuries, then you get less of them. Because we literally breed ourselves for traits.
@@businessproyects2615 natural selection is nowhere near that fast, and doesnt work like that lmao
but go on Dr. Strangelove, tell me how we'll benefit greatly from eugeni- I mean government assigned mates! (With complimentary reeducation centers)
@@bloodyhell8201 On the good side, you would realize how bad are goberments at it. So bad is better of to not have them messing around one way or another. About natural selection: It depends there's strong changes enough to diferentiate species and so on, but small ones are easier to achieve we know that because we aren't all clones of each other.
It would be weird if by having some sort of selection pressure in any population there would not be a change in its average parameters as a result. If in the middle ages they start hanging violent robbers before they are able to properly reproduce, then you would expect violent people to have statistically speaking more traits which keeps them away from being violent robbers than they did before. When you start appliying all of that over the length of human history and beyond you get why we are like we are.
Literally we've been breeding other humans for a long time by now, we just don't like to say it because it sounds like something someone with enough introspection into human nature would say, and people with strong instrospection on human nature are either masters of the human mind which are dangerous socially, or they've learn to hate human nature because they know it and it ain't good. Which is also dangerous.
@@businessproyects2615 by this logic, you are a threat
@@dradronicgaming744 everyone is, life is about living well even though we know deep down humans aren't fully good or evil.
Character names!
Want to make your fantasy characters sound interesting and unique? Just make a random coughing/gagging noise and pretend to say a name while doing so, write it down, and then subtract some letters and maybe add in apostrophes to make it sound like a legit name. Nobody will ask if you were drunk when you came up with Keen'th Sh'ar'bopopolis! And they certainly won't dare question why only a handful of characters have such names and then the farmer who has plot device item #232 is named Roger.
Also, make sure not to include a pronunciation guide (if it's a book), so no one knows how to pronounce your made-up names and words.
When I come up with names for things and people in the alien race I’m making, I use the letters, each letter having origin in a body part or a physical object, to name things.
For me I slammed my head on the keyboard removed some letters and put it through goodle translate twice
Here’s an example of a relatively common name (like how the most common named in the US is James) in the culture I’m working the most on (Romanized, of course): Ahkla. It translates to hero/heroine. Most names in this culture are gender neutral, so males named Ahkla are called Ahklasah and females with this named are called Ahklaseh. The name is pronounced Ah-kla-sah/seh.
uwuaychak'ara is glad for your help
You and Overly Sarcastic Productions should collab and make a masterpiece about tropes, ending the world, and lets not forget the LOVE TRIANGLE
I think they should ENACT a love triangle with the OSP
Learning by doing, always better than simply babbling about it
Honestly I was thinking about something along these lines as well. I think a collaboration between Mr. Beaubien and Red where the former does his facetious explanation of what not to do would mesh well with Red's witty delivery.
I'd like a three-way with Red, blue and JP.
Annie Song , #ReyLo confirmed.
I LOVE OVERLY SARCASTIC PRODUCTIONS THIS IS SUCH A GOOD IDEA
Rome: What will be our legacy?
Time Traveller: uhh...
Duwang Man Other Time Traveller: Catholicism
Time traveler: Your building and art style became really popular after the middle ages.
your laws, language, architecture, and political systems form the basis of like 3/5ths of all countries, so pretty good by comparison to your contemporaries.
Contributions to legal and political systems across the West; spread of Christianity; the creation of several Latin-derived languages, and silly idiots who think they're the heirs to Roman greatness.
What is this Christianity thing you speak of? Is that another name for Jupiter or something?
Worldbuilding cultures mean cowboy hats, fezzes, army hats, and stuff like that, right?
Just Some Guy with a Mustache
Stop being in every comment section
I see you EVERYWHERE
keep being in every comment section
Yep. A planet of hats.
Just Some Guy with a Mustache I have idea how about cowboys in space
When warrior cultures are overly simplistic it's boring, but when done right, they're amazing.
For example, the mandalorians in Star Wars have the advantage of centuries if history because of the Star Wars namesake
The cost of the mandalorian crusades is shown in the Clone Wars TV show with the planet Mandalore stripped of it's natural resources and almost uninhabitable
Their military power comes from their engineering prowess, they're a warrior culture, that actually has a method to the madness
Well, thanks to Disney this isn’t a thing anymore.
@@hildegunstvonmythenmetz6095 Ahsoka showed up in Rebels, so Disney clearly considers her to still be fully canon.
The Sangheili (Elites) from Halo also have an exceptionally developed warrior culture. As do the Druchii in Warhammer Fantasy. Those bastards do over-the-top evil right.
I was never sold on Mandalorians (the darksaber? Seriously?) Up until that new show revealed they have a schism that resulted in different political factions. Suddenly they felt so much less cliche, and actually deep and interesting as different ideas on what a warrior culture should be
One of my friends blew up on me about some things in one of my country's cultures once because she thought since it was my country it believed everything I believed....no, that's...that's not how this works.
Mirogod
Oh, I originally typed them out but then deleted them because I thought no one would care!
Well women aren't allowed in the military or in high positions of power (they can still work and become bosses, but they won't get very high in the government). Abortion and divorce are illegal. Um...I could have sworn there was one more thing, but those are the only ones I can remember right now. They're the ones she hated the most. She still doesn't really like me for it. I guess she doesn't believe me when I tell her their values don't necessarily reflect my own.
wow that sucks man
So she wanted you to base your society on like, modern history within the last 50 years rather than the 99% of nations that existed in history? I see
cruz92895
Yep. She wants me to have every single country in all of my worlds ever have all the modern values that she thinks are important. In other words she wants me to create the Mary Sue version of a world.
Sounds pretty arrogant and disrespectful to the cultures of all the other women in history. But I suppose short sighted virtue posturing does that.
Someone should make a fantasy world out of obscure internet memes.
Romulus Numa millhouse!
Now I'm picturing priests trying to convert people with the question "do you know da wae?"
Please don't...
You mean Reddit?
Need some funny memes like uh
Doge you guys like the Doge meme
"Well you're on your own, because I'm not touching that on youtube." Then can you 'suggest' an alternative site where we might 'stumble across' such incendiary materials?
No, anywhere on the internet will burst into flames as soon as controversy is mentioned.
well the author might not suggest anything, but i recently stumbled upon a youtube channel named colttaine. his videos are interesting.
You are just looking for the comments, arent you?
There's a RUclips channel named after the mighty ruler of ancient Akkad which is known for discussing such things, but beware, this is a power not to be trifled with.
fruityrudy21 You mean the guy that often fucks up his research.
I would rather point towards channels like Contrapoints or maybe Shaun. Though it probably depends on your already existing beliefs if you are willing to give them a chance. Their oppinions might not be entirely reasonable, but watching them without bias can open up new and interesting perspectives on various issues.
I made a culture. It was hell. I now have sixty pages worth of information on the different festivals and traditions they have. Someone help me. My research and other stuff like character planning and outlines and stuff is longer than the book itself though I'm editing at the moment.
Side note, I sucked at writing when I actually began to write the book. Now all that my edits say is clunky exposition or notes to reword the sentences. I've been at it for about a week now. Gotta power through it. Just halfway through. *shudders at the thought of more editing* Please, help.
P.S, here is some shameless promotion. Go to Wattpad and check out my book called The Game For Power. My username is JamesStark612.
You have become my role model with this.
I aspire to world build one day...and then accidentally chronicle every single thing from the beginning of the universe to the very end.
Knowledge? You know, whay they wear on holy days, what they eat on holy days, if there is some special dish or something that they make on those days (for example, a special beef stew is made on the death day of an empress), if they sacrifice something, if they burn something to signify something, if they dance erratically like they have the dancing plague from France (it's a real thing. People in the early 1400s got a dancing plague in France. Look it up.), if they pray in a special way or have some special prayers, if they do some activities like light candles, or throw a party for a good harvest season or something like that. Just routine stuff.
Well, I think you need all of that culture and worldbuilding. Maybe turn it into a set of slideshows to help organize it. That's what I do. It helps focus everything into bite-size chunks of how the things relate to one another.
Ok, here's what you do: If you want to get all of the festivals in, have the story take place over however long it takes to have each one happen. For the traditions, have an outsider come in and ask about/partake in each one. Maybe even have a festival and tradition happen at once to cut down on how much space you need. Especially if at least one of the festivals is in celebration of at least one tradition. Hope that helps.
P.S. I know from experience how painful it is to go back and edit your earlier stuff. Do it anyway, You'll thank yourself for doing it now rather than later when you go and look at it again.
If there is one thing that pisses me off it's that fantasy, a genre that by it's very nature allows for anything strange, weird or fantastical, always handicaps itself to the same tropes and races.
Hmmmm... a fantasy setting you say.....well time to put elves, dwarfs and orcs and a stereotypical middle age England into the mix.
It's not like there's anything else.
I went a bit too weird with my fantasy idea, because it was still the typical setting, but a lot more diverse. Medieval Europe/England in my thing is just boring ass humans.
I had two elf groups, one based on the Irish and another on fucking Rome. Dwarves are Vikings as always, but maybe with actual research on the Norse. No orcs, but for some reason a race of cat people with four kingdoms based on Japan, Moorish Spain, Greece, and for some reason several ancient Middle Eastern cultures like Egypt and Israel.
Maybe look into the Merle trilogy by Kai Meyer. It's weird. It isn't much fantasy in some ways, it's set in a mostly real life Venice, but mirrors are magic, and Egypt is monsters. Works for the story.
You dare question the elf-dwarf-orc love triangle? what is this heresy?!
@@clueless2001 😂😂😂
@@andresacosta4832 to be honest, that's one of the things I hate the most. Humans = Western European cultures. Every other culture belongs to non-humans. It's really Anglocentric and there's no nuance. Why can't there be multiple races for each culture, creating subcultures within x nation. Why is everything (at best other than the Western European human nation) an ethnostate?
What about the fact that you need to create a gibberish language and say that "ta" means, " we must stop the Arkonian Imperium and save the bunnies."
Polysynthetic languages be like
I made a fake language for my story but the names of places have very basic names. Mahia sounds pretty, but translates to Sun City in the native language of the protagonist’s hometown.
I know at least three languages that, under right circumates work exactly like that
also, you should NOT watch biblaridion's series on language creation. it sucks
ruclips.net/video/FHK1gO2Mh68/видео.html
That’s good worldbuilding though
Don't forget to make every non important character have as much depth as a spoon
Give them a character design of 8 colours which hideously don't work (assuming their not in the grey uniform of the opposing empire).
Picky Psychology Student 10 at least.
Picky Psychology Student No,wait,give them 10 colors that look like shit together at the least.
What video did you come from?
*or rather a spork...because they are more leaky and hold less*
4:49 I recently read something that had precisely this problem. The author spend half the book explaning how awesome this parallel world is. For example, they use super magical cristal as a source of energy instead of oil, because they want to protect their ecology! It's not like the human would use these super magical cristal with infinite energy and no disadvantage if this parallel world would give them some...
Oh, and according to the lack of knowledge of science of the author, the hole in the ozone layer is cause by CO2, and not by product that humanity stop using 20 years ago...
Lack of knowledge... that's a problem but the world with the crystal might not find the other world worthy of this kind of energy.
@@TJTrickster To be fair a world with literal magic has no business judging how us semi-intelligent down-trodden apes who started out with sharp sticks power our goddamn life changing tech 😠
"A writer need not worry about stealing another culture's symbols, because a proper author should be too lazy to use symbols in their fictional culture in the first place!"
One of your all-time best. Touche.
Educate me Master of the Love Triangle.
Leslie J. Vasquez
That sounds kinky
there's literally a song called the math of love triangles and there is no way the songwriter didn't write it as a tribute to this guy
BerningDaPlaceToTheGround FIRE I wasn't meant to be. *(insert lenny face)
That needs to be a sex position now.
That's a thing it involves a threesome giving oral.
As a citizen of Strawmanopolis I am deeply offended by this.
Just give them all one quirky characteristic like they all wear hats or something
don't forget to augment this attire with gas masks, goggles and barbarian chain maile, maybe a bit of neon here and there for no practical reason what so ever...and if you're feeling bold and carefree throw in a feather boa...
Good writing
Sounds hot.
Can you do an episode on plot twists?
Should've done this idea for April fool's. The video would give genuine writing advice. And for the twist at the end, there's no twist.
You're welcome.
No It was all a dream
Some of those were covered in the episode on evil conspiracies.
But yeah, this would be about plot twists that come out of nowhere because the writer thought them up about two seconds before writing them.
When they're well-written, a second or third reading or viewing reveals the set-up. It can be really fun when it seems that the upcoming plot twist is thus and such, then turns out to be something else entirely.
Make sure to constantly allude to the big twist so even the most brain-dead and stupid audience member can identify it! Or just say the protagonist was DEAD THE ENTIRE TIME!
YES! Nothing can ruin a story faster than a plot twist that had absolutely no foreshadowing because the author cared more about shocking the audience with absurd twists and turns than telling a coherent, satisfying story.
If there is one thing I've learned (and have really taken to heart) by watching most of JP's TWA videos is this:
If you want to be able to write really good fiction, just consuming fiction for ideas and inspiration isn't enough at all - you have to become VERY knowledgeable about how the real world works. You have to sit down and really take the time to learn about politics, economics, geography, world cultures, biology, physics, human relations and behaviors, philosophy, military tactics, martial arts, combat styles, and so many other topics!
Additionally, this means adopting "writing fiction" as a hobby can become a pretty good motivator for learning more about how the real world works.
Exactly! Writing has made me appreciate school a lot more lol
me crying in my Christianity-related rabbit hole I dug myself into when I just wanted to make some references and jokes in my Devilman fanfic on par with Go Nagai's own bits of accurate Catholic lore...
What to remember when it comes to flags: 2-3 colours, no words, maybe a symbol or two, overall simple enough that a child could draw them.
why would you even want to overcomplicate a flag
@•o• but aren't flags made to be recognized easily?
@@kedarunzi9139 If you love graphic design too much to learn about the goals of a flag, no, that isn't the goal of a flag.
@@paulelkin3531 a goal of a flag definitely isn't to have as many components plastered in it it becomes an amalgamation of shapes not resembling anything
@@kedarunzi9139 You seem to be assuming the average person is intelligent, and I'm not sure how to break the news to you.
As a frequent reader of r/worldbuilding, I laughed when you mentioned splitting rivers.
Use a superior website, like ifunny
Hey you two let him use the website he wants!
Why did i reply to a 2 year old comment?
holy fucking shit its the annoying dog.
@@higrunt9844 wtf toby fox is watching terrible writing advice oh no he's gonna force a love triangle into deltarune chapter 2 oh god-
"Real world cultures are stranger than anything you can make up in books"
How dare you challenge my abilities.
I mean, imagination is borderline myth. The only creativity we got is how much we can bend a real life subtext into a story and make it work.
@@sharilshahed6106 Sounds like heresy, sir.
@@BeeWaifu your profile pic is heresy
@@sirp7394 Good, good. Soon you will be offered a better life by the dark powers. Leave the corpse emperor behind.
1:05 to back up your point, here is one of my favorite "REALLY!?!" real world culture things. in Africa there is a tribe that jumps off the top of a fairly high tower and budgie jumps to the bottom as a right of passage. that's not the weird part, the weird part is that the goal is to hit the ground with their head. yep, as a right of passage members of a tribe as asked to jump off the top of a tower with the goal of landing head first.
pecu alex I thought the same thing, but I double checked. The goal is to barely touch the ground with their head, and no I don't know how they are not all dead.
Just speculation, but they prooobably keep the ropes tight enough that they're going much slower by the time they reach the bottom.
I'm pretty sure your right. that said it's still odd and I'm still not doing it.
Ika I couldn't tell you. This was years ago and I bet you I couldn't spell it even if I could remember it.
I remember seeing a documentary about that particular tribe. I don't remember its name or its location within Africa, but if memory serves, the idea was to have the rope (which is somewhat elastic) be just long enough for your head to hit the ground, while slowing you down enough that the impact won't kill you. The longer you made the rope (and therefore, the harder you hit the ground) without passing out, the more awesome you are considered. This last bit could be fabrication on the part of the writers; it would make more sense, as a rite of passage, if the intent was only that your head would softly touch the ground. That way, you'd have a test of courage that won't result in dozens of fatalities that could endanger the tribe's survival.
"In the republic of Mary Sue there is only the like button"
That comment aged well.
The Republic of Mary Susan
oh, my, god, WE WERE UNDER MARY SUSANS CONTROL THE WHOLE TIME
Well, the dislike button exists now, but nobody uses it on the videos I watch. Don't wanna try it as I'll get jumped. 😋
"I watched the prince of Egypt when I was a kid, so I guess you could say that makes me an expert at -copy and pasting- utilizing the bible in my writing."
Someone make an imperial social structure based on Full House.
I would watch that
Could you do something on crime or detective stories? I can't find anything on that.
Knowledge? 😂😂
@Knowledge!
If The Killer do a Disturbing Stuff he would End Up In Jail after Investigator Finds out The Culprit has Necrophillia
I love detectives so i hope he does that.
And remember, you need to know the definition of foreshadowing.
"Blatantly stating the twist before you get to it so everyone knows what's coming and then changing the twist at the last second leaving everyone mostly just confused and frustrated."
Also wax poetic as you over-explain every detail of the case save for the information that's actually pertinent.
Detective Pikachu
Being actually serious for a moment, I'm currently in the process of trying to craft my own galactic world and one of the hardest aspects I face is what is the culture of each species gonna be. I make sure to have it all consistent with experiences within there own history along with environments and traits that each species has. Hell I'm even trying to flesh out a tribalistic warrior species myself as a species who gained access to Space travel too early, and now are subservient within an Empire that uses them as a Heavy and Elite force of warriors. Slowly over time, evolving to become less warlike as they come to evolve there culture and society into adapting the more advanced societies around them.
Sounds good. But how did they gain access of space travel too early?
Pyroskies Sounds really interesting, reminds me of the Krogan from mass effect.
Pyroskies ok so you made the krogans from mass effect. Good choice.
Eh...I was thinking of the Predator Race.
Interesting. Are you gonna publish it in book format or are you gonna put it on the internet? Do you take inspirations from real world cultures?
Not... Not... *Honesty*
The bane of all future award winning authors when they like get around to it.
reminds me of a futurama quote:
"I don't know, but I'm afraid we'll have to use....MATH."
I read this as Heresy, I was severely disappointed.
“Worldbuilding can be intimidating to those who don’t spend every waking moment obsessing about it like I do!”
I am extremely called out by this xD
My biggest problem with writing and wordbuilding cultures is that, after careful deliberation to find out what the most reasonable cultures would look like under these scenarios, my conclusions are always cliches and other obvious choices. And if I try to make them more exaggerated for the sake of being more interesting, then they become too unreasonable and fall into many of the problems you just described.
+Connor Walters
You can’t win either way. Originality is dead; all you can really do is take something and put your own spin on things.
@@Dreigonix That is completely not true...
'I will never be original because Im not special or some genius that can make it'
idk I just hate this mindset. People make original things all the time and they're great, Shakespeare was probably even himself starved of any creative process.
+stirfriedrice
What I mean is that even the most original works take inspiration and influence from other works here and there.
@@Dreigonix Ahh yeah that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying. And If that comment seemed passive aggressive I did not mean for it to. But, for the highly developed society were in, from the very beggining of time, or the beggining of writing and fiction. Cant we say that all writing took inspiration from something, because we are just figments of a reality we dont even know exists. And if thats the case we are living in an inspiration in itself. Food for thought but originality to that deep of a sentiment can never be achieved. Otherwise you would have nothing in the world.
If it’s obvious then it’s likely the right choice. Don’t fall into the habit of making your culture exotic for the sake of it. The reader will also want to draw a logical conclusion and with minimum effort. For example: say your culture lives in a barren place where no crops grow, well the likely cultural solution is to take someone else’s food by force. Is it trite, cliche and unoriginal? Are they basically Vikings? Yes, but it’s also what your reader would reasonably expect given the circumstances. Take bandits in fantasy. Bandits are soooooo cliche, yet banditry was incredibly common and so it’s a believable and therefore excusable trope. Your world should be believable as your audience goes on an adventure page by page and sometimes you need to be cliche and unoriginal to do that. Cliches are fun but they’re also the building blocks, the hammer and nails of a story, they’re neither good or bad it just depends what you do with them. Frankly, someone calling anything cliche is just them trying to be a superior-know-it-all-smart-arse, usually people who would never bother to put pen to paper and if they did would fair little better. That’s my opinion.
I think that last bit always gets me. It stands to reason that a culture with completely different views would inevitably be controversial in some way. Views on age, gender, other races, and it only gets worse if it's a different species, which would naturally think on a different level than your standard hum-drum human race (Especially if they age at a different rate). It's awkward explaining these cultures to my friends sometimes because I always get the "Why would you write that?" look. :/
Ah, so draw from existing things so it feels more normal/understandable? Makes sense to me.
It makes a lot of sense, but it's hard to imagine for most people, and it invariably starts horrible flamewars when discussed on the internet, which is why TWA avoids the subject at the end of his video.
@@ImusakHctividar existing things don't feel normal to outsiders too.
And they say that High Elves have no culture
Hey, don't you leak the script for "Bright 2: High Elves can't dance"
In AD&D that is what define them, but only because they live amongst humans. That many bad fantasy stories make forest elves only into more advanced monkeys is other story.
Wait are you the Aldor that I recognize a few months back? We talk to each other whenever we see each other's comments.
@@kingsleycy3450 i have a court ordered restraining order from dancing in public or within 5,000 feet of a populated area but that's not exactly the same thing is it?
At least they have couture.
You know I would love to see a fictional story (Mainly sci-fi) about us following one of these warrior race cultures as a protagonist where we can explore such aspects within said society and culture. See things through there perspective and ideals, then again that might be too interesting for the audience who only cares about blood and action. :D
their*
Knowledge? Actually war is good for other countries because these gains more money selling weapons and in fiction they can sell Warriors,Mages,Spells,Item,share sacret power for a limited time and if the people on war wants more they would need to pay even more.
Look up the Magic: The Gathering short story
"Truth of Names."
It follows a character from a clan of warriors who play the "Glory in Battle," trope pretty straight.
The prose might be a little weak and it's a VERY short story, but I think it captures a really REALLY unique aspect of that fantasy, and is a bit deconstructive in its own ways.
magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/truth-names-2015-01-28
I dunno if the link will post but here it is, because I'm never gonna pass up a chance to share these stories which are far better than they have any right to be for stories about a f*cking card game.
Except why do they have to constantly be at war? I'm sure you could make a species who is focus on warfare while being smart as well.
You know, that bit about most US state flags is incredibly true XD
Most of them are basically under designed, just take the state seal and put it on a flag. Some have very nice looking ones with only a few colors and simple to redraw, then there's Maryland which went a few steps too far in complexity, but when they do just have a complex image over blue it's not because they didn't stop it's because they just didn't care from the start
Yeah
Wtf is wrong with you Maryland
Maryland's flag is the best though.
Petrico94 Maryland's flag is the heraldry of the founder of the state. It's not any more overdesigned than the British royal family crest, ect.
+Matthew Longley Colorado, Alaska, New Mexico have pretty good flags too…
"You're on you're own because I'm not touching that on youtube." Probably a good call
...Shoulda been more careful with that explosion last time, man. That title screen is going to take a while to fix. XD
The new intro is perfect!
I personally liked the happy face, while everything was going ablaze.^^ Maybe it is only because it was moving and changing, while the new intro is only one picture.
I thought my phone audio was glitching out for a few seconds
I prefer the old one tbh
I DON'T LIKE CHANGE!!!
( It do look nice doesn't it?)
imma have to push up my nerdglasses abit and point out that Klingons have a very rich culture with art, love, religion and even opera. the reason they are so war heavy is because thats the part that interacts with the federation and the enterprice specifically
Yup. Glad that someone mention that.. shamefully after Discovery they will be seen as space orcs 0_0
+TheRezro Good thing nobody actually watches discovery.
I think this was less a criticism on works such as _Star Trek_ , and more a warning for would-be writers who try to copy.
And the shows trying to explain Klingon society in detail just makes it even more broken. Just like trying to explain the Federation always seems to backfire. Star Trek should have kept its casual Space Cowboy approach to world building.
So is it bad to start with one character trait for each culture before growing them out? Like one idea in my head has orcs that are war like (possibly one of the most cliche things possible), yet it has flesh out into more that due to the harsh environment, scarce resources, and hostilities between tribes that strength, endurance, and cunning in combat became the base for their society like how wealth effects our own. An Orc that is stronger/smarter/etc is seen as someone to be look up to while weaker/slower ones are use to non combat roles such as preparing food, building, mantince, so forth.
I like it! It's not cliche if you actually put this much thought into it, go get em'!
Not at all, most good worldbuilding projects start out as a single trait or set of traits that is later built upon to make more traits and quirks to create a unique culture.
The problem is not that, the real issue is putting stuff without thought and research just because.
It's only bad when you forget to actually grow them out.
Even in the modern world, most widely-known cultures have stereotypes that people can associate with them. It's easy enough to quip, "Americans like guns, lots are fat, and they forced the Kardashians on us," but once you start looking at the history of the country a lot of that stuff starts to make sense, even if not all of it is sensible.
“Well you’re on your own ‘cause I am not touching that on RUclips.”
Brilliant.
Don't forget that you can make any culture both "gritty", slightly removed from our own and instantly identifiable by having it's members repeat the same made up swear word three times in every sentence!
“Just build a culture obsessed with warfare at the cost of every other aspect of their society” You mean the spartans?
you mean cliche spartans. Sparta was much more than a warfare culture.
No society can be built solely on war. Three main reasons being 1) You must build good reasons for those poor guys going to die endlessly 2) Peace eventually comes, lasts, and no one likes to get bored. 3) Only a fraction of the population are fighters. What are the customs, habits and activities of all the others?
war
Ian Peters
Damn, why didn't I think of that
@@benjaminthibieroz4155 Being completely and utterly built on the stealing and fighting and war, its probably why Sparta collapsed. Brides dressed up like army men for the wedding, after being ceremonially kidnapped. Kids were left to die off mountsins if they were weak. Schools taught lying and stealing, and only reprimanded being caught. It was said, come back from battle victorious, or not at all. Suicide after loss in battle was common. War is Sparta, it might've had a few other side things, but that is all. Side things.
edit: stop the reply or there shall be serious consequences good lad oooo
@@extrablandchaos2149 I thought all of these things were myths?
I mean...common...throwing half the babies into volcanos at birth? Societies can be dumb and evil but there are still limits.
Also, how the US was at war for 92% of its history? Unless you consider every little military operation happening on background and i'm not even sure it would reach it.
Also, there's a difference between being constantly at war and being a culture that evolves solely around it. Europe, Japan, Roman Empire,...they've known century of regular warfare but they created so much more than just soldiers and weapons.
you should do an episode on either 'building emotional moments/tension' or 'gods in fantasy' (not talking about culture or religion, but the actual gods themselves whether they be lovcraftian entities, divine deities who left the earth or actually roam around), 2 aspects you frequently touch on in many of your video's but deserve their own episode
I do love this series. I'm far from a professional writer, but it's always good to hear how much of things I'm on the track for, even by telling me what wrong track would be. And I'm actually in the middle of building the setting for a sci-fi universe, including a large number of different species and cultures, so perfect timing.
Can you do an episode of Lost Ancient Technology/Magic/MacGuffins/etc? Or general 'Past Was Better/More Glamorous' cliche in fiction?
Just make sure that, despite the fact that this ancient civilization had technology better than our own, that they never expand beyond their one city. Just like how Rome just stayed a city-state and definitely didn't grow into a massive empire engulfing the entirety of Europe!
I did a Empire named the Mercurian Empire,They were created by the Mercurians,People who fell down from the stars,They had advanced technology,but sadly there was this thing called The Praga,which translate To Plague in Brazillian Portuguese,It was transmitted via Bite,Soon the Empire fell dowm via this Plague,But they had one last hope,They would Put their Remaining Pure Brains onto Machines,Capable of Aerokinesis so they could manipulate tools by levitating them via air,But the catch was that the machines would need alot of time to recharge,Aproximally 1,000 Years to be exactly,And after the Remaining Mercurians were put in their temporary bodies,they went to a deep slumber,in the region of Porto Velho,Rondonia Brazil,which translate to Old Docks(i think)
So,what you guys think?i am tired now,i think i need sleep
@@chriswentz5197 okay forerunners get eaten by flood, anything else?
I'm early, did we forget the Love Triangle?
Nope. It's on the flag
No story is complete without it after all
well, we're talking about worldbuilding cultures here. Why not create the REPUBLIC OF THE LOVE TRIANGLE, where every aspect of their culture is about LOVE TRIANGLES???????
Hmm, Internet Culture Wars...
*Picture of flaming dumpster fire*
Yeah, looks about right.
Not a FLAMING dumpster fire! Those are so much worse than the regular kind! LOL
2:50 But that lead to the question: Why haven't those untouchables use their position to launch a revolution against their oppressors/subvert the society from within/sell them out to their enemies for a better deal and emancipation?
I guess that's why writers don't use that kind of thing - too many questions to answer.
My first thought is for the same reason that society is isolationist. The "social" class could be considered like garbage men, a job that's necessary, hazardous, and no one wants to do, but everyone looks down on those who do it. It might be necessary for the isolationist people to communicate and trade with outside nations/planets, but it's possible that they have a motive to remain isolated, a motive the untouchable class agrees with.
One cannot overemphasize the importance of research when it comes to these kinds of subjects.
I stumbled across these a while back, and watched them for fun. But watching your videos, it made me realize everything I did wrong writing my book. (It was a modern-day fantasy. The main character is a half angel. I wrote it in high school.) I had abandoned that book a long time ago because it was.... definitely a first draft. And that first draft took me 5 years to write. And I wasn't sure exactly what was wrong with it or how to fix it, but that I knew it was definitely bad. But after watching your videos, I know what I did wrong now! I made the main character a Mary Sue, the villain has no motivation nor foreshadowing, the characters are being railroaded to unneccessary overabundance of locations without real reason (mainly because at the time I just wanted to picture them in those locations,) and I completely ignored how such a journey would make the characters grow and change as people. Thanks, Terrible Writing Advice! Now will I use this information to go back to my book, rewriting the entire thing only better, spending another several years on something I thought about already for several years of my life making world building notes and plans for sequels of? Probably not, who has time for that? But I will take this information into my future writing endeavors!
Just flipped my shit watching the newest episode of svtfoe, time to watch whatever you have in store this time
Oh I was waiting "How an author should take fanfiction"
Cause I'm too prideful and will make a lot of shameful mistakes on that matter
It would be cool some funny sarcastic advice
Empty your attic, bun it all and hope nobody finds out you wrote it.
Exactly
Or better! Never write it so it stills being perfect in your head!
Say it isn't canon.
Well. I didn't finished anything yet. And I may never do. I'm the enbodiment of almost every thing this channel talks about
Ziliock Almost as perfect as your OC.
Worldbuilding is something I've gotten a lot better at saddly due to my world being a dnd campaign I can't just rewrite it. My early mistakes stare me in the face. Every. Single. Time
2:39 "What do you mean that to maintain our superpower status we have to actually talk to people"?
*Most elves and other reclusive fantasy races in most literature in a nut shell...*
Seriously just suck it up and play nice with and be cordial with other nations and races, it's not like they're asking for you to embrace *the power of friendship* or whatever! *XD*
An idea for a fantasy race was a race that could see and contact the dead. It makes a cool culture to explore.
Warhammer 40k takes most of these rules, throws them out the window, than says "fuck you" when you ask about them, and still manages some pretty damn good universe building.
That's because Warhammer operates on Rule of Cool: if it's cool enough, it doesn't have to make sense.
Don’t we all love it when the author lectures us about how there world view is superior to ours
This is amazing. I don't normally leave comments on YT because I'm lazy af, but your channel is amazing and your content is always entertaining, as well as incredibly helpful! I also love how characters from previous videos of yours pop up from time to time as well.
Anyways, keep up the good work! I'll definitely continue supporting this channel in the future!
0:01 I thought my phone was about to die.
I’m 5 years late but I thought my headphones were broken
How’s 2019 btw
Every time
every SINGLE time
I brace myself to be torn to shreds and I end up feeling better about myself
It's such a bizarre series of emotions
Same here.
"Oh God, he's gonna go in on me."
(later)
"Huh, that, that wasn't so bad. Some tips here and there, but yeah...I'm good"
Think of an environment, think about the creature's biology, imagine a timeline and things that would come to be based on these things
Lol Bright is what happens when you watch all of Terrible Writing advice and take the sarcasm literally. When your Dark Lord is literally called “The Dark Lord” and your Mcguffin magic wand is literally just called a “magic wand,” you know you’re creatively bankrupt.
One theory that could improve Bright, is that the Sauron Expy was not really that terrible.
That is to say, if he was a tyrant, but he was not very different from for example Genghis Khan or Attila.
I believe the proper term is "Mary Sutopia"
would religion and gods and all of that fall under world building? if not, I think it'd be a good episode.
FILTHY ACTS AT A REASONABLE PRICE: ROMANCE RAILROAD I would say yes. It ads uniqueness to it but don't over do it, and don't spend too much time on it
Just change it to Worldbuilding religions
FILTHY ACTS AT A REASONABLE PRICE: ROMANCE RAILROAD...
It definitely fits under the "World building" umbrella category...
AND it's not going to really matter whether your perspective is "True believer" and the god(s) actually reached down to the "Prime material plane" to design and influence existence... OR if it's the "Psycho-Historical Philosopher" and the societies that arose developed their own myth and lore to explain the world, eventually creating traditions and titles for deities (existent or not) to give identity to their rituals, ceremonies, and belief structures.
I agree it's a worthy episode, and like anything else regarding world building, you can (and probably should) go full on into the details, even down to minutia... JUST do so SEPARATELY from the novel, script, comic(s), or other "public consumption" type material you're writing...
Here's the thing. Whatever actual world building process you take up, as you flesh the world of choice out, REMEMBER that readers want ACTION... Not necessarily in the sense of protagonist absolutely demolishing antagonist(s) (which is fine, to a degree) BUT stuff happening... and people doing things. If entering the social contract to read your book results in accepting "Info' Dump" after "Info' Dump" of expository lessons in history, religion, psycho-pathology, morality in context, and language artistry... IT'S going to be a very long, dry, read... and most readers do NOT like "going back to school"... We've graduated, and we're here to be entertained. THAT is your job as a writer.
SO build... BUILD to your HEART'S contentment... JUST remember that a lot of it may not even see the light of day for years... UNTIL some marketing guru suggests something like "You know... A fanbase this big, and everyone in cosplay for YOUR characters, cultures from YOUR world(s)... YOU could make a LOT OF MONEY with a 'Beginners' Guide to Deeznutstopia! Have you thought of that?" AND at least, in the case that something like that happened with a publisher, cohort...er... colleague(?), You could be prepared with material for the work. ;o)
When people comment before finishing the video
Lmao he said he ain’t touching that with a 10 foot pole
Dark Lord T-Bone That was just redundant.
1:49 - Fractal-Shaped Houses sounds interesting actually for infinitely tiny houses and we get to some sort of elevator that makes us smaller and smaller
This might be my favourite video so far! AND THANK YOU FOR THAT BRIGHT CALLOUT GOD WHAT A TERRIBLE MOVIE WITH SHAMEFULLY TERRIBLE WORLDBUILDING
I love the specific flavor of sarcasm and dryness your voice conveys
Every time you say " *H O W C A N T H I S B E ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?* " it kills me
I died at "evil empire of strawmanopolis"
also hi, I have chronic world-builder's disease. I screw about in lore docs way more than I should. It's fine. This is fine.
I've been binge-watching this series all evening and it kind of has me wanting to write a novel that takes every last bit of this advice at face value...
I once wrote a synopsis for a story that was all world building and no plot at all. I even shoved Egypt and Soviet Russia together just for the cool factor of "Ankh and sickle"!
Also don't forget to be like FFXV, where you put so much effort into detailing a fantasy world that you constantly break the immersion by using real-world product placements.
I wonder if he knows his book is summer reading for my school.
"I spend way too much time drawing maps"
Holy fuck do I feel that! It's gotten to the point where I do a bunch of research on geographic features trying to realistically model them. Thankfully I enjoy it though.
Also! Remember: in a sci-fi story, what species the members of a culture are, should affect nothing! Possesing things like a different anatomy or a species' brain being, well, alien? Yeah i don't see how that could EVER influence customs, architecture or language!
There are two things I tend to struggle with when I sit down and write. Action scenes (particularly with swords) and world building. That last one can be split in to two if you want to get technical and count exposition as a separate thing.
As a Star Trek fan, I am morally offended.
And I'm not. Writing in many old series wan't that good. Or if it was it become standard now so it doesn't stand out. Take a note that many plot-holes were resolved over the time.. until they reintroduce them in Discovery.
TheRezro Lol I know, I’m just joking haha. I watch TOS for the Shatneresque camp xD
TheRezro Don't mention that name! *crosses self*
ghettobible At least they did a good job when comes to the morals, behavior and traditions of these societies.
Star Trek's main reason for introducing totally not human alien societies with present-day issues seems to be because they're not allowed to make the human/Federation flawed.
But usually they don't do much work on how the Federation has changed, it's just "regular humans but inexplicably with no crime or problems" (except people die of old age somehow and seem to have lost a lot of the really dumb humans, which granted would probably help a lot)
Omg no please! World building and culture building sends me into a spiraling "daydreaming" into an endless rabbit hole so easily. Maybe I souldn't have watched your video because it literally TRIGGERED me :D . How can you not though lose your mind in the possibilities of worldbuilding a culture in fantasy. I mainly do fantasy since science fiction is x100 the mind bending possible "encounters" and is hard as fuck to think even for lesser things like space travel and its impact. Magic though is too a can of beans that most look at surface level and don't think about how impactful that would be!
"taking cultures from the real world"
So basically doing what GW did for every Imperial Guard regiment and Space Marine chapter in 40k (not necessarily a bad thing, considering Warhammer's schtick, plus I love my space Cossacks and superhuman Teutonic Knights).
Also the whole overdetailing of a culture does remind me of Dune's Fremen, but I think a lot of it was focused more on "this is how we have to survive in this Hell" rather than "this is why we are better than the outsiders".
When i arrived back home from Ireland to Slovakia i played Ultramarines vs Death guard Board game that we bought in Language school in Galway (Western Ireland)
40k has also had decades to evolve most of them into there own thing only paying lip service to there original concept in their look
Your videos are so jam-packed with content I find myself regularly rewinding parts to try and straighten them out in my head
The format of first tell us the correct way to do it...then proceed to do the opposite is GOLD!
But no one will ever explain why in all these weird cultures in other dimensions and on different planets they all speak english.
SylenDraws Honestly, I get hung up on language barriers all the time in my writing. I don't blame some people for just ignoring them outright.
Consumerism
Universal translators are implanted in everyones brain.
There's always that one character which does the Chewbacca thing of making one very specific noise which a nearby character in the party reiterates the point that he was making so we can understand. Furthermore the Wookie language is just a bunch "WAAAAAHHHHHHHS" Which would be like if we talked like: AAAAAAABBBBB AAAAABBBBBBBB AABBBB AAAAAAAAAAABBB ABABAAAAAAAAAAB ABBBAAAAB AAABBBA AAAAAAAAAABBBBB AAB, so how the fuck did they make a functional language out of 2 syllables?
Because the readers want to see interaction between the characters- not just between the protagonist and his galactic translator.
I never thought it made any sense that Klingons, a culture devoted to war, had more advanced tech than the Federation.
Love the on going love triangle joke!
hehehe, "Strawmanopolis". That's also a great list at minute 5 :) I have a background in anthropology and it definitely has influenced how I approach world-building
Another stellar addition to the Saga.
Much obliged good sir. This was very beneficial.
I was more expecting him to rip on how there's always a culture based on Japanese society in stories. Usually JRPGs. The Wutai Principle I believe they call it.
"I have another great idea!"
"Let's over-design our symbols"
the flag of deltora is unsurprisingly the best example of this
5:47 gosh diddly darned it, the two pieces of information I needed.
I'm just going to choose the wrong answer for both, because two wrongs make a right, right?
The two controversial topics?
Well, about religion, you can just make a religion that some characters adhere to and some do not, and about gender roles, there are two methods: either you can develop a bunch of cultural ideas about gender that stem from external biological and/or social pressures, that made the society internalize a bunch of attitudes towards sex and gender... Or, if you prefer, you can just make a society that's completely egalitarian on the level of gender and everyone are pretty androgynous in terms of presentation and behavior. The first one has the potential to be more interesting, but the second one is both easier to write and comes with less of a potential to screw up.
Thanks for that little bit of honesty near the beginning TWA. As a writer, world building and culture can be very intimidating, but this relaxed me a little bit.
My favorite tutorial series on RUclips! I'm well on my way to writing the next bestseller by following these. Almost made the mistake of having depth at one point, but then watched this video and corrected it. Thank you, Terrible Writing Advice