101. Myth, Imagined Past, and Cultural Purity in Fiction, Build Better Worlds review, Pt 2 of 4
Hey everyone, Beth Barany here for How To Write the Future podcast, Tips For Writers. I am a science fiction and fantasy writer and a creativity coach for writers, as well as a writing teacher. That's a lot of writing.
This podcast is for science fiction and fantasy writers who want to create positive, optimistic futures because I totally believe that through our visioning, which comes out through our stories, we can influence the world. We can help the world be a better place. Because I also think it is time. It is time for us to imagine better futures.
About this 4-part series on the book, Build Better Worlds
I am doing a four-part series, based on the book Build Better Worlds: An Introduction to Anthropology for Game Designers, Fiction Writers and Filmmakers by Michael Killman and Kyra Wellstrum.
Chapter Seven: Honoring the past: Why Cultures Create Myths, imagine the Past, and What it the World it all has to Do with purity
So last week I talked about context from Chapter Three.
This week, I am going to talk to let's see. Chapter Seven: Honoring the Past: Why Cultures Create Myths, Imagine the Past, and What in the World it all has to do with purity.A really good chapter.
Mythology
Most science fiction and fantasy stories have really great mythology. Mythology how the world came to be. Stories they tell inside of that story world that explain the origin of the power structure. The origin of what is right and what is wrong. And telling stories that may be skewed in some way, according to another group in the culture,
Each culture has their own story of the past, who did what and how that led to now.
Some of it's going to be myth, made up with gods and forces that we cannot see and some will be based in people's behaviors, things that could be documented. Real people who, who said real things and did real things. That's myth and the imagined past.
And I love their point in here.
Their example was from the American Revolution. If you tell the story of the American Revolution from the revolutionaries, you're going to get one story.
If you tell that story from the British side, you're going to get another story there. They did not think we were, the Americans were being heroic at all. They thought Americans were disgraceful because there were doing guerrilla warfare against the British proper, lining up in a row with colorful, bright red uniforms and their military weapons, all orderly.
Whereas the revolutionaries, they're being scrappy. They were also disorganized, but determined, by using whatever they had on hand.
And then consider the native Americans. What did they think of that war? They're like, what are these guys doing on our lands? And then think of the enslaved, the Africans. Did they have a voice? They had no voice either, for the most part.
And then what about women? How did women feel about this war happening? Maybe they lined up on either side of the conflict. Maybe there had a hand in the fighting and maybe they were, more often than not victims of the American Revolutionary war.
So that's just a show you can tell the story from different perspectives and have different stories. No one of those stories are complete. Yet in each group's minds, those stories are the stories they stand by. And those voices, all those voices, aren't taught in the same textbook.
When I was in school, I learned only one point of view from what happened in the American Revolution, and that was from the perspective of the leaders from George Washington, what he did and said, and the other people who won that war, but the British tell a different story about the American Revolution. And of course, all the other voices were left out the Native American voices, the African voices, women. There were no women in that story, even though the women participated in the American Revolution. I wasn't taught that as a child.
So all that to show you that when you create a culture, you can have different stories told from different groups about what happened.
More on Myth
And then myth. Myth is the supernatural, usually, explanations about how the world came to be. Like, in the Christian-dominated world that I live in, there's for example, the great flood that shows up. And of course, there's Bible stories and I'm not Christian.
So I was brought up with other origin tales. And I was also exposed to Native American tales. As well as the Jewish stories. And so I grew up knowing there are multiple stories to how things came to be. Maybe why I came to be a storyteller. And also why I love anthropology quite a lot. I was almost an anthropology major in university. But decided on a cross-discipline degree, which was really wonderful.
Back to the book, to Kilman and Wellstrom's book.
I love what they're saying. They're saying, “Many great scifi fantasy and horror stories focus on their own distinct mythology imagined past and notions of purity.”
Purity
Okay. So I want to talk about what they mean by purity.
At first, I was confused by that term, but if you think about every culture has a sense of clean and proper versus dirty and improper, whether that pertains to habits or groups.
Who's on the inside? Who's on the outside?
Every culture has stories that define this.
Growing up parents would say, “Wash your hands.”
All right.
That's a very clear example, but in some cultures that don't have running water or people don't care about washing your hands because they live next to nature. They live in the jungle in Brazil. In Amazonia, for example. Are they saying to their kids wash their hands? Probably not. They might say other things. And I honestly don't know.
So in your culture and your story, what do the parents say to the kids before they come to the meal?
In some cultures, it's customary to pray before the meal. In other cultures how they behave after the meal as part of the culture.
Actually growing up, we would joke that burping after the meal was a Chinese custom. I don't know where we heard that. Who knows where these things come from? So I lived in France. After the meal, we would have cheese for dessert. That was a common dessert. And when I was in the country, outside of Paris in the Dijon area, dessert was pears and cheese. That was like, oh, the best dessert to be paired with the venison that we had. So of course the French are very keen on pairing their desserts and their wine with their meal. And it's all like this beautiful dance. And that's part of the culture and having a two hour lunch during the workday, as part of the culture that I experienced there, which is quite lovely.
All that to say that what's considered right and good is paired often with clean, pure, versus unclean and impure. And so think about what that might be for your culture.
Conflicts that arise because of differing views of what happened and why [H2]
So they continue: “Some of the best examples of distinct mythology imagined past and notions of purity- some of the best examples focus on the interplay, misunderstandings and conflict that arise as a result of the collision of cultures. Since great stories are always about great conflict, myth imagined past and concepts of purity are fertile ground to explore as you create your worlds. Whatever societies you choose to build, make sure your system is holistic and impacts every arena of society. Not just a few.”
Values and Taboos and their impact on characters
They give you some questions to consider, which I just love. And this is such a great question:
“What values does your fictional culture find important?”
This is really important to think about. What is that highest value?
And then on the other side of the spectrum, “What things are taboo? Why? How does this impact the character goals or ideas?”
This is really important.
What things are taboo? Why? And how does this impact character's goals or ideas?
Major Event in the Past that changes your story world forever
Another question:
“Is there a major event that changed the shape of the culture forever?”
I'm working on one of these for my next book. This backstory, this big event that happens, a big accident that happens that shape the trajectory of how the world is organized. So I'm working on that.
Differing views about that past event
“Does everyone agree on the accepted narrative of that event?”
So in my idea, they don't, and that's part of what I'm playing with in the in the front story is that people talk about that pivotal event in all different kinds of ways.
And then they say: “Keep in mind that if you say everyone does agree on the accepted narrative, you should have a compelling reason why that's the case because historians can't agree on anything. And it is unlikely that a whole society can manage it.”
So just think of, any big event I even think of the tragedy of 9/11, how there are so many different stories, if you search, about what happened and why and also the failure of it, that occurred and the reasons for that, and there's a lot of different stories about that.
How Mythology affect the present of your story
And then last question they have here:
“How does the culture's mythology and imagined past relate to the values of the time in which the story occurs?”
So basically how is the mythology and past, how they tell the stories of the past, relevant to the current of the story?
Again, I'm also working on that as well.
Something I like to think about and another prompt to leave with you is: What was your character taught in school about the major events of their past? And how maybe in the front of the story and the main story, how they discover that what they were taught is not the reality? Or they weren't told all the different stories.
Just like with the American Revolution, I was not told all the different stories of all the different people impacted by that event. And I was not told the stories from more than one perspective. I was only told it from one perspective.
It helps for your fiction, for your world-building, to see the major world events that impact the world of your story as told through different perspectives.
All right.
Get support for your world building
So that's it for this week.
If you would like support on your world building, then check out my free World-building Workbook for Fiction Writers. How to sign up for that is in the description.
And if you would like more guidance, I encourage you to buy the book that I have Plan Your Novel Like A Pro, which will help you think of your entire story and help you plan that entire story so that you can successfully write your novel.
And then lastly, if you would like hands-on support, I have a few openings for one-on-one support. Please reach out to me. If you would like support on building your story world, building your story. I offer customized discerning support, from soup to nuts, from idea to finished manuscript. And all the parts in between. And of course editing as well.
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Write long and prosper.