Different Cultures...

~GhostInThePines Jun 14, 2012 Hobbyist Photographer

When reading about an unfamiliar culture/society, whether real or fictional, which do you prefer to be introduced first: the setting or the character(s)? Why?

... Personally, I find that being introduced to the setting first helps me to get into a better mindset for understanding the character(s). It helps me to develop first impressions that are more accurate than if the character was introduced prior to the setting.

What about you? What are your perceptions when it comes to being introduced to the unfamiliar?

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`PinkyMcCoversong Jun 20, 2012 Professional Writer

I think we need to remember that people are people. And it's the human aspect that makes a book interesting, not exotifying his/her culture.

~GhostInThePines Jun 20, 2012 Hobbyist Photographer

Different doesn't necessarily mean exotic... it could be as simple as life in rural Arizona versus New York City, or having a protagonist who is the only Muslim or Jew in her class.

And while the human aspect is important, there are plenty of non-fiction books that have proven that places or ideas can be just as interesting as human characters. You may not care to read a book dedicated to ancient methods of warfare as employed by Alexander the Great or the development of the railway system or how environmental forces shaped the Great Lakes region of North America, but that doesn't mean there aren't other people who find those things absolutely fascinating. There are plenty of people who absolutely refuse to read anything fictional but are still avid readers nonetheless.

`PinkyMcCoversong Jun 21, 2012 Professional Writer

I think you missed my point

~GhostInThePines Jun 21, 2012 Hobbyist Photographer

If it were only about the human aspect, then every AU fanfiction about angsty, high school teens with drug problems, self-esteem issues, and/or eating disorders would qualify as "interesting reading."

`PinkyMcCoversong Jun 21, 2012 Professional Writer

Not really. It's about writing people well, and creating interesting characters, no matter the culture.

^neurotype Jun 15, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

The setting from the characters' perspective.

=vglory Jun 15, 2012

That is like asking if you should choose a word in a poem for its meaning or its sound and shape. It has to be both. Characters interacting with the setting.

~CrazyAce01 Jun 15, 2012

It depends how this culture is being introduced.

If our main character is the village boy/girl living in the midst of the culture, then it should be introduced and intertwined with the narrative, piece by piece. You should still give a physical description of the house, his room, his street, hometown, etc., to set us in your world. Other than that, the way they react to situations and people around and what they do for work/play should demonstrate the culture they live in quite adequately.

If the main characters have just arrived within this new culture, then I'm more willing to have a little time taken for description. However, don't lose my engagement with four paragraphs dissecting the carvings on a window frame. If a cultural piece is so important to the plot that you have to describe it, perhaps you could show it with a scene.

For example, later, knowing the characters are going to make a cultural blunder, you could have them walk by some hapless soul that is being punished for that same transgression. Then they can be all 'dang, what happened to him?' and some guy in the crowd can chime in at them that he screwed up on TOPIC X *dramatic drum noises*. There - you've already said a lot about the culture and the city without telling me a thing. They have public punishments. Topic X is a very sensitive matter. Our heroes' reaction to all this shows us it's not the normal where they're from.

~GhostInThePines Jun 18, 2012 Hobbyist Photographer

I am really beginning to regret how I worded my inquiry... I was thinking more along the lines of within the first paragraph of a short story/literary journalism piece or the first page of a book. Do people prefer the first sentences to talk about/give a name to the character(s) or give some clue as to where the characters are... a house, a street, the middle of nowhere, etc...? Not necessarily major descriptions, just a few clues to orientate the readers.

~CrazyAce01 Jun 18, 2012

You should absolutely describe at least some setting before the first page of the book is through.

Think about the reader's position. He's entered your world, set down in the hotel room, but he hasn't unpacked his bags. He's peering around, a little wary, wondering what's going on. He's got to make sense of it all. If you don't tell us where we are, we're floating in a white-black void of text along with a few characters.

Therefore, some description is necessary. You don't even need a whole paragraph - a few concrete words mixed in with the scene can suffice - but even if action or dialogue of the moment is enough to engage the reader, we still need to know where we are.

Say you begin in a conversation. Good dialogue is interspersed with beats, the pauses between speech that describe what the characters are doing. Have then move around the space; that gives you an excuse to describe their space. If a question is posed, let the character think about it. Let their eyes wander over the stone wall or the wood table or the harrowing crevice blocking their path at the edge of the forest. Now you've planted us in the world without breaking the action with a block of description.

Let description stand in for moments of time. Too often I see "he paused for a moment" or "he waited five seconds, and then". Rather than describe time, simply describe what the characters are doing. For example, one character asks another a question. The other character doesn't answer. He stops. He peers over the edge of the gap. The echo of the river is faint, muffled by a journey up the craggy rock wall.

Then he answers. You've captured a pause in dialogue and worked in description. That's an important difference between good writing and a beginner's work. In good writing, the lines between narration, action, and description blend together. They work seamlessly to propel the reader forward. The beginner separates them into blocks that tend to shake the reader from the story.

Was that a bit more to the point?

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