dara

(a worldbuilding roast. with love.)

So. You’re building a fantasy world, and you’ve just invented: → Three types of ceremonial jewelry → A spice that tastes like cinnamon if it were bitter and cursed → A holiday where everyone wears gold and screams at dawn

Cute. But that’s not culture. That’s aesthetics.

And if your worldbuilding is all outfits, dances, and spice blends with vaguely mystical names, your story’s probably going to feel like a cosplay convention held inside a Pinterest board.

Here’s how to fix that—aka: how to build a real, functioning culture that shapes your story, not just its vibes.

─────── ✦ ───────

🔗 Culture Is Built on Power, Not Just Style

Ask yourself: → Who’s in charge, and why? → Who has land? Who doesn’t? → What’s considered taboo, sacred, or punishable by death?

Culture is shaped by who gets to make the rules and who gets crushed by them. That’s where things like religion, family structure, class divisions, gender roles, and social expectations actually come from.

Start there. Not at the embroidery.

─────── ✦ ───────

2.🪓 Culture Comes From Conflict

Did this society evolve peacefully? Was it colonized? Did it colonize? Was it rebuilt after a war? Is it still in one?

→ What was destroyed and mythologized? → What do the survivors still whisper about? → What do children get taught in school that’s… suspiciously sanitized?

No culture is neutral. Every tradition has a history, and that history should taste like blood, loss, or propaganda.

─────── ✦ ───────

3.🧠 Belief Systems > Customs Lists

Sure, rituals and holidays are cool. But what do people believe about: → Death? → Love? → Time? → The natural world? → Justice?

Example: A society that believes time is cyclical vs. one that sees time as linear will approach everything—from prison sentences to grief—completely differently.

You don’t need to invent 80 gods. You need to know what those gods mean to the people who pray to them.

─────── ✦ ───────

4.🫀 Culture Controls Behavior (Quietly)

Culture shows up in: → What people apologize for → What insults cut deepest → What people are embarrassed about → What’s praised publicly vs. what’s hidden privately

For instance: → A culture obsessed with stoicism won’t say “I love you.” They’ll say “Have you eaten?” → A culture built on legacy might prioritize ancestor veneration, archival writing, name inheritance.

This stuff? Way more immersive than giving everyone matching earrings.

─────── ✦ ───────

5. 🏠 Culture = Daily Life, Not Just Festivals

Sure, your MC might attend a funeral where people paint their faces blue. But what about: → Breakfast routines? → How people greet each other on the street? → Who cooks, and who eats first? → What’s considered “clean” or “proper”? → How is parenting handled? Divorce?

Culture is what happens between plot points. It should shape your character’s assumptions, language, fears, and habits—whether or not a festival is going on.

─────── ✦ ───────

6. 💬 Let Your Characters Disagree With Their Own Culture

A culture isn’t a monolith.

Even in deeply traditional societies, people: → Rebel → Question → Break rules → Misinterpret laws → Mock sacred things → Act hypocritically → Weaponize or resist what’s expected

Let your characters wrestle with the culture around them. That’s where realism (and tension) lives.

─────── ✦ ───────

7.🧼 Beware the “Pretty = Good” Trap

Worldbuilding gets boring fast when: → The protagonist’s homeland is beautiful and pure → The enemy’s culture is dark and “barbaric” → Every detail just reinforces who the reader should like

You can—and should—challenge the aesthetic hierarchy. → Let ugly things be beloved. → Let beautiful things be corrupt. → Let your MC romanticize their culture and then get disillusioned by it later.

─────── ✦ ───────

📍 TL;DR (but like, spicy): → Culture is not food and jewelry. → Culture is power, fear, memory, contradiction. → Stop inventing spices until you know who starved last winter. → Let your world feel lived in, not curated.

The best cultural worldbuilding doesn’t look like a list. It feels like a system. A pressure. A presence your characters can’t escape—even if they try.

Now go. Build something real. (You can add spices later.)

—rin t. // writing advice for worldbuilders with rage and range // thewriteadviceforwriters

Sometimes the problem isn’t your plot. It’s your first 5 pages. Fix it here → 🖤 Free eBook: 5 Opening Pages Mistakes to Stop Making:

🕯️ download the pack & write something cursed:

medicine

law

business

engineering.

these are all noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life.

but poetry,

beauty,

romance,

love,

these are what we stay alive for.

But Korra? She spent her entire childhood and teenage years locked up in a compound where she was watched all the time. She was only allowed to go out once a year for the Spirit Festival, and once she even had to escape to go because one of her teachers didn't wanna let her go. Her only friends were Katara, her parents and her polar bear dog; she didn't have any actual friends her age until she met Bolin, Mako and Asami.

Of course she struggled with airbending and her spiritual side: it's not just her personality, it's that air is the element of freedom, and she's been locked up with people constantly making decisions for her her entire life. She is just learning what freedom is like.

... Okay, maybe Aang, who was born in a world without war, would be able to see it this way; but it wouldn't be this Uniquely Terrible Thing, since all of them were hurt by the war and were forced to grow up too fast in their own way. It would pretty much be "Yet another terrible thing".

It’s not. The daydream is a fuzzy thing. There are gaps that you don’t need to fill in a daydream, because you already get the emotional point. A lot of it is emotion. And because it makes you feel like a complete story would, your brain is tricked into thinking that’s what you have.

Then you sit down to actually write the thing and you realize you’re trying to write a Space Opera without actually inventing any planets or space ships. You don’t even know if the characters start out on the same planet. If they’re on a planet at all. You didn’t bother to check.

Now you will vaguely reference this in first-second person in any writing guide you make up for the rest of time.

When you write, you’re building something. It’s not a pale imitation of what you have in your head- what you have in your head can’t exist on the outside. This is a whole new beast. It’s going to ultimately look different and this is a good thing.

Also the internal critic is dumb.

The idea in your head is wonderful because it gives you all the emotions and ideas without pesky things like concrete details and logic getting in the way. Trying to write it down forces you to decide those things, which makes it a different story from the one that exists as a pure cloud of imagination. Story ideas can have multiple conflicting ideas happen at once–you just know the general gist and it doesn’t matter what order things happen in or which exact words are said. When you write it down, that cloud of possibilities collapses into a single reality–if Character says this line first, that means they can’t say it later; if they say Funny Line A, they can’t also say Funny Line B at that same spot in the conversation; if they go left that means they can’t also go right at that moment. Infinite possibility becomes reality, and those choice can be hard. And that’s not even getting into the fact that the moment you try to nail down a concrete timeline, issues like, “No one would react this way” or “That actually makes no sense” or “What is the mystery they’re trying to solve?” pop up and wreck the beautiful little thing in your imagination.

by Ursula K. Le Guin

“Don’t let it get to that big head of yours, Merlin.

She turns to Gaius in a wordless plea for him to deny it, to forestall the grief already cracking behind her ribs. But Guinevere watches Gaius put his ear to Merlin’s chest, sees the way that Gaius’s expression drops, and she knows.

No. 

She shakes her head, a tiny, aborted motion.

“His heart has stopped,” Gaius whispers.

There’s a commotion outside the physician’s chambers: distant yelled voices, the slap of feet on stone steps, the thud of the wooden door slamming open. 

Arthur bursts in, out of breath and wild-eyed.

“Where is he?” Arthur demands.

when they are too aware of their emotions, too in tune with themselves and are very well versed in therapy speak, when i'm reading (especially if the fic/book is set in early 2000s) i get a whiplash.

that's not how majority of people talk.

like yeah some people do wake up and are able to dissect every single emotion of theirs but most of us had to learn that skill.

The Marauders tried to put a bandaid over their fissures (power imbalance, group dynamics, etc.). But, as the war went into full effect, the cracks worsened. Tensions grew. Things were different. They didn't trust each other as easily anymore.

The war got between them. Peter crumbled under the weight of his fear. We can only wonder what would have happened if he felt more supported by his friends and less like a pet. Sirius made it clear where his loyalty lied (the Potters). He suspected Remus as the spy and Remus suspected him. James couldn't mediate under lockdown.

When Remus and Sirius reunite, they apologize for thinking ill of one another because it wasn't intentional. They were just scared. So, the problem lies in the fact that their foundation was rocky to begin with. James had been their pillar.

And you could easily see Harry as the pillar of his group. He's the one they draw inspiration from, after all. But each member is holding their own weight. Harry and his friends remain steadfast because they are loyal to not one but to all.

James: Really? You really mean it?

Sirius: and your child will be a bat shit crazy thief who brakes into Gringotts."

James: Oh yeah? Well I just happen to see you as a worst fucking criminal rotting away in jail.

Sirus: What, no!! Gimme that thing!!

James: Sorry, just pulling your leg. You're obviously going to marry your cousin and live happily ever after.

Sirius: take. .. that... back

James: uh oh ... I think I am mistaken. It's Lupin who will marry her.

Sirius: Moony? Marrying a girl? I'm sorry mate but I think you suck at this. There's no way in hell. Just not in his cards. That would be so wildly out of character.

James: yeah. This is stupid. I'm just going to write something vague like that I saw all of us in a nursing home playing card together, your hairline still amazing and me with the best goddamn abs compared to all the other paps.

Sirius: come on grandpa, lets go look for Moony.

James: Want to check he doesn't have a sudden interest in other Blacks by any chanse?

The source material provides LAYERS of relevant information about these characters to anyone who has basic reading comprehension skills. The fun thing about the fandom is all in how we get to take all the info we're given and more fully develop it. Not in blatantly rejecting it all and creating ships and characterizations that directly contradict everything that makes these characters who they are.

James Potter would never date a Death Eater. That's a fact. James and Lily dedicated their entire adult lives to fighting against the very evil that said Death Eaters represent. Also a fact. James and Lily were in love and would do anything for their child. Also a fact. Sirius and James were two tall, wildly intelligent and talented wizards who came from immense privilege but threw all comfort and safety to the wind in the name of fighting for justice. Also a fact. Regulus Black, Barty Crouch Jr, and Evan Rosier were all virulent genocidal maniacs who willingly joined a cult dedicated to slaughtering innocent people in the name of blood purity. Also a fact. Those three were not marauders and would never be friends or love interests for them. A fact. To deny any of these facts is just bad reading comprehension.

Then Arthur comes crawling out of the lake and joins Merlin in the village, living at his sweet wee cottage.

And the little everyone knows everyone community goes mental that this new and random guy just starts living with the town cryptid.

One day, both Merlin and Arthur are at the town's only cafe/restaurant/ literal hole in the wall, and someone finally works up the courage to ask how the two met.

Arthur, still getting used to the modern world and trying to be very polite to the villagers: we knew each other when we were younger

Merlin who no longer gives two shits: yeah, and then I found him at the lakeside bleeding out from a stab wound after he had escaped a crazy cult