There is always time for cake.

Getting each other out of unwanted attention: Joker version

Getting each other out of unwanted attention: Akechi version

This is one of my favorite tricks, picked up from E.M. Forester and filtered through my own domestic-homebody lens.  Forester says that you should never ever tell us how a character feels; instead, show us what those emotions are doing to a character’s posture and tone and expression.  This makes “I felt sadness” into “my shoulders hunched and I sighed heavily, staring at the ground as my eyes filled with tears.”  Those emotions-as-motions are called objective correlatives.  Honestly, fic writers have gotten the memo on objective correlatives, but sometimes struggle with how to use them.

Objective correlatives can quickly become a) repetitive or b) melodramatic.  On the repetitive end, long scenes of dialogue can quickly turn into “he sighed” and “she nodded” so many times that he starts to feel like a window fan and she like a bobblehead.  On the melodramatic end, a debate about where to eat dinner can start to feel like an episode of Jerry Springer because “he shrieked” while “she clenched her fists” and they both “ground their teeth.”  If you leave the objective correlatives out entirely, then you have what’s known as “floating” dialogue — we get the words themselves but no idea how they’re being said, and feel completely disconnected from the scene.  If you try to get meaning across by telling us the characters’ thoughts instead, this quickly drifts into purple prose.

Instead, have them wash the dishes while they talk.

To be clear: it doesn’t have to be dishes.  They could be folding laundry or sweeping the floor or cooking a meal or making a bed or changing a lightbulb.  The point is to engage your characters in some meaningless, everyday household task that does not directly relate to the subject of the conversation.

This trick gives you a whole wealth of objective correlatives.  If your character is angry, then the way they scrub a bowl will be very different from how they’ll be scrubbing while happy.  If your character is taking a moment to think, then they might splash suds around for a few seconds.  A character who is not that invested in the conversation will be looking at the sink not paying much attention.  A character moderately invested will be looking at the speaker while continuing to scrub a pot.  If the character is suddenly very invested in the conversation, you can convey this by having them set the pot down entirely and give their full attention to the speaker.

A demonstration:

1

“I’m leaving,” Anastasia said.

“What?”  Drizella continued dropping forks into the dishwasher.

2

“I’m leaving,” Anastasia said.

Drizella paused midway through slotting a fork into the dishwasher.  “What?”

3

“I’m leaving,” Anastasia said.

Drizella laughed, not looking up from where she was arranging forks in the dishwasher.  “What?”

4

“I’m leaving,” Anastasia said.

The forks slipped out of Drizella’s hand and clattered onto the floor of the dishwasher.  “What?”

5

“I’m leaving,” Anastasia said.

“What?”  Drizella shoved several forks into the dishwasher with unnecessary force, not seeming to notice when several bounced back out of the silverware rack.

See how cheaply and easily we can get across Drizella’s five different emotions about Anastasia leaving, all by telling the reader how she’s doing the dishes?  And all the while no heads were nodded, no teeth were clenched.

The reason I recommend having it be one of these boring domestic chores instead of, say, scaling a building or picking a lock, is that chores add a sense of realism and are low-stakes enough not to be distracting.  If you add a concurrent task that’s high-stakes, then potentially your readers are going to be so focused on the question of whether your characters will pick the lock in time that they don’t catch the dialogue.  But no one’s going to be on the edge of their seat wondering whether Drizella’s going to have enough clean forks for tomorrow.

And chores are a cheap-n-easy way to add a lot of realism to your story.  So much of the appeal of contemporary superhero stories comes from Spider-Man having to wash his costume in a Queens laundromat or Green Arrow cheating at darts, because those details are fun and interesting and make a story feel “real.”  Actually ask the question of what dishes or clothing or furniture your character owns and how often that stuff gets washed.  That’s how you avoid reality-breaking continuity errors like stating in Chapter 3 that all of your character’s worldly possessions fit in a single backpack and in Chapter 7 having your character find a pair of pants he forgot he owns.  You don’t have to tell the reader what dishes your character owns (please don’t; it’s already bad enough when Tolkien does it) but you should ideally know for yourself.

Heya! Worldbuilding is a tough nut to crack and sometimes it helps me to look at it from an angle other than purely creative. Anthropology, specifically cultural anthropology, can be a good start. 

This is far from a comprehensive rundown of marriage in anthropology, but it’s a good place to start. And please remember, this is only the anthropological scope of marriage across our own world cultures. It’s not a broad look or about weddings or about specific cultures. 

The Social Purposes of Marriage

Control property ownership and inheritance

Provide social/emotional needs of individuals

Maintain a group or bloodline

Establish alliances (financial, social, political, etc)

Child rearing

How to apply this to your worldbuilding: The motivation for marriage comes in different shapes and sizes than simply love. Adding diversity to this front reflects the diversity in our own world and adds potential conflict for subplots. 

The Incest Taboo (and why it matters)

The incest taboo is the stigma of marriage within one’s family, whether that only be immediate family or any blood/legal relatives at all. It’s important because it is found cross-culturally in our world, meaning it’s a nearly universal rule. While the motive for the stigma has evolved in modern times, it originated because of infertility and other birth defects caused by blood relatives reproducing. 

Historically, marriage between cousins has avoided this taboo.

How to apply this to your worldbuilding: If nearly everyone on our planet finds incest taboo, chances are your world will, too. Yeah… that’s all I’m going to say on this subject. 

Endogamy and Exogamy

These terms describe the social relation between the people involved in a marriage.

Exogamy is when a person marries outside their age group, class, ethnicity, religion, and/or region. It’s more common in diverse areas or when transportation/travel is accessible. One of the benefits of this is the expansion of kinship. 

Endogamy is the opposite of exogamy when a person marries within these parameters. The benefits are usually in the perpetuation of a group or community.

How to apply this to your worldbuilding: The societal views on this topic are usually much less strict or obvious than other marriage standards. However, it’s important to think about whether a person, group, or society would expect one over the other and why. If your world has a caste system, then it would probably be stricter on endogamy. 

The Exchanges of Marriage

Marriage is often accompanied by social and property exchanges. Here are a few anthropology terms related to this concept*:

hypergamy: “marrying up”; one of the spouses involved raises their social and/or monetary status through the marriage

bridewealth: the groom’s family pays the bride’s family money in exchange for the marriage

brideservice: wherein the groom must provide physical labor for the bride’s family before marriage

dowry: the bride’s family pays the groom’s family 

*keep in mind, these are based on hetero- and cis-normative assumptions and would be altered for same-gender or nonbinary-partner marriages.

How to apply this to your worldbuilding: Again, sometimes marriage is partially an exchange of money. Who pays whose family depends on the societal views of gender. 

Residence after Marriage

Where the new couple lives after marriage can be a big cultural thing. It’s not always written in stone but usually is expected by a family or society. There are 5 major categories of residence*:

Patrilocality

this is when the new couple lives near/with the groom’s family

found in cultures that value male status and power

50-70% of marriages in our world fall under this category

Matrilocality

this is when the new couple lives near/with the bride’s family

advocates for female control and matriarchal kinship

often found in agricultural societies

Avunculocality

this is when the new couple lives near/with the groom’s mother’s brother and his family (his uncle)

it’s a thing because of a bunch of property rights/inheritance mumbo jumbo

rare, only 4% found in our world

Neolocality

this is when the new couple starts their own, independent household

smaller household in comparison to the others

it is private and mobile but requires a good amount of personal wealth

*again, these are based on hetero- and cis-normative assumptions for the most part

How to apply this to your worldbuilding: different families and societies come with different needs. Agricultural families need more hands than urban ones do.

Polygamy

Marriage between two individuals is called monogamy and is (surprisingly) not the most common in our world. In anthropology, there are two ways to have more than one partner.

Polygyny: When a man has two or more wives; most common in our world.  > Sororal polygyny is when a man marries two or more sisters (sister-wives)

Polyandry: When a woman has two or more husbands, rare in our world.

The motives for polygamy are varied from anything like religious views to the societal view of a gender’s status. 

How to apply this to your worldbuilding: The most common form I see polygamy in fantasy novels is with royalty. However, in our own world, it is most often found in smaller, more rural societies and communities. This could also be a part of your religion worldbuilding.

To Remember

donjon has tons of generators. for calendars. for demographics of a country and city. for names (both fantastical and historical) of people, nations, magics, etc.

this site lets you generate/design a city, allowing you to choose size, if you want a river or coast, walls around it, a temple, a main keep, etc.

this twitter, uncharted atlas, tweets generated maps of fantasy regions every hour.

COOKING - creativity is okay

BAKING - stick to the recipe (you can usually adjust sugar content to taste, though)