Worldbuilding cultures is hard. I know that, you reading this post know that.
I want to share a method I’ve come up with/mashed together from several different guides on how to create cultures. Note that this is of course just what works for me, and I’m sharing it here in case it’s helpful to someone else.
The ‘North Star Method, goes as follows:
1. Pick a biome/geography that acts as the material foundation for the culture.
2. Briefly research what real world cultures from that same environment are like for inspiration, but don’t overdo it to prevent ‘copy-pasted fantasy counterpart culture.’ My recommendation is to only go so far as history, politics and economics to get a feel for how the environment shapes them (how they govern themselves and how value+resources are determined and distributed).
3. Create a ‘North Star’—a central idea or concept for the culture that is fundamental to/trickles down to every aspect of their cultures (e.g what their most important occupation is, an external threat or new technology they orbit around, working backwards from a set of ideals you want them to hold highest, anything you can think of). I’ve found that the prized occupation and ideals options work best for me, but everyone’s is different.
4. Use the North Star core idea to come up with a history that justifies why it exists (why the culture develops the way it does—the more specific you get with it, the better).
5. Write down ideas for ripple effects that the North Star has on different sections of society (politics, economy, military, religion, daily life, philosophical beliefs and laws, virtues/values and their opposing vices, etc). Doesn’t matter if you ideas are dumb or unoriginal, write it anyway so it’s out of your head.
6. Find or create tension points of contradiction created by the North Star’s ripple effects—opposing beliefs existing side by side, actions contradicting beliefs or vice versa, double standards for the same actions in different contexts, social or legal conditions/constraints to virtues to make them vices, etc. Try to ask ‘who benefits from the current list of ideas and who does not? What factions would pop up?”
7. (Optional) come up with flavour details—fashion and textiles, food culture, how they treat animals, what institutions like education and marriage look like. These kinds of extra facets of a culture can not only be very fun to create, but lead to even more tension points and plot hooks/character ideas!
Word of caution: We all know about the dreaded Worldbuilder’s Disease. I’ve fallen victim to it many times before I started using this method. The cure, like this method, varies from creative to creative.
What I’ve found works is returning to my North Star, the guiding concept of my created culture, and asking ‘if I were explaining this to someone who didn’t know it, would I have to include this extra detail to get the core parts across?’ If the answer to this question is ‘no’, I add the extra stuff to the ‘flavour’ category and shift focus back to the main parts established in Step 5.
You don’t have to throw your extra flavour ideas away or forget about them, but any plot hooks you come up with related to them can be traced back to the fundamentals (food culture could be linked to economics or religion, textiles could be geography or politics, animal attitudes could be religious or social, etc).
It took me a long time to learn this as a former pure discovery writer, but planning and structure doesn’t have to be the death of your creativity or motivation to write. Structure can be a skeleton instead of a railroad if you accept the idea of your first ideas being able to be changed (kill your darlings).
Hope this helps someone who struggles with worldbuilding, from someone who loves it as a craft!
