Culture impacts your story more than you might realize. Distinct cultures exist even within the US, just as there are many dialects.
A person’s name often indicates one’s heritage, and thus culture. Did you know the name Dobby, a character from the Harry Potter series, was a real word?
I discovered quite by accident one day playing Scrabble that the word is a British dialect meaning fool. No doubt J.K. Rowling’s British readers knew the importance of the word. To me it wasjust a strange name to match a strange little creature, until I learned the word’s meaning.
Like a computer organizes files, a we classify people by certain qualities the instant we meet, and that includes a person’s name. Let me offer an example: “I just met Sean O’Malley.” If you know nothing else about this person, what possible clues have I given you about the character?
Be as particular about the name you give your character as you are about his or her physical build, temperament, and personality.
Names carry meaning and speak of the culture of origin. If your character is from Ireland, wouldn’t it seem rather odd if she had a Chinese name? But if the character has one parent who visited China as a child and fell in love with the country, then it makes sense. However, you must reveal this tidbit of information in the story. Otherwise, the reader questions your credibility as a writer.
Every reader may not catch the importance of a character’s name, as I did with Dobby. But make every word work for its space on the page and don’t discount your reader’s intelligence.
Visit here to discover more about the meaning of names.
Make your characters’ names work for you.
Elements of Culture
Many writers often overlook culture in their fiction or only give an obligatory mention of color. The ways culture affects communication could take up an entire series. I’ll discuss a few of these today and a couple more next week.
What do you think of when you think of culture? Do you consider:
- power distance
- body language
- indirect communication
- direct communication
- high context
- low context
- slang
- individualistic society
- collectivist society
- history
Until I took a communications course in college, I was clueless about most of the items in the list above. But these cultural dynamics are ripe with opportunities for comedic episodes, confusion, misunderstandings, and conflict between your characters that can move your story forward.
Learn about communication styles and use them to your advantage.
Cultural Differences
In our diverse society, adding ethnicity to your story is natural. But by all means, AVOID STEREOTYPES.
You can’t willy-nilly throw in cultural characteristics about your story people. Your readers from that culture will spot your errors and they won’t hesitate to let others know you got it wrong.
If you have a Portuguese character that interacts with your bad guy, know whether Portugal is an individualistic or collectivist society. Is their communication direct or indirect, low-context or high-context? Each of those things will drive the way you construct the dialog for that character.
Search on these words, “intercultural communication [country of interest],” to discover the cultural differences of other countries. International Business Cultures is an excellent source to learn about these concepts.
With a bit of research, you can make your story more culturally accurate and rich with character depth.
Do you have a friend from a culture you want to include in your story? Ask if he/she would be willing to read your manuscript and offer feedback.
Know the culture you are targeting.
What Is Power Distance?
When you sit down across the table from an editor to pitch your story, who in the relationship has the greater degree of power?
Who has power in a parent-child relationship?
In America when a man and a woman interact, even for the very first time, whom do you think holds greater power?
We call this power distance (social hierarchy), and it can serve to add conflict, humor, confusion, and much more to your story.
Power distance varies among countries, and that’s why I’ve chosen to put this under our discussion on culture. For a quick understanding of power distance think about the accessibility between an employee and boss in the US and those in China.
Power distance varies according to three things:
- relationship (as in parent/child),
- position (boss/worker), and
- situation (attacker/victim).
You want to show your characters, especially your protagonist and antagonist, in varying power distance circumstances. Never let your protagonist act in a way that will put him/her in a lesser position of power with the antagonist.
Here’s an illustration.
The antagonist broke into the home of your protagonist and seized Pro in a choke hold. If Pro whimpers and cowers, Pro has lost power and will lose respect in your reader’s eye.
However, if Pro resists and makes eye contact that speaks defiance, Pro maintains power over Ant and your reader can continue to cheer for Pro (even if Pro is kidnapped by Ant).
Take note of the words “whimper, cower, resist, defiance.” They communicate degrees of power. Work to find the best words to communicate your intent.
Employ power distance with your characters.
Debra L. Butterfield © 2019
Can you elaborate more on low-context or high-context? I’m not sure what exactly what that means. Thanks!
Therese, low- and high-context deals with several things, but in simple terms it relates to quantity and quality of communication. USA is low-context. We communicate only as much as is necessary to get a task done. Whereas high-context communicates a lot more information. This link explains it better than I can: http://www.via-web.de/high-context-vs-low-context/ Best analogy I can think of is what the in-crowd knows versus what those who aren’t part of the in-crowd knows.