Regular fiction is different than fantasy. Regular fiction is built off a backbone of common understanding. We write about the world we live in and focus on a small subset of that world and the human condition. We create meaning through that shared understanding and dive deeper into what this part of our world means to us and why. If I talk about growing up in Harlem I am, on the one hand, fighting against perceptions of Harlem shaped by years of media coverage, the people who lived there then and live there now, and the reality of how my age and station shaped my understanding of the space. If I am writing about the fantasy nation of Paye I am writing based on the reality of how the characters age and station shapes their understanding of the space. I am also writing from the ground up. I am building a city that has relationships and treaties with other cities. I am speaking out on the various cultures that moved through that space and lingered or perhaps were replaced.
This project is daunting but exciting. I’m assembling this world bit by bit and the culture part is the hardest. I don’t want it to be stand-ins for existing cultures but the ideas of those cultures. It’s complex and fun and.. it takes time to get right