#PennedPossibilities 634 MC POV: How much do you value companionship? Do you always keep people around, or do you prefer to be alone?

Aurial rolls her eyes, "I'm not used to being around a lot of people. for too long. unless they're food. pubs, bars. I like my quiet. sadly... it seems like I rarely get it these days.
#ShadowedRose

#PennedPossibilities 635 — Are there any specific cultural influences that shaped the world or characters in your story?

for #HeartOfNavu and #IntertwiningLives I guess the best I could say was a tribal culture of sorts though I never dived too much into it other then that, nothing that really comes to mind.
unless for #ShadowedRose you can qualify royalty and kings and queens as a culture.

#PennedPossibilities #Writing 635 Are there any specific cultural influences that shaped the world or characters in your story?

I'd say that it's a mix of México's habits and customs + the Japan portrayed in anime/manga in general + SciFi + Magic + whatever I see in the streets/news. Just try to imagine that…>=)

#PennedPossibilities #Writing 634 MC POV: How much do you value companionship? Do you always keep people around, or do you prefer to be alone?

—I like people as long as I can keep control on how close they are. Physically speaking, I mean. I don't like parties, and my "friends" know that my personal space is sacred. I hate people that cling on you like a monkey to a branch. And guess what? This, my self-proclaimed new family, is full of monkeys like those…

Our Hero

#PennedPossibilities 635. Are there any specific cultural influences that shaped the world or characters in your story?

I based the nine kingdoms after feudal Europe and the Commonwealth of Planets after the US republic model of governance.

#PennedPossibilities 635. Are there any specific cultural influences that shaped the world or characters in your story?

Certainly. The Eternal Empire is based heavily on pre-Revolution France and Russia, with just enough Enlightenment period Ancient Greece thrown in for spice.

The Xiang Federation is a post-scarcity fallen empire, loosely based on any number of ancient civilizations that rose to dizzying heights and then collapsed utterly or persist on in some vastly diminished way. Ancient Egypt and Rome come to mind.

The K'zo Protectorate is an unapologetic look at the MIC if it was the fascist dictatorship running a service jobs only economy. Little did I know that 30 years ago, when I outlined them, I would be forecasting the state of American politics today.

#PennedPossibilities 635. Are there any specific cultural influences that shaped the world or characters in your story?

Yes. Thinking on it, the biggest influence is actually libraries & librarians. Public libraries, school libraries, college/university libraries, club libraries, popup zine libraries, professional libraries, book exchanges, private home libraries, and those who keep such alive. The whole community-anchoring atmosphere of the Library has inspired my story's core and characters.

#PennedPossibilities 635. Are there any specific cultural influences that shaped the world or characters in your story?

Puritanism played a role, that's for sure. Much of this is about pushing back against it. I even have a major plot line involving the consequences of "chasing the snakes out." Although it wasn't just Iteland in this world.

#PennedPossibilities 635. Are there any specific cultural influences that shaped the world or characters in your story?

I decided that an honor-based culture would be the most problematic for the MC, so that's the way I went.

That's usually accompanied by elaborate politeness, which is both challenging and a potential advantage: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Blog/GaijinSmash

And to make my conlang a little easier, it has some Proto-Indo-European influence.

#PennedPossibilities 635. Are there any specific cultural influences that shaped the world or characters in your story?

Nearly everyone is from a different culture, but the choice of cultures and backgrounds came from people I know in Toronto. We're a famously diverse city and you end up working with people who are one or two degrees removed from all over the world.

#PennedPossibilities 635. Are there any specific cultural influences that shaped the world or characters in your story?

In most of my published stories the main characters are 4 children from different cultural backgrounds which have shaped them:

Sipho Mdluli, 12, rural black Zulu-speaking South African. Father is an academic, grandfather a peasant.

Jeffery Davidson, 11, white urban English-speaking South African, goes to boarding school. Father is a businessman, parents jaunt off overseas frequently, so in school holidays he tends to get shunted off to odd places.

Janet Montgomery, 10, rural white English-speaking South African. Father is conservative rich farmer.

Catherine Kopirovsky, 8, English with Anglo-Russian ancestry

More info here: https://methodius.blogspot.com/p/stephen-hayes-author.html

#pennedpossibilities #writing 635. Are there any specific cultural influences that shaped the world or characters in your story?

Yes, lots, I suppose. John Brecken Sandwolf is shaped by his Marine training. Kantuck is an Appalachian and raised in a Cherokee cultured lifestyle. Claude, well, is a cat who lived in a war zone in Romania before coming to the Dream.

#PennedPossibilities 635. Are there any specific cultural influences that shaped the world or characters in your story?

The world of Chronicles of the Realms receives a lot of influence from Asian cultures, from the culture of the realms (Edenia is influenced by Vietnam, Seido by Japan/China) to specific characters.

My favourite examples of the latter are Ashrah and Sareena, whose in-world journeys are influenced by Indonesia and India, respectively.

635. Are there any specific cultural influences that shaped the world or characters in your story?

What influences my fictional cultures the most is my wishful thinking that one day perhaps humanity could arrive at the type of peaceful, egalitarian societies my characters fight for.
Human history is an influence, and a warning.
There's never christian or other existing religion as focus in my stories. Some elements of the more nature oriented ones can show up.

#PennedPossibilities 635
Are there any specific cultural influences that shaped the world or characters in your story?

Tales of Ardonna takes place on a world far removed from ours in time & space. I try very hard not to mirror any culture although, obviously, I am a product of one whose elements might seep in. The refugees are descendants of Earth, but a mixed remnant of survivors. "Human culture," to them, are things not found in mage, like religion, monogamy, or capitalism.

#PennedPossibilities 635 — Are there any specific cultural influences that shaped the world or characters in your story?

The setting of my Copper Sun stories is vaguely late-Neolithic. I use the work of David Graeber (among others) to re-read the history from an anthropological point of view. But I try not to cleave tightly to "realism." We can't know, & I am aware of how we project over the past our own ideological fantasies.

So I embrace that.

Some of it is real-world derived, some of it is a mashup of cultural traditions, & some is pure cultural speculation. Because with tens of thousands of years of historical unknowns behind us, I like to imagine people experimented & that we should experiment, culturally, too.