54: Society’s Rules – Bend Them, Break Them (3)

Hey Writing Pursuits Authors. Welcome back

to the podcast. If you're new around here, my name is Kathrese

McKee. And I'm glad you're here. Today we're going to continue

our world building series. This is the third part of a six part

series on world building. And it is called society's rules: bend

them, break.them.

In our world building series, we're considering the ways world

building can act as a source for thing, plot point. And best of

all, conflict. This is part three of the series. And I think

it's the most important piece of world building. When we think of

world building, we tend to think of the physical aspects of the

world, you know, the environment, or the technology

or, like I said, the physical aspects, the buildings, and so

forth. We don't think of society's rules as much as we

ought to. But I think this is a treasure trove of conflict

ideas, and plot points and themes. So of all the pieces, I

think this is the part you need to think about the very most and

perhaps first, we have already been through building believable

worlds and why it matters. We've also covered nature's realm set

the stage today is society's rules been then break them. And

then we will follow that up with rules of progress shape, their

shape your world past and present, where we explore

history's legacy. And finally, magic myth and man wield the

supernatural power. I'm looking forward to that one. Today. In

part three, we will cover these important considerations social

class, cultural norms, form of government, distribution of

wealth, prevailing religion, moral codes, rights and

responsibilities and laws of magic. And if that seems like a

lot, it is, this is a complex topic, I'm going to try to break

it down and make it visible to you so that you can kind of go

back through and find the chapter that you're wanting to

talk about and delve down into that. So hopefully, that will be

helpful. The first thing we're going to discuss is social

class, I will switch back and forth between my mind map I have

an Obsidian and this Canva presentation. So let's go to

Obsidian right now. Okay, when you think about social class,

your main question is how does society measure individual

worth. And traditionally, we are have these three systems in

play, sometimes they coexist. And other times they're very

much dependent on where you're talking about hierarchy, equal

Attarian societies, egalitarian societies, and a caste system.

So some examples of hierarchy that are very clear are the

military business, you have org charts there, there's always

someone at the top political systems the same and churches,

almost every religious organization has some form of

hierarchy. There are a few there are a few examples of pure

egalitarian societies. But if you're interested in portraying

something like that, look into the Kung, who live on the

western edge of the Kalahari in Botswana, the Inuit and

Aboriginal Australians as good examples of egalitarian

societies, there are caste systems still in play today, and

some of these are stronger than others. But caste system is very

much based on who you are born to which family you are born

into. Examples are the Varnas in India, Tamil cast din Sri Lanka,

Somalia Higal, Moorish cast the toric, Inaden in North Africa,

and Edo Society of Japan. So some of these are historical,

some of them are current. But that's a good place to start, if

you're wanting to talk about caste system, I have a little

bit more information about bat caste systems, just the the

features that you should be looking for in the caste system,

you have these very these features, you will only marry

within your assigned caste you will do the assigned jobs for

your caste those are expectations in the caste

system, your social status will be determined by the caste

you're born into political exclusion of certain caste is a

feature of the caste system and there is a lot of caste based

discrimination in play. So this is a great place to bend and

break society's rules create conflict, to explore themes and

to develop plot points. So I think that the caste system is a

great place, perhaps to have in your your story. Just think

about that as a possibility. Next is cultural norm. Now,

culture encompasses a customs, art, social institutions and

achievements of a particular nation of people or other social

groups. So often you need to know the historical context to

we'll talk more about that in part five of this series. In

your book society. There are customers and holidays and

expectations about dress and roles, arts and achievements

that are all pieces of The culture so I have three examples

that I'd like to just go over. They just popped in my head when

I was thinking about this and they're about cultural norms and

breaking cultural norms. And ever after the main character is

Danielle de barbarac, and a cake character based on Cinderella

for anyone who has not seen the movie. In the movie Danielle

breaks several of society's rules, she is a commoner.

Danielle is not allowed to attend royal events such as the

masquerade ball, she sneaks into the ball breaking the rules of

social class and etiquette. Danielle's stepmother, who is

part of the aristocracy forbids her from pursuing and education

as she believes it's not appropriate for a woman. But

Danielle secretly studies books from her father's library. To

learn all she can Danielle step mother forces her to work as a

servant in her own home and treats her cruelly. Despite her

lowly status, Danielle stands up to her step mother, breaking the

societal societal expectations for a commoner and overall

Danielle is a strong willed and independent character who defies

the limitations placed on her by society, her actions, trance

challenge, the traditional gender roles and social

hierarchies of the time. So that's one example. Another

example is the colons from the Twilight series. The colons are

a family of vampires and their way of life goes against the

rules of vampire society. So you don't even have to have a real

society to have social rules that are going to get broken.

They choose to abstain from drinking human blood and instead

hunt the animals. Well, you know, the koalas do not form a

coven, but they live as a family group. They don't use their

powers to hunt humans, so they seem strange to vampire society.

And then they form alliances with humans, and even protect

them a portrayal to other vampire so the colons live in a

small isolated town, the majority of other vampires live

close to urban environments where there's easy hunting,

right. And then overall, basically, the colons break

traditional rules of vampire society to live a more moral and

ethical lifestyle than other vampires and their choices,

bring them into conflict with other vampires who see their

betrayal as either behavior as a betrayal or a threat to the

established order of things. That was one example. Another

of Star Trek, The Federation is an interstellar political entity

comprised of lots of races and species United like by common

set of values and beliefs, so their cultural values. Number

one is a prime directive, right, which prohibits interference

with the internal affairs of other civilizations and cultures

that they run into, while they're out exploring space

equality among all individuals, regardless of race, gender, or

species cooperation among its members as they work for the

common good of all. So these are their values of scientific

progress. That's what they're all about, right? It's a pursuit

of scientific progress, pursue knowledge and understanding of

the universe and a supposedly peaceful resolution of conflict

where diplomacy comes first. And then you get up against, well,

it always seems like somebody gets killed in every episode.

And they usually have a red shirt. But regardless, they use

the rules of this society, to drive conflict within the

series, and storylines and themes, so good on them.

So the next topic that we're going to cover is form of

government form of government. And we'll go back over to

obsidian because I think a chart is easier to understand than

just a collection of pictures going over to obsidian now. So

the form of government, it's about who makes decisions and

how they make it. So we're all familiar with monarchies. We

grew up with those that are fairytales and they used to be a

reality around especially around Europe and Asia. And so those

grew into limited monarchies, where you have more advisors and

legislative bodies that formed to kind of take over power from

the monarchy and give more people more power to the people,

or at least to the aristocracy, anyway, then you have

autocracies, that, obviously like Putin in in Russia and

leader of North Korea, and there's several that we could

just name off, then you have theocracies where the dominant

religion, religious leaders lead the country. Elected democracy

is another form that we have in the world appointed. Sometimes

leaders and governments are appointed in some form or

fashion. And then you think, have to think about the presence

of bureaucracy. Because often power is in the hands of people

who are in the bureaucracy. This kind of exploded onto the scene

after the French rebel Lucien, there was a an explosion of

bureaucracy in that country. And it was intentional to decide

everything from weights and measures to the postal system.

So in some ways, it's good thing in some ways, it's not so great,

we all hope for a meritocracy where people are promoted based

on their knowledge and their wisdom and their skills and

their talents. We all hope for that. But you know, we all have

the what is it, the Peter Principle in play, where you

rise to the level of your incompetence, anyway. And

finally, we have plutocracy which we wish wasn't true. But

it's probably more true than the not where people with the wealth

have the power, they make the decisions behind the scenes, so

plutocracy, that's what that means. So think about that, in

the context of your story, what exists in your universe, and you

might have two things working against each other to create

conflict, or people trying to improve the system that exists

to make it better against people that want the status quo. So

this is a great area to explore for society's rules. The next

topic is distribution of wealth, who can have wealth, and who

cannot, this is something to really explore in your fiction.

So distribution of wealth is about who can increase their

wealth, and who cannot the haves and have nots, generally under

the haves, you have the aristocracy, the merchant class

celebrities, those who are gifted master criminals, these

kind of the celebrities and gifted kind of buck the system,

if you will, they managed to by hook or crook, they'll help

develop some sort of celebrity that people think is worthy of

wealth, the gifted, same thing, Master criminals, like pirate,

drug lords, so forth, they just take what they want. So they're

among the haves, whether we like it or not. And then under the

have nots, generally, it's about ownership of land to begin with,

that leads to all kinds of generational wealth. So we have

the uneducated who are under the have nots, the disadvantaged in

some way who've been discriminated against enslaved

folk, believe it or not, even in contemporary fiction, you should

be aware that there are more people who are enslaved today

than at any point in history. So that's worthy of being explored,

exploited people and renters who might also be exploited people,

right? But renters are among the have nots, they don't own the

space they live in. Now, they may be able to accumulate wealth

in another way. And that's fine. You can choose to be a renter.

I'm not nothing against renters, but I'm just saying in general

renters are among the have nots. So there we go, that trying to

sip on any toes. This is a great place to think about bending

rules, breaking rules. Hey, if you're finding any value in this

discussion, please subscribe. Hit the like button, ring the

bell to get notified of future episodes, and we'll get back to

the show now. The next topic is prevailing religion or religions

in your world, the prevailing religion or religions in your

world building offer a rich source of conflict for your

story. Most conflicts over the course of human history, have

had some overtone of religious tension biases and

misunderstandings. Religion is a great place to delve into themes

and conflict between characters. Humans often use religion as an

excuse for violence and hatred. Consider the prevailing

religions in your fictional world and see if you can mind

their differences for plot point, themes and sources of

conflict. And just to be clear, let's go over a few things you

can think about few types of religion you could think about

maybe when I mentioned prevailing religion, you thought

of polytheistic, or a monotheistic form of religion,

but there are others. So in polytheistic, we have a many

Gods system as in the Romans and the Greeks, their mythology,

with Zeus and so forth, monotheistic, theistic one god

atheistic, no gods nothing is divine pantheistic and I put

that (atheistic) under religious because it's hard not to,

because you're talking about the existence of God are not.

Pantheistic God is everything and everything is God,

everything is divine, and Panentheistic is all in God. So

think about differing religious systems, prevailing religions in

your story to have a source of conflict and thought provoking

ideas. The next area to consider are moral codes. moral codes

seem like an extension of religious beliefs, and sometimes

they are, but don't equate the two moral codes apply even to

your religious folks. So let's explore how we can use this

portion of society's rules. How can we bend moral codes or break

them to good effect in our stories? So when we think about

moral codes, we're talking about how do we decide between right

and wrong and how do we promote Cooperation, good and bad

behavior. So there are four areas of morality. There's

religious morality, which is the one you think of first human

relationship with their supernatural beings but God,

morality and nature, how we treat nature around us whether

we think it's worthy of respect or not individual morality,

humans enter Honor Code, which can often be broken within a

story. Somebody goes against their internal honor code, or

they learn a new Honor Code, social morality, human to human

relations. So under Basic morality, examples, honesty,

respect, responsibility, kindness, caring, cooperation,

fairness, etc. Examples of social morality might be help

your family, help your group return favors, be brave, defer

to superiors, divide resources, thoroughly respect others

property. So these are all ways that are examples of social

morality and whether or not people believe these things. So

great area to think about when you're thinking about society's

rules. The next area we're going to talk about is rights and

responsibilities are about to cover a set of high in the sky

by and by human rights, they obviously don't exist in this

form everywhere in the world. Sometimes they exist for a

while, and then they go away. It's a constant struggle among

humans to have human rights. They are idealistic, I did not

write them. Instead, I found them on the Elumis website,

which is included in the shownotes. If you want to delve

into that. The reason I'm going over these ideals is because

they're terrific source for themes for your story. So under

rights and responsibilities, comes this first idea that

humans are born free and equal. That's a birthright another

idealistic, right is there are no distinctions of Rights and

Freedoms based on things like race, sex, language, religion,

origin, property, birth, or other status. So in any one of

these areas, you could explore a theme based on like

discrimination based on any one of these things. The next ideal

was everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of

perfect person. In other words, personal safety. Another one is

no one should be held in slavery or servitude. Well, obviously,

we haven't achieved this one because like I said before, this

is a an era of great enslavement, horrible

enslavement. So it's obviously an opportunity to explore this

area. No one should be tortured or subjected to cruel, inhuman

or degrading treatment, or punishment. Again, obviously, we

haven't achieved achieve this ideal. And this is a great place

to explore no matter what kind of genre of fiction you're

talking about, all are equal before the law and entitled to

equal protection. So those are the ideals I wanted to just

flash them by you. You can come back to this chapter to

reinvestigate the last part of social society's rules are the

laws of magic. Today we're going to skim lightly over the topic

of laws of magic because we're going to explore this area more

fully in the last episode. In this world building series.

However, let's cover the basics to help you jumpstart ways to

exploit magic systems in your book for plot points and

conflict and to support your theme. So when you're thinking

about the laws of magic is your magic benevolent malevolence?

Usually there's both good and bad. There's almost always a

dichotomy. Good and bad magic. You also have to think is magic,

legal or illegal in your world building who has magic and how

does it work? This is a big thing to decide. And I'm just

gonna start you off with something I borrowed from a

brandon sanderson. The link to the article that contained this

is in the show notes, water Sandersons three laws of magic.

So let's begin with a summary. The three laws are an author's

ability to solve conflict with magic in a satisfying way is

directly proportional to how well the reader understands said

magic. So make your magic system crystal clear to your readers.

They need to know kind of how it works or not all at front, but

be able to discover it and understand it. The costs

limitations and flaws described in your story are about are what

make your magic interest. Interesting. So not all magic is

going to be perfect. It's going to be an imperfect solution.

Hopefully there's limitations to it. Also, I think there needs to

be cost associated with using magic because that in itself

make things more interesting. Before adding something new to

your system. First expand on what you have have. That's

that's by a master storyteller. Brandon Sanderson has been

fighting long time. And I think this is great advice before you

add anything new, expand on what you already have. All right. So

in conclusion, leveraging the rules of society in world

building is a powerful tool for creating a more compelling and

engaging story, you can create conflict tension and drama. With

characters who have conflicting beliefs or values based on their

social status, their culture or background, you can shape

character motivation, a character who's trying to break

free from a restrictive society may be motivated by a desire for

freedom and self expression. You can establish stake a character

who breaks a major societal rule faces severe consequences and

even possible death. So that's a great way to establish stakes in

your story build setting, an author can create a unique and

interesting setting. By developing a society with its

own set of rules and customs. This will in turn influence the

physical setting. So think about that when you're when you're

creating your society's rules. explore themes, I'm sure

society's rules are useful to explore themes such as

oppression, rebellion, conformity, and so on. So that

rounds up this episode about society's rules in world

building. Today in Part Three, we have discuss social class

form of government, to cultural norms, distribution of wealth,

prevailing religion, moral codes, rights and

responsibilities and the laws of magic. My question for you is

which one of these areas speaks to you, and how have you used

society's rules as important as important aspect and in your

story? I'll leave your answers in the comments below. If you

want to name drop a book title. That's okay too. That's all I

have for today. Until next time, keep writing my friend. Keep