I have seen, and admittedly indulged in that fan activity I will call the Fact Checking Game. It goes like this: First, you take some work of fiction, particularly a popular one, and you find some fascinating idea or claim it has. Then you deconstruct it with real world logic, checking all the facts and invariably coming up with an unrealistic or at least implausible conclusion. At this point, bemoaning that the creator did not think of this may commence. As a sequel, you can find some plausible counterpoint, and argue with the proponents of the former conclusion until the cows come home.

This is not, in itself, a bad thing.

No, this is not a post about the culture war. Chill.

This post is about writing other cultures such that they are believable–not as middle-class Westerners wearing funny hats, but as fundamentally different worlds.

This is not a happy-go-lucky post. If this subject matter disturbs you, I suggest reading something else, or perhaps waiting a few days–I plan to blog more frequently in the future.

The taste of the modern public has been, as of late, for dark and “gritty” fiction. Whether or not said fiction actually is is a subject for someone else’s post, but consider: The Hunger Games. Game of Thrones. The Malazan Book of the Fallen. The Witcher. Actually, I could rattle off a whole list of popular, dark, fiction, and invariably most of them are going to contain rape.