Western Setting in all Stories

[Assurbanipal_II]

That's a bit mean spirited don't you think?

Not really. The religion is the same, the values and belief system similar, the economic model the same, rule of law and democracy well established, and not forgetting the genetic make-up. They are a nation of immigrants, a colony that turned independent.

America is the western branch of European civilisation, the same way Russia is the eastern branch.

 

[Ununique]

Not really. The religion is the same, the values and belief system similar, the economic model the same, rule of law and democracy well established, and not forgetting the genetic make-up. They are a nation of immigrants, a colony that turned independent.

America is the western branch of European civilisation, the same way Russia is the eastern branch.

Those are very broad generalizations and very few countries remain ethnically homogenized. Every country that trades in the global market uses the same economic practices. I don't get how anyone can argue that we're all the same in the western world and not understand everyone else is following the same makeup.

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

Those are very broad generalizations and very few countries remain ethnically homogenized. Every country that trades in the global market uses the same economic practices. I don't get how anyone can argue that we're all the same in the western world and not understand everyone else is following the same makeup.

That is my entire point, western world = Europeans and derivatives. Or what is the western world for you? O.o Japan? Korea?

 

[KyoruS]

I like how the original post was about non-western story settings and here we are discussing western culture

 

[Ununique]

That is my entire point, western world = Europeans and derivatives. Or what is the western world for you? O.o Japan? Korea?

To me there is no "western" world it's just the world. There is virtually no distinction of any form of government or economy that hasn't already been used before. Cultural customs are barely any different in any area that does have supposedly distinctive traits.

 

[KyoruS]

The Americans might have a thing or two to say about it...
But even otherwise, I disagree. Every nation has their individual history. Look at Japan and how much we know about the Shogun Era, or the honorific suffixes they use.
Even Chinese history is now coming to new light with the Qin Dynasty and the three kingdom war or atleast you know Sun Tzu.

What I'm getting at here is that native authors seem to hesitate using references from their culture and fall back on western culture because it's more readily available.



All the best for your story.
It might be the case with schools across the world teaching Shakespeare while not bothering with any native authors...
But there have been several countries that have done exceedingly well in using their soft power to promote their nations as well. Just look at S.Korea and Japan. Manga, LNs and webfics from those two countries are popular around the world.

It also helps that a lot of stories on SH are generic medieval isekai fantasy, and that means Western.

Isekai doesn't need to be Western even if it is set in a medieval fantasy. Isekai is just transportation to a new world iirc.
It's easier to write western medieval sure. But I would really like to read a Zimbabwean Isekai. Maybe it can be about fighting colonization even.


You can write in English. The setting can be in PH.
If we can know kun, chan, sama and san, along with which rank higher and lower. Sure we can memorize a few PH honorifics.
Also, Chat Rules mandate using English. Let us not summon the great Tony.

Thanks and about that fightning colonization... Well lets just say I hope you can wait half a year to give my story a shot.

 

[YuriDoggo]

I actually barely know about the other cultures and while they're probably interesting in their own right it's a bit too much to research them for a novel. As a result, I stick to 3:
- generic fantasy europe
- generic fantasy china
- weeb japan

 

[Ununique]

I like how the original post was about non-western story settings and here we are discussing western culture

It's kinda cuz I just came in and saw negativity for a setting that is honestly generally an entire period for all of humanity, not just the west.

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

To me there is no "western" world it's just the world. There is virtually no distinction of any form of government or economy that hasn't already been used before. Cultural customs are barely any different in any area that does have supposedly distinctive traits.

Spoken like a true American ignoramus. O.o You know why you failed at nation building in the Middle East, because of the exact same reason. Poor understanding of local culture. Same reason in Afghanistan.

Do you truly believe your ideas of cultural hegemony? That customs are everywhere the same? That the entire world is the same?

 

[AkalE]

Not really. The religion is the same, the values and belief system similar, the economic model the same, rule of law and democracy well established, and not forgetting the genetic make-up. They are a nation of immigrants, a colony that turned independent.

America is the western branch of European civilisation, the same way Russia is the eastern branch.

Can't believe the day has come when I'm defending America.

First, I think what he meant by mean spirited is the tone:
"Americans? You are just sidekicks of the European main branch. You may call yourself Americans, but culturally there is nothing unique about you. You are Europeans that killed the indigenous population to replace them. Simple as that."
Instead could have been "Americans derive most of their cultural cue-point from their European ancestry...'

Now, it is everyone's prerogative to see history from the biased lens they have been given. There are some who see colonization as a morally deceptive practice while others might see it as the glorious past of their nation.

But while you may see Europe as the cradle of humanity, others see it as a usurper of culture still hankering on its past atrocities. While the original caucasian were from Europe their hatred for the European hegemony declare themselves independent. They developed their own measurement system, they still refuse to open up to Forumula 1 because it is European.

The world watches the Ameircan political scene, their movies, shows and insist on using double quotes like the Americans do. I'm sure most reading this are using either a Microsoft, Google or Apple powered device. Today a lot of people can spill out the names of more Americans than in their own countries.

For better or for worse they even have religions born in thier own nation: the Mormons and Scientologists.

Finally I'm not sure Lewis Hamilton and Kylian Mbappé would agree with your sentiments. The East India Company is today owned by an Indian-origin fella. The world is a heterogeneous bunch today, it doesn't sit well when people try to show their ethnic superiority.


Again, please let's not deviate from the main point I had. Why aren't more ideas presented in the webfiction platform.

 

[Ununique]

Spoken like a true American ignoramus. O.o You know why you failed at nation building in the Middle East, because of the exact same reason. Poor understanding of local culture. Same reason in Afghanistan.

Do you truly believe your ideas of cultural hegemony? That customs are everywhere the same? That the entire world is the same?

nihil novi sub sole, Also nice try go take your anti-american sentiment elsewhere.

 

[AkalE]

Thanks and about that fightning colonization... Well lets just say I hope you can wait half a year to give my story a shot.

Drop me a message when you get around to it. :)

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

nihil novi sub sole, Also nice try go take your anti-american sentiment elsewhere.

Same for you. Go somewhere else.

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

Can't believe the day has come when I'm defending America.

First, I think what he meant by mean spirited is the tone:
"Americans? You are just sidekicks of the European main branch. You may call yourself Americans, but culturally there is nothing unique about you. You are Europeans that killed the indigenous population to replace them. Simple as that."
Instead could have been "Americans derive most of their cultural cue-point from their European ancestry...'

Now, it is everyone's prerogative to see history from the biased lens they have been given. There are some who see colonization as a morally deceptive practice while others might see it as the glorious past of their nation.

But while you may see Europe as the cradle of humanity, others see it as a usurper of culture still hankering on its past atrocities. While the original caucasian were from Europe their hatred for the European hegemony declare themselves independent. They developed their own measurement system, they still refuse to open up to Forumula 1 because it is European.

The world watches the Ameircan political scene, their movies, shows and insist on using double quotes like the Americans do. I'm sure most reading this are using either a Microsoft, Google or Apple powered device. Today a lot of people can spill out the names of more Americans than in their own countries.

For better or for worse they even have religions born in thier own nation: the Mormons and Scientologists.

Finally I'm not sure Lewis Hamilton and Kylian Mbappé would agree with your sentiments. The East India Company is today owned by an Indian-origin fella. The world is a heterogeneous bunch today, it doesn't sit well when people try to show their ethnic superiority.


Again, please let's not deviate from the main point I had. Why aren't more ideas presented in the webfiction platform.

This discussion would go to deep into history to be discussed here on scribble. To make it short, European is itself a term to describe a variety of different cultures. There is no homogenous unified "European" culture even in Europe, there are just many European cultures that share similarities among each other.

Therefore, I call America an European culture. They went their own path, but they are still closely related to the European family culturally. There are differences, but they are too minor to consider America an autonomous culture. After all, both North America and Europe are together commonly called the western world. There is no American world yet.

 

[AliceShiki]

On my end, I just write high fantasy, and like... I don't really have any motivation to make a careful and well-planned world-building for my story because it genuinely doesn't matter to me. I just wanna make a fluffy romance or a cute slice of life, I don't need a particularly well-thought world to make that work.

So I'll just use what I'm comfortable with using, which leans very close to standard Medi-fantasy setting based on Medieval Europe and stuff.

Besides, I'm not interested in the slightest in my country's history at medieval times (and I know next to nothing about it), and I don't think it would fit well into the kind of story I wanna write either. So... I see no reason to dive deep into it at all, I'd much rather stay in my zone of comfort with the standard medi-fantasy setting instead.

I'd assume many people feel the same with no reason to try researching their own country's history when they're already knowledgeable about the gist of European history. Even if only on a surface-level, the depth is probably much bigger than the depth of their knowledge of their local history.

 

[Ununique]

I would definitely read any story from authors who delve into different cultures to integrate them into their plot but I generally prefer a good plot before I care too much about the interesting cultures they display or represent. I don't mean that as in "oh I think going into culture is boring" I mean that if the story is about a specific task being done having the author shoehorn irrelevant details gets tiring, however, stories following documentation, exploration or survival that requires an understanding of the people being met is incredibly well synergized with adding a background to a group of people.

 

[JayDirex]

OK to cap all of this off WE HAVE COME ALONG WAY...I am old enough to remember the hesitance of writers to write anything BUT default/White/Male characters as MC's. But here we are today with our MC's being of many nations and genders.

The easy answer is "We Write What we Know" and that typically means writing our versions of the popular genres of the time (isekai- fantasy -etc) and that means the majority of us will use a European/Chinese/Japanese setting, since that's most of the stuff we read and influences us. (and, what we assume in our sub-conscious marketing mind, what people want to read!

But as time goes on Artists/Authors evolve. They want to add different spices to the story, and that includes adding their own culture. Nothing wrong with that, just progressing our styles.

 

[TachimeSan]

Before you get carried away with your filipino,

The forum rules state:
4. Posts should be kept English only, as managing multiple languages would require an extraneous amount of resources.

Oh damn, sorry! I just got carried away. Won't happen again, I swear

 

[AliceShiki]

Oh damn, sorry! I just got carried away. Won't happen again, I swear

You'd better be sure of it... Otherwise~

 

[Moonpearl]

I'm a native English speaker and a Westerner, so it's not the same, but I do have a similar issue.

To quickly skim over a lot of complicated politics, England is kind of the UK's own America. It swallowed all the other countries with various methods to create the UK and it has a lot of bad history with pretty much everyone else. It's also promotes people giving it the most glory and thinking of it as the UK (that's why many people don't know that using "England" and "the UK" interchangeably is wrong and there's no big push to correct the misunderstanding by England).

I tend to set my stories in the UK because (unlike what some people are arguing above me) the UK and America are very, very different and I couldn't comfortably write an American setting without a lot of research. However, I almost always set it in England if I'm going to have to reference the setting in any way.

And, honestly, that's because there's a stereotype in the UK that Scotland is rough and vulgar. I worry that readers will see a Scottish setting and think that my story is rough and vulgar too. Even I feel like my story becomes more rough and vulgar with that setting, even though England is far from being a glamorous place.
There's the fact that England is seen as the "default", too, so I feel like I'm making some kind of political point if I try to get away from that.
There's also a sense of vulnerability that comes with writing a story in your own country. It's a little closer to who you are as a writer, which can be scary, although it's hard to really put my finger on why.

Recently, however, my girlfriend tried to write a yuri with a Scottish setting for the Yuri Garden anthology. The plot she was using was technically cliche (pretty much the same as "Useless Princesses" and a few other manga), but being set in a Scottish high school gave it a completely different feeling. Like, the trope of "fashionable and popular girl" completely changes because what was popular and fashionable in Scottish high schools (when we were there, anyway) was pretty ugly.
She ultimately wasn't able to finish and take part, but it was better than the story I wrote to replace it.

Remembering stories that I've read from other authors writing their own country as a setting, I can't think of a single one that didn't greatly benefit from it. There's so much nuance that you can add to a plot using a setting that you're more familiar with. It stops feeling like a Hollywood film or a generic anime and starts feeling like its own tale.

I'd be extremely enthusiastic to read a yuri set anywhere but England, America or Japan. I'd be far more likely to read an Isekai in another history setting too.
However, I'm still hesitant to casually set a story in Scotland.