Beauty is a relative concept, a social phenomenon based mostly on, again, what is practical in a cer

Writing good, well thought-out fantasy can be a challenging process, toronto apartment rentals especially when featuring a setting or race completely different from that which is familiar to the author. There are a myriad of places within a story where a writer can falter and insert details which are not well enough developed, uncharacteristic, confusing, or which simply don't make sense in the context of the setting.
Remember that these are all only suggestions, and not everything on the list applies to every story. Use your best judgment as an author to understand when these things should toronto apartment rentals be considered and when they can be safely ignored. toronto apartment rentals Some fantasy stories are not set in original worlds, but on Earth, in which case references to Earth should be made; not all fantasy centers on the use of magic; not all fantasy is in a medieval world.
The major thing that all fantasy authors must watch out for is accidentally making reference to places, people, objects, and concepts that exist in their own world, but not in the world in which their story is set.
There are many different ways that this appears in fiction, and I will point out all the most common mistakes and what can be done to correct them. This mistake usually manifests itself toronto apartment rentals most pointedly in the use of common Earth expressions, slang, and clich�s.
In general, most of these things toronto apartment rentals should toronto apartment rentals be avoided in narrative anyway, except in instances where they are used to a certain effect or within a character's dialogue. One way to avoid this is: instead of using an Earth expression, idiom or clich�, come up with phrases of your own creation that have the same meaning or sound similar.
Changing the wording is also a good way to give a foreign toronto apartment rentals feeling to the familiar. That's really the balance that you want to achieve in a fantasy narrative; a feeling of the unfamiliar, in a world completely unlike our own, but also with similarities. This makes it easier to write than trying to come up with something completely toronto apartment rentals different and alien, because you may allow yourself to lapse into making references to things toronto apartment rentals the writer and reader will be familiar with, without seeming lazy or apathetic to creating an original setting.
Something especially creative and fun is to invent slang or curses that your characters can use. Many medieval curses toronto apartment rentals and exclamations were derived from references to God or Saints, for example, the epithets "God's thumb!" Be creative. What they will use as curses and slang will depend on what they value as a society.
We in the US have so many sexual curses due to its perceived "dirtiness" in our highly-religious culture, thus increasing the shock value of certain terms. To use an example, the term "mudblood" in Harry Potter is highly offensive due to the unique wizarding culture developed by J. K. Rowling. toronto apartment rentals Think of what would be offensive or rude by the standards of the society toronto apartment rentals your characters toronto apartment rentals live in.
Another common lapse is the use of Earth units of measurement toronto apartment rentals and currency. There is no excuse for making references to US dollars in fantasy writing whatsoever. Use of US or metric units of measurement is more excusable, but still to be avoided if one wants their original setting toronto apartment rentals to be taken credibly.
The best way to avoid this mistake is to make up units of measurement and currency, or to at least use more archaic toronto apartment rentals forms to give a medieval toronto apartment rentals setting more authenticity. toronto apartment rentals (Research in this area is priceless, and good to know, anyway.)
Many fantasy settings simply use gold, silver, and other precious metals or stones as currency, avoiding the need for definite units. This is a perfectly acceptable solution. For measurements in distance, it is more difficult to resolve. You may have to think of units in terms of the society in which your character lives; what is important to them and what are they most likely to stress and express when quantifying various objects? If they are nomadic, perhaps they measure physical distance in a unit referring to the average distance they cover in a day's travel.
toronto apartment rentals Many units of measurement have historically been based on the dimensions of the human body; a foot was originally the length of a human foot, some things were measured toronto apartment rentals in hand-spans, and an inch developed from the width of the human thumb. These might provide insight into coming up with an original measurement system, if you are so inclined. It is more work, certainly, but the extra effort does show in your writing, and being thorough in your setting will help you become a better writer.
The worst reference to Earth commonly occurring in the fantasy genre is transferring American (or any other) cultural/social expectations, customs, and assumptions to a fantasy setting, especially one dealing with non-human races and creatures. The point of fantasy is not to emulate the world with which we are familiar.
Their values, customs, toronto apartment rentals and government will likely be based on whatever is practical for them, or based on religious beliefs.For example, do not necessarily assume that they bury their dead. Some Asian cultures leave the bodies for scavengers to, well, scavenge, thus symbolically allowing the body to become one with all living creatures. In cultures with little room left for burying people, bodies are burned, or in places where there are often floods or areas that are beneath sea-level, bodies are put into mausoleums above ground. In fact, in some places in Europe with full graveyards and no room for expansion, toronto apartment rentals graves are "rented" for a period of years and then the body removed to make room for someone else!
Another example is that of courtship rituals. Is this culture encouraging or restrictive when it comes to love and sex? Are promiscuous women punished as prostitutes, or glorified as powerful? Do women take their husbands' names, or the other way around, or neither? Are marriages arranged for money or property, never for love, or is love the only reason to marry? Are sexual relations considered a sin, or is it an encouraged or glorified part of life? There are many different directions in which this could be developed and expanded.
And what of a culture's standards of beauty? Many medieval societies found plump women attractive as a sign of their wealth toronto apartment rentals and social standing; only a wealthy toronto apartment rentals woman could afford to eat enough toronto apartment rentals to become fat. In fact, fashions developed to try to make naturally skinny women look fatter, hence puffy sleeves and huge skirts.
Also, historically, pale skin was attractive, showing that one did not need to work outside and was well-off enough that they did not need to do heavy labor. These are both opposite the ideals of beauty in our society today, mostly because of technological advances making them obsolete. Now, food is readily available enough that being slim is in fashion, and having a tan mostly shows that one has time to lounge about in the sun, rather than being too busy with other matters.
toronto apartment rentals Beauty is a relative concept, a social phenomenon based mostly on, again, what is practical in a certain society. It shows many things about the setting of your story; what is attractive is based on a place's standard of living, religion, and many other innumerable factors that would prove interesting to develop in any story of reasonable toronto apartment rentals length.
Another important element of a society is not only its culture, but its system of government. Again, the government will be based on what is considered, in practical terms, best for the people. If you are writing about a feudal society like medieval Europe, one in which a few very wealthy landowners keep most of the population as serfs (basically, a form of slave labor), then the government would be focused on keeping common people in their place and glorifying the rich, giving landowners and nobility all sorts of privileges and denying toronto apartment rentals basic rights toronto apartment rentals to everyone else.
This kind of government was necessary at the time, in order to keep the existing social structure toronto apartment rentals in place. This was a practical concern of the rich, which acted in detriment of most everyone else (which is why no such societies exist today).
A society's religion will tend to be based on their scientific knowledge and the type of society in which they function. A war-like culture would glorify toronto apartment rentals a violent god and consider peace-loving gods as "weak." In a society in which a low value is placed on the individual life, the society as a whole, rather than each person on their own, is glorified through religions promoting "the greater good" for everyone. By focusing on the interconnections between all beings, some religions promote this principle, allowing society to function more smoothly. Many stories and religious myths arise from man searching for an explanation of various natural phenomena in which the scientific basis is not known (for example: "lightning is caused by Zeus getting angry").
An agricultural society without basic scientific knowledge of farming toronto apartment rentals might deify the sun, thinking that if they anger the gods, their crops will cease to grow, rather than realizing that there are simply no nutrients left in the soil.
When creating a society, some important things to consider that will be very influential in the way the culture thinks, lives, and acts are their geographic location and topography (nomadic desert tribe vs. agriculture community vs. isolated hermitic group in the mountains), their standard of living, their knowledge of science (disease toronto apartment rentals and germ theory, level of mathematical advancement, etc.), and their interaction with other groups/nations/races.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but one that is intended to point out multiple factors that must be taken into consideration, and will prompt writers to thinking creatively about the social impact of various non-social factors on any culture.
References to Earth are the most common mistakes that I, as a reader, come across, toronto apartment rentals even in popular published fiction. As a fantasy writer, one must put a mental barrier between the world that they know and the world they are writing about.
This is why character and