Being a Foreigner

In the original draft of the first novel in my epic fantasy series (The Wanderer), Lucinda, the female protagonist, considered herself part of the culture she lives in.

But in later revisions, I found it useful to use her perspective to explain the culture she lives in and to do that, it helped to make her feel as if she is somewhat apart from it.

So although she was born in Sige lands and has a Sige father, she identifies more with her non-Sige mother.

Making her more of an observer of the culture also helped a lot in later novels in the series when she visits other countries; she has already been established as someone who observes customs closely.

Although I wrote this series before I moved to Spain a few months ago, I have found myself in a similar situation of observing a culture I don’t quite belong to. Not judging, exactly, but noticing and perhaps drawing some conclusions.

In some ways, Lucinda’s approach has guided my own. She never assumes other cultures are better or worse than her own (although admittedly she does get a bit judgy about the Sige). She is just interested in understanding them.

That more realistic view has helped me avoid pretending that everything is so wonderful and there are absolutely no problems here. And – at the other end – I’ve also avoided the approach popular among a certain kind of expat who just CAnNoT BeLIevE they do things differently here.

A small example of life imitating life instead of the other way around.