home is where the heart is —

When writing your chapters remember you are in Asia--most likely. Things there are not as modern. Which is the reasoning for calling things, most parts of the world do, western. Western areas are Canada, North America, and South America--being that we are west of South Korea (I think. I fail at geography).

Keep in mind where your story takes place. Most of us live in more modern societies so we don't have the same cultural views as those in Asia. In the US we don't stress honorifics, but it is encouraged. In Asia they're stricter about that in their way of thinking. Not only that but their areas of land are also different. North America and Canada--which are the only countries I will include because they're closer to where I am to a point where I can understand and explain what goes on in those areas--are techonology based. Only cities in Asia are more technology savvy. There're more rural areas in Asia than there are in North America.

Telephone numbers are much different in Asia. They dial numbers backwards to the way we do things. Our "911" is their "119". I don't know why we do it the way we do or the way they punch in their numberes. Aside from numbers it is another notable fact that they drive on the different side of the road from us. We drive on the right side where other countries drive on the left. Because of this the side their steeringwheels are on are also different. In dramas you can see that occassionally things are flipped and they look western when characters drive. I find this conflicting. Just stick to the easy stuff and make sure everything is on the left as they should be.

Going back to honorifics, they not necessarily find it necessary--which is repitious of me to say--but more they find it disrespectful if you don't use them. I don't know much about Japanese honorifics or Chinese ones. Ones that are Thai and other nationalities aren't that known to me either. I have a pretty decent understanding on Korean honorifics because you can find so many stories that take place in Korea on this website. It's hard to find it (the setting) taking place anywhere else unless you search a specific tag.

Oddly, because we're almost all writing in an alternate universe, all characters speak English despite that they are Korean. Just because of this doesn't make the whole story take place in an alternate universe. Just think of it that they're subtitles to writitng. You can fidn stories on this website that are written but not in English but the author's primary language. I'd like to argue that it is disrespectful but they can't help it if all they know how to speak fluently in is fill-language-in-here.

As a warning, never put in your forward or description until the end that you are not fluent. If that's the first thing I see, I'm not going to read it because there is no guarentee that it will be written properly. If you save it until the end, sometimes I can't even tell that the person isn't fluent because of how well written it is. Take "Worthless" by Yuichan for example. She isn't fluent in English but I could barely tell until she decided to write it down at the end of her description. Considering how nitpicky I am with my writing, that I couldn't tell is pretty good. Like I have stated before, I'm no genius whatsoever. I just want to hone my own writing abilities and help you as well at the same time with the benefit of this tutorial.

The main point of this tutorial: keep the culture. Don't twist things in a way thta you can understand them because that's not what it means to be living in South Korea--unless you live there, you'd have better experience than me. Even stories I've seen with an alternate universe, they haven't managed to change the ways of culture that you see in Asia. Keep it accurate or else it may come off as ignorance.