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Q&A How to write a 'fish out of water' character?

Probably the easiest way is presume the character is intelligent, well read in history and sociology, and unencumbered by "stick in the mud" thinking. An obvious choice would be to make her a profe...

posted 6y ago by Amadeus‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-19T22:13:20Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33730
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T08:08:04Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33730
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T08:08:04Z (over 4 years ago)
Probably the easiest way is presume the character is intelligent, well read in history and sociology, and unencumbered by "stick in the mud" thinking. An obvious choice would be to make her a professor and inventor, capable of thinking out of the box, and understanding novel new problems or relationships, or extrapolating from an Earth history that has a dozen kinds of social settings, religions she knows about, political organizations she knows about across the spectrum including communism, socialism, capitalism, dictatorships. She knows about wars and what causes them, she knows about civilization collapse, she knows about sexual relations in societies ranging from strictly suppressed to completely liberal, she knows about economic systems from primitive barter to high finance.

Give her enough knowledge of Earth, and the culture and economics and religion and professions may be new, but she will have plenty of metaphors and analogies to draw from.

So she is not boggled by anything, merely puzzled and works to ask about details, and her guesses may not always be correct but usually good. i.e. she may relate "MAGIC" to "TECHNOLOGY SHE DOES NOT UNDERSTAND BUT CAN USE", like an iPhone is for most people, or the Internet is.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-02-23T16:12:12Z (about 6 years ago)
Original score: 8