Alien Culture

Sorry for the lack of posts, but I'm in the middle of a creative drought at the moment, where I want to write something but have absolutely no clue what and nothing new is coming to mind. Anyway...

Ok, now the title of my post has nothing to do with little green men hovering in space ships above our planet. I was camping this week at a lovely little place on the lake in the middle of the mountains (not as pretty as Lake Nantahala, but better than Lake Lanier) when I was brainstorming about a possible culture for a story when I thought about creating different cultures.

One thing that really bugs me in a story is how someone can "create" a unique culture for a fantasy or sci-fi story, but it does not come across as alien; in other words, you could plop this culture in our world and essentially it would not be very different to us. There are still familiar elements in it, like the typical wedding/ marriage where you usually have a ring, a ceremony, and then a big party afterwards. In the end, this said wedding doesn't look unique and could be taking place in 21st century New York City or something like that. Or, another example. In most fantasy stories, the "age of manhood" where a boy becomes a man is generally between sixteen and eighteen, but he comes across as immature or there's no real reason for the age to be that young.

So, a few little suggestions for adding a bit of alien spice to your cultures. Look up lesser-known ones and their rites for maturity, naming, etc... and get some ideas. You could write it so that wedding ceremonies are very private affairs and the celebration is only for others, not for the couple, or vice versa. In the case of the maturity age, you could raise or lower it (Tolkien's hobbits didn't reach maturity until they were 33 years old), but please, no whiny, angsty characters; in the 1800's, you had girls who got married at 13 years old, but they certainly weren't the immature types you see today, rather the hard-working women who were fully ready to manage a household.

Sorry if my thoughts seem a little disoriented today, but I am a bit tired.