Writing 101: Building a Religion

A Common Omission

Pre-modern people were really religious. Really, really religious. Religion influenced every aspect of life. Before our modern concept of science was born, religion explained the way the world worked -- from birth and death, to the weather, to how best to prepare food. To the common person, atheism was unheard of. In the short and brutal lives of peasants, religion was often a singular comfort.

So why, then, does religion show up so sparsely in fantasy fiction? It's a fun world building opportunity, useful for explaining the culture of your imaginary peoples, and it can even influence the plot. Now, I have a feeling that if we all wrote our stories with religion as prominent as it was in real life, they would be kind of hard for modern people to relate to. But I still encourage you to include religion in your fantasy story, probably more than you were planning to. Here's some tips to get you started.


What People Believe versus What's Real

At this point I want to make it clear that you don't have to have actual deities, spirits, and so forth in your fantasy world. As the author, you get to say how your world is really run. But the people who live in it will have ideas about it that you know aren't necessarily true. This is especially the case if you write about more than one culture -- whose religion is right, if anyone's?

You don't have to make the distinction; I just want you to know it's an option, especially if you're not entirely comfortable with religion. And if you do make the distinction, you don't have to make it obvious in your story. As a reader, my favorite is when it's ambiguous who, if anyone, is really pulling the strings.


Basic Design Questions

1. Are there gods and goddesses? (Not all religions have them.) How many? If there are multiple, are they truly discrete beings, or are they just different aspects of the same divine force? Has a deity ever been human? Did they start out human and ascend, or did they go into the world as a prophet or messiah?

2. Where and how did this religion originate? Religions tend to travel, so the country your story takes place in might not be where the religion came from. Who spread the word? Were there prophets, enlightened wise men or women? How widespread is the religion now?

3. Are there any holy books? If so, are they considered to be the words of the divine, or messages delivered by prophets? There might be a canon of texts considered most holy, as well as later texts that are more like opinion pieces. What about books which are considered to be dangerous, like the words of false prophets? On the other hand, some religions don't place much if any importance on texts.

4. What is the religion's creation story? Is there an end times predicted? If so, will a new world be created after, or will the god/dess(es) be finished with that whole creation business?

5. What's the afterlife like? Is there a heaven, hell, multiple versions of each? Does a person reincarnate? If so, for how many lives? What determines where a person goes when they die -- their beliefs, their actions, or just who they are? Do you end up in the same afterlife for eternity, or can you work your way into a different one?

6. What is the organization of the religion like? Is there an equivalent to the Catholic Pope, or any other hierarchy? Can someone chose to live a monastic lifestyle, i.e. a monk or a nun? Do you need to be initiated into the religion, and if you break the rules, can you be kicked out?

7. How does the religion interact with government? It might be more powerful than emperor, have no influence at all, or be somewhere in between. Sometimes they are one and the same. Are there laws pertaining to religion, such as what you can and cannot practice? Can you be thrown in jail for heresy? Keep in mind that "separation of church and state" and "freedom of religion" are relatively modern concepts. What about magic -- encouraged, forbidden? Certain types only? (Those questions might sound familiar.)

8. How accessible is religion to the common people? For example, is there a liturgical language? (For centuries, you had to be able to read Latin if you wanted to read the Bible, and some Catholic services are still performed in Latin.) Do the people in your culture have to be well-educated to study religion for themselves? Are there priests and priestesses, shamans, or other individuals who serve as a bridge between ordinary people and the spirit world? Or can people petition and contact the spirit world on their own?

9. How inclusive or exclusive is the religion? Some religions, like Christianity and Islam, are strict about their believers only following that one path. However, the way religion is practiced in many Asian countries is much more eclectic -- religious practice in China tends to be a mix of Buddhism, Taoism, and folk religion.

10. How has the religion affected people's morals, if at all? To me, this is kind of a chicken and egg question. Do we think stealing is wrong because the religions that have shaped our societies say it's wrong, or do those religions say so because people already sensed that stealing was wrong? But you can take it unique places -- say the primary deity of your religion once lived in the form of a young child, so children are considered exceptionally sacred.


Plot Goodies

Although religion can merely be a world building tool, I think it's fun to incorporate it into the plot. Here are some ideas.

Interpersonal conflict. Two people who follow different religions, or just have different ideas about a shared religion, might butt heads. This can be a major or minor plot point, even just serving to increase tension throughout the story. You can also ramp up the scale: holy wars, anyone?

Divine intervention. Your characters might receive (or believe they have received) a message or sign from the gods. Or something more dramatic could happen, where the physical and spiritual worlds meet. I'm not advocating a literal deus ex machina, however! Your characters should solve their problems by themselves, and if divine power is involved, at least foreshadow it.

Routines and inconveniences. Do adherents to your religion need to say a certain prayer or do a certain ritual every day? If so, that could cause problems when they're off adventuring. Are they obligated to offer food or gifts to some being? Imagine what a pain that would be if you've only got enough money for one pint of ale. If it's a high priority for a character, they might go to great lengths and get into trouble to fulfill their duty.

Getting in trouble with the religious law. You see a lot of stories about outlaws, but not many about religious outlaws! Remember that in real life the clergy has often been as powerful as the government. What happens if your characters piss them off? And remember my question about canon versus forbidden texts? Maybe your characters could stumble across some information they're not supposed to know.

A crisis of faith. Despite what I said before about atheism being nearly nonexistent in pre-modern times, your character might not be completely at peace with their religion. Maybe they realize they've been following the wrong deity. Maybe the discovery of that apocryphal text that gets them in trouble with the clergy also shakes up everything they thought they knew about the world. The fact is, in the old days most people didn't have an opportunity to question what they were taught. But you can give your characters one!


I've tried to make this post thorough, but don't feel as though you have to follow it religiously (hah! haha. ha. ...) during your own world building. Take what you need to make your story interesting and believable; tweak it as you go. Good luck!

Writing 101: The Magic Next Door

This week will be the first of multiple posts on the big question: how do you develop a magic system?

Making magic is tricky business. All fiction requires some level of suspended disbelief, but fantasy authors have the extra challenge of writing about things we're reasonably sure could never happen in the real world. Done well, and you can win over readers who love fantasy as well as those who shy away from it. Done poorly and you risk yanking readers out of the story, something a writer should almost always try to avoid. So how do you come up with a system that's interesting, non-cliched, and that makes readers want to suspend their disbelief?

I'm going to use one of my favorite words now: verisimilitude! (Try saying it out loud, it's a blast.) It means something that looks and feels true. It's a quality you want to strive for when writing about magic. Give your readers a magic system they can believe in, and you've got an attentive audience.

Today I'm going to go over some tips and basic questions you might ask yourself when working on a magic system. These topics are designed to bring out the verisimilitude of your magic.

Waaait just a minute... am I saying this is the only way you should write magic? Definitely not. Stay tuned for posts from Michael about some different styles of magic systems, which you may prefer. What you get today is my method!

HOW do you use magic?

Is it an innate skill, or can it be taught? How much training is required for basic use, for mastery? Is it voluntary and/or controllable?

What traits must a person possess to be a magic user -- physically strong, intelligent, imaginative? Maybe it's a skillset unique to your world, but maybe not.

Close your eyes and imagine you're a magician in your story. What do you do? Where are you drawing the power from? The air around you, a spiritual force or higher being, yourself?

What effects does magic have on the user? Does it leave you hungry, thirsty, tired, ill, sneezy? If magic comes from within, magicians sure as hell better get exhausted if they do it for too long. Nothing comes from nothing. Something has to be used up, gathered, transformed, or what have you before it turns into magic.


Maintain internal consistency.

Magic that can do everything is boring and strains a reader's suspension of disbelief. Figure out what your magic can do; figure out the logical extensions of that; figure out where it can't go. It can be a huge help to write down physical laws of magic. Then make sure you don't break them.

How far can magic travel? How long does it last? And on that note....


Have ontological inertia.

Forgetting about it is a common trope. If you bake a cake and then you die, the cake doesn't stop existing. So if you make some magical creation or effect/illusion, why would it go away when you die? Of course, there's the possibility that you're constantly working at it to keep it in existence... just, make sure that's what's going on if you take that route.

Then again, if you bake a cake and you die, the cake would eventually start to mold. (Note: death not a necessary precondition for molding cake.) If you mix the batter and then you die, no cake happens, but the batter is still there. What happens to magical creations in your world if left alone for a long time? What if they're not completed?


What are the laws surrounding use of magic?

A blanket ban, or at least ostracization, on all magic is a common plot device. What spins can you put on it? Is there a certain type of magic that's outlawed? Classes or types of people forbidden from using magic? Do you need a license to practice magic, and if so, how do you get it? Are there any safety regulations akin to seatbelt and helmet laws? If your magic hurts someone by mistake, to what extent are you liable?


Can animals use magic?

And if not, why not? Don't handwave it!


Can magic be used to hurt people?

An unfortunate truth is that if it can be, it will. Don't have your people be all unpleasantly shocked when some mastermind decides to use magic in a completely obvious evil way.


What technology has your society developed with magic?

Generally speaking, sci-fi is good at showing the ramifications of technology in many areas of life. Fantasy, not so much. For example: if people in your world have the magic to make things levitate, why aren't there elevators? You can put in constraints if you like, but do make sure they're there. Similarly, consider what technologies would never be developed or would be obsolete. Given that same power of levitation, would the wheel ever have been invented?

Of course, no technology happens overnight; it builds over time. Just don't assume human civilization with magic will mimic human civilization without.


What about other societies in your world?

Do they use magic too? Do they use it differently? Have they discovered aspects of it unknown to other cultures, or on the flip side, are they still "developing"?


If anyone would like to share some of their answers in the comments, go right ahead! I'd love to see what people have come up with.

Writing 101: Brainstorming

Hey guys! Michael here with our first Writing Tips post. Before we delve into the deep topics, I wanted to begin this series with the most essential, yet often overlooked part of worldbuilding: brainstorming. Whether you’ve just begun a new story or are well into a developed story, you can brainstorm anything at any time. Some ideas will pop into your head fully formed, while other ideas you’ll have to work a little harder to bring them out. I’m going to show you a couple of the easiest techniques to get that inspiration following and help solve your current story issues.

 

Ask ‘what if?’and ‘why?’

Make a list

Asking Questions

Two of your greatest tools are these two questions: What if? and Why? If you’re just starting a story, read encyclopedias and ask yourself 'what if?' Find pictures on the Internets that inspire you and ask yourself 'what if'.

Even if you’re well into a draft, it’s never too late to ask yourself these questions. The answers may lead you down the road to turning that cool idea into a cool story or help beef up what you’ve already written.

Example

What if all fire in the entire world turned cold, while ice became so hot that it melted fire? How could that even be possible?

The laws of physics are going haywire obviously.

But why?

Because all the elemental spirits are ill. Fire has the chills. Ice has a fever. [Main character] needs to first figure out how they got sick and then he must heal them with [Mysterious Magical McGuffin] before the world goes kablooey. Always a bad thing.

At any stage of the writing process you can ask yourself, ‘what if?’ If you're just starting out with a blank page, anything goes. Write every idea that comes to your mind. Your mantra should be, "Nothing sucks until I write something better." And even when you do think of a better idea, never immediately delete the unused material. Sometimes those silly ideas look quite sophisticated after a little bit of polishing. You never know. So, keep your notes around for a while. They won't hurt you.

If you’re further along in your writing, you can take scenes from your draft and prune them. For instance, your main character successfully achieved a goal in Act 1. What if instead, she failed? Or what if she succeeded, but her win only made things worse, unintentionally?

If you're on submission and haven't been getting the response you desired from agents/editors, you might want to consider trying this technique out on your manuscript. What if you approached a pivotal scene from a different perspective? What if you erased a character entirely? Would that harm the rest of the story or not?

See, what I did there? Asking yourself ‘what if’ and ‘why’ are just starting points and are certainly not the only questions you should ask yourself. There’s also: how, when, where, who, etc. Always be as specific as possible. The more specific your question, the more specific your answer will be, which will lead to the building of a detailed story if you’re in the beginning stages or a more solid story if you’re in the final stages. To keep yourself organized, you can make lists. I love lists. They’re super flexible.

Making a List

Let’s make a list using the results from my example above. Lists can be numbered,…

1. Fire is cold. Ice is hot and melts fire
   
2. Elemental spirits are sick
   
3. Main Character is on the case
   
4. Mysterious Magical McGuffin heals the spirits

…bulleted,…

• Fire is cold. Ice is hot and melts fire
  
• Elemental spirits are sick
  
• Main Character is on the case
  
• Mysterious Magical McGuffin heals the  spirits

…or simply a series of words and/or sentences fragments.

Fire is cold. Ice is hot and melts fire

Elemental spirits are sick

Main Character is on the case

The frozen donkey wheel moves the island…wait. What?

Lists can also be formed out of a combination of all the above methods. I usually go with the sentence fragment approach because it’s faster and less clunky. But this is your list. It's your choice in how you structure it. The great thing is no one else besides you is going to see it, so the structure doesn’t even matter, as long as you can understand it. Here’s you chance to free yourself from the evil clutches of grammar and punctuation.

Your list can be as long or as short as you need, but probably should be much longer than my four-tiered examples above. Keep in mind that the longer the list, the more ideas you have to choose from, and the easier it will be to cut ideas that don't fit the story you want to tell.

When building a list, try to always think in story terms. Always attempt to solve your story’s issue, whatever that may be. You may not know exactly where you’re going, but you should aim toward some specific direction. Specificity is what you’re always striving for. Detours can lead to some amazing finds, but most road trips have a particular destination, a reason to drive. It’s what will propel you to keep going without turning back. Joyriders eventually get bored with circling the city and they go back home.

You can create lists for brainstorming character names or character motivations. Lists can help you build potential names for your Mysterious Magical McGuffin or organize scene structure. You can list the turning points of a plot that takes place in a single book or milestones that occur across a series of books. For those that may not know, that would be called an outline (one form of it anyway).

Lists can aid you well if you have a polished manuscript that you plan to make significant changes within. Before you make any major revisions, create a list of the changes you would like to make. This will give you a preview of how the story would look in its new state before you hack it to pieces.

Of course, this is all optional. Sometimes you won’t need a list or need to ask yourself questions. As I mentioned earlier, there are times when great ideas arrive fully formed in your head. You may even have a different method that works better for you than making lists. There is no “right” way to eat a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup or to write a book. Take what you need and leave the rest.