Building Religions in Fiction

In creating a world for fiction it is important to not work yourself into a corner. In some stories the only thing holding the entire plot together is a single idea or running gag (I see what you did there Walden--not that it was bad for its age group). This kind of lack luster world building can cause the whole story to seem flat whereas well crafted worlds can create beautiful settings to hang your characters on. Thus when deciding how people and nations worship (or don't) it is important to give the issue some thought.

One thing to keep in mind is that religion is fairly common to most cultures (in fact pretty much all of them). The reasons are varied and diverse but the fact remains that humans have a spiritual nature (whether that is praying in a church or not being all together calm about your closet door being open while you sleep--we seem to look for things that aren't there). Being that we can assume that most readers are from Earth, it is important to at the least tip your pen to the unknown.

For Bard's Blade religion is a central force for the characters. Their whole lives are devoted to cleansing the universe of those who are not a member of their religion. A galaxy spanning Mutually Assured Destruction that takes place across time and space. So for this project religion quickly became one of my top concerns.

I started by looking at and studying popular world religions and then mutated them ever so slightly. For instance one race has a hierarchy of spiritual beings that the race must appease for blessings and good fortune. So... I may have burrowed a lot actually. However when studying world religions one can see a strand of commonality amongst almost all of them.

This presents a positive and a negative: this makes creating religions for fantasy worlds easier because you can burrow from real religions for help however if you get too close to the source material you could make an angry mob. For example if you based a fantasy religion off of Southern Baptists but do not represent the people well then the SB's may become aggressively upset at you and could cause problems for you getting published or sold. On the other hand if you represent them well you could inspire a whole generation. So the sword cuts both ways.

Here are some suggestions and pointers to help:

1. Study world religions and keep a list of attributes you like.
2. Keep track of what most followers of your religion will hold sacred, taboo, and normal.
3. Make a layout of how your fantasy religion is structured: are there priests, do women and men worship the same, are there classes?
4. Make sure to refer to your notes now and then to make sure your characters act correctly.
5. Remember to watch out for being too close to source material (or not) to protect the feelings and individuality of others (unless that is what you are going for).

Well that is all I have for now. Hopefully I will be making regular updates soon. I got a new job as a truck driver so I have been MIA most of the week here recently. Until next time.