Storyworld Building: Creating Religion

This post now part of the book Storyworld First: Creating A Unique Fantasy World For Your Novel by Jill Williamson.

Religion in fiction is an interesting discussion topic for me. See, my books are primarily published in the Christian specialty market. But when I started writing, I didn’t know there was such a thing. Eventually, because of the type of story I was writing and the publishers I’d researched, I found myself at a Christian writer’s conference, where editors from the Christian specialty market were looking for stories.

Back then, I still didn’t quite understand that I was speaking to editors of a specialty market. I just wanted to get my books published, you know?

When Jeff Gerke read By Darkness Hid and offered to publish it, he asked me what made it Christian. I said, “I dunno.” And he said that I needed to add some content to make it Christian. Looking back, I wish I’d understood more of what he was asking me to do. But I was a new author and did my best. And many people love the books.

But it’s a bit of a regret for me. Not that I did it, but that I didn’t know how back then. What’s the problem, you ask? I have two religions in my book. I had the One Way, and I had all those false gods. And the people who believed in the One Way were good. And the people who believed in the false gods were bad or misled.

When I read it now, it feels contrived and forced in places. And it doesn’t always feel authentic because I didn’t portray the other religions fairly. I chose a side. I told the reader which faith was the truth. And that took away their free will to choose. And it made some of them angry.

It wasn’t wrong, what I did, especially since the book was published for the Christian specialty market. But I don’t think it’s the best way to tell a story and reach the most readers.

Today I’m an advocate for creating more than one religion in your storyworld and treating them fairly. Let’s be honest. Earth has many religions. And whether or not you know with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength that Judaism or Christianity or Hinduism or Scientology is the one truth, as an author who is trying to create a unique storyworld with diverse characters, you should remain impartial. Let your characters be who they are.

So how do you make different religions seem real in your story? My best suggestion is to study religions on our world. Where did they come from and why did people follow them? Use what you learn to create parallels in your story. Oftentimes the level of technology comes into play with religion. Historically speaking, the more man leaned about science, the less man believed in a deity. If you have very little technology in your story, you’ll likely have people who think more primitively in regards to gods. People or creatures with great power or strength might be considered gods. For example: The dragon eats us, so we worship the dragon and give it sacrifices so that we can maintain peace with the mighty dragon.

Consider having sects of religion. There are so many denominations of Christianity. And some of the differences are  over little things don’t matter to me. But they do to some.

Are there churches? Services? Required prayer times like Muslims have? Fasting? Priests? Saints? Holy books? Statues to worship? Songs? Liturgies? Are there different worshiping rules for men and women? Are there secrets that you learn the longer you are a member of the church? Or is everything free to all people? Must young people go on a mission? Are there missionaries? Do the believers keep separate from nonbelievers like the Amish? Is there a symbol for the religion like the star of David or a cross? An object that helps a believer pray like a rosary or an altar?

Once you’ve developed a few religions, find a way to give them conflict with one another. For example, do you know why Jews, Muslims, and Christians fight over Jerusalem? It’s because of when Abraham went up to the mountain to sacrifice his son as God asked him to do. (You can read the story in Genesis 22 of the Bible. I don’t know the references for the Torah or the Quran.) The problem is that Jews and Christians believe that Abraham was asked to sacrifice Isaac, the son God promised to him and his wife in their old age. And Muslims believe that he was asked to sacrifice Ishmael, Abraham’s firstborn son that Hagar, his wife’s servant, bore to him.

Seems like no big deal, right? But later on in history, hundreds of years later, God sent a prophet to King David, telling him to go and build an altar on another man’s land. That land is the same place where Abraham attempted to sacrifice his son. And that land is where David’s son Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem when he was king. And that land is where a mosque sits today. It is a holy piece of land to three religions. And they fight over it to this day.

That’s the kind of conflict you want to create with the religions in your story.