I'm not a world builder and even though I've had this novel idea as an epic fantasy one for over 5 years I had not put any form of religion into the story. Sounds odd right? No religion at all in an epic fantasy that contains humans, elves, dwarves, dragons and maybe even griffins. Yeah. I wasn't sure what to put exactly and it wasn't something I'd really given much thought as I don't often discuss religion in a novel unless it's very important to the plot.
Then I was about to think over my steampunk/fantasy idea, which is still the first to be in world building stage before a first draft is even started, when all of a sudden I had a great epiphany. It was about religion but didn't fit for the steampunk novel. It does work very nicely with the epic fantasy. I took notes so that I wouldn't forget.
I came up with a few things so far. Not enough to get pages of notes from but it's a start. Some segments of the populations are going to go with a one God system. Others are going to go with a 3 God and 3 Goddess system. Dwarves are going to be more agnostic though they'll agree with whoever they are talking to just to not bother anyone. One of the rare topics they do that with, lol. The multi-belief has 3 couples and there are 6 overall, which means the numbers 3 and 6 will be important. In fact, the "group" of good guys includes six people that can easily be divided in 3 sets of 2. Nice huh? And while 6 is good, I'm thinking 3 of them is going to be bad, which the villain can use to his advantage later. I'm excited about the new discovery and can't wait to add little bits of it into the overall story in book 1.
Yay!
8 comments:
That's awesome - I'm so bad at creating religion for fiction. I like the whole 3/6 idea, it sounds like it has a lot of potential.
I get nervous about putting religion in my stories, yet it is a basis of the stories; I'm afraid to 'do it' wrong, considering I'm using established religions. But creating your own, new religion? Fascinating! Can't wait to see how it works for you.
It's so great when inspiration hits!
Loralie - Glad I'm not the only one. I have done zero religion work in my mutant series, both adult and ya.
Cinette - I know how you feel. I'm working with a Christian linked due to angels and demons but I know it's going to get flack because I'm claiming angels can be gay and it's okay. It's hard to do with established religions but there are benefits to that as well.
Elena - Indeed. Love the inspiration moments. At least I wasn't driving this time.
Sounds like you're working things out. Good luck with the planning! :D
Brenda - :-D Thanks. I don't often plan much but it'll be good to use when writing the story.
You are evidently a world builder. Building a world takes time and effort, that's all.
Amos - You are the first person to ever call me a world builder. lol. I have two series of mutant novels in the same world where I have written the first books for each one and done absolutely no world building. So, I'm probably not a world builder, but I'm trying to learn how to be one when the book needs it.
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