Pre-Nano Course: Building Religion One
October 14th 2009 12:37
This workshop is going to have a heavy focus on religion, as the majority of the worldbuilding I have done-and therefore feel comfortable helping you to do-is of this manner. Today you're going to answer a few questions, and tomorrow you will complete the second part of this exercise.
1. What religious beliefs do real-world people in similar climates to yours hold?
To answer this question thoroughly, pick a part of the world that has a similar climate to the place where your story happens and take a look at ancient cultures that existed in this place. Pick three and do some quick research on each, writing basic point-form notes to describe whether they had one God/dess or multiple Gods and Goddesses, what some of their basic rituals involved, and what some rules of their faith were.
Bookmark useful websites that tell you about each culture. You will be using these for further reference.
2. How many deities are you willing to work with?
Do you only want one? Are you willing to create two, three, or more?
3. Is your main culture (the one in which most of the story takes place) monotheistic (one God) or pantheistic (multiple Gods)?
4. Are the deities abstract or do they show themselves fully&interfere directly? If the latter, how often?
5. How devout are the majority of people in your culture? (Whether or not the Gods make themselves apparent would have an impact on this)
6. What are the core principles in this religion?
Basically, what do they value above all else? What personality traits are seen as virtues, and what is seen as a curse? What rules of respect are in place?
7. What would their temples look like? (Based on technology/magic levels and available materials.)
8. What are three things that are extremely important/irreplaceable in this culture? How do these interact with religion?
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By the way, prompts for this workshop will begin next week. The first few exercises are longer and require more thought, so I thought also having prompts would be too much.
I had a big readership dip yesterday... I'm hoping to recover the readers. This workshop is not just for me, it is created for people who need help planning their novels. I don't need to do these exercises-I created them to help other people.
1. What religious beliefs do real-world people in similar climates to yours hold?
To answer this question thoroughly, pick a part of the world that has a similar climate to the place where your story happens and take a look at ancient cultures that existed in this place. Pick three and do some quick research on each, writing basic point-form notes to describe whether they had one God/dess or multiple Gods and Goddesses, what some of their basic rituals involved, and what some rules of their faith were.
Bookmark useful websites that tell you about each culture. You will be using these for further reference.
2. How many deities are you willing to work with?
Do you only want one? Are you willing to create two, three, or more?
3. Is your main culture (the one in which most of the story takes place) monotheistic (one God) or pantheistic (multiple Gods)?
4. Are the deities abstract or do they show themselves fully&interfere directly? If the latter, how often?
5. How devout are the majority of people in your culture? (Whether or not the Gods make themselves apparent would have an impact on this)
6. What are the core principles in this religion?
Basically, what do they value above all else? What personality traits are seen as virtues, and what is seen as a curse? What rules of respect are in place?
7. What would their temples look like? (Based on technology/magic levels and available materials.)
8. What are three things that are extremely important/irreplaceable in this culture? How do these interact with religion?
----------------------------- ----------------------------- -
By the way, prompts for this workshop will begin next week. The first few exercises are longer and require more thought, so I thought also having prompts would be too much.
I had a big readership dip yesterday... I'm hoping to recover the readers. This workshop is not just for me, it is created for people who need help planning their novels. I don't need to do these exercises-I created them to help other people.
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