The above is the header button
At the top of those comments, use the header format button to embiggen the title of the work in progress from which your material comes, so readers can find it from week to week.
If you would like feedback, be sure to say so in bold (the format button next to H). Readers, please ensure your feedback is constructive (this does not mean it has to be only positive, but it should always be actionable and sincere advice; e.g. compare “this protagonist is terrible” vs “I didn’t feel a connection to your protagonist”) and limit it to writers who request it. Writers, please ensure you are comfortable receiving feedback and commentary before requesting it in your post. Together we can keep this a positive place to share our work, our progress, and indulge in our hobby.
A WORD OF WARNING
Many publishers and agents won’t accept a manuscript that’s been publicly available online in part or in whole, because of risk of getting sued for copyright infringement by someone ripping off your work there and claiming it as his own. So, if you hope to sell it professionally, you probably don’t want to post it in DK. If you plan on self-publishing, that risk is only to you. If you don’t plan to publish it anywhere else, then it’s probably no concern at all.
Click on any of the Readers & Book Lovers tags at the foot of each published diary in this series to reach our shared host-group and find today’s WriteOn series post.
Writers participating regularly are encouraged to share in posting these diaries.
It’s easy. Just coordinate scheduling with one another — usually in a comment headed “Schedule”. Then on the day, copy into your diary draft everything you see in this one you’re reading right now, add the tags one by one —FictionWorksInProgress ■ FictionWIP ■ Fiction ■ R&BL ■ R&BLers ■ Readers&Booklovers ■ ReadersAnd Booklovers ■ writing ■ WriteOnFictionWIP ■ FreeWriters — and hit PUBLISH! :)
THEN copy the published diary’s URL, which will always start with
and c’mon over to tonight’s WriteOn, and paste it into a comment requesting we reblog yr FWIP diary to the R&BL and FreeWriters groups. Can do!
FINALLY, put your own WIP exerpt into a comment at the WIP diary you’ve just published, and you’re rolling!
A Word of Caution
Many publishers and agents won’t accept a manuscript that’s been publicly available online in part or in whole, because of risk of getting sued for copyright infringement by someone ripping off your work there and claiming it as his own. So, if you hope to sell it professionally, you probably don’t want to post it in DK. If you plan on self-publishing, that risk is only to you. If you don’t plan to publish it anywhere else, then it’s probably no concern at all.
Without further ado, on to this week’s challenge!
Religion is something there’s no avoiding in your ongoing work if you include people for long enough. It may not be as formal as going to a building to have lessons preached at you with your neighbors, but spiritual beliefs and language permeate all cultures and languages. This is even true of atheist societies and languages! In 1984, for instance, Winston meets a poet coworker from the Minitrue who was imprisoned for using the word “God” in a Newspeak translation. Not because he was a devout martyr, or even a quiet believer, but for the simple reason that there were only so many possible words to use in that place, and only “God” worked. The poet himself is incredulous, having felt he had literally no other choice but to use it, and still he is punished for the only “correct” answer. The question of whether or not “God” exists isn’t even relevant to their conversation, but it still demonstrates so much in such a short space about this society and the world, both in what the characters do discuss, and what they don’t, on the subject of “God”. The scene doesn’t feel the slightest bit superfluous in the context of the story, and it’s a masterful way to show the insanity and cold indifference that form the basis of Ingsoc. Religion here becomes an effective tool to illustrate something to the reader without saying a word about religion itself.
If you’re writing anything based in the real world, there’s plenty of research to be done to make sure your characters’ religious beliefs are portrayed respectfully. That’s always easiest to do when those beliefs are your own, and some truly profound works have sprung from authors pouring their soul onto the page. Even if you’re just making your character a cynical ex-catholic who only half-remembers the rosary because that’s you, yourself, there’s enough detail and knowledge there to give the character a rich and deep backstory.
Of course, in most works (especially fantasy and sci-fi, where fantastic cultures abound), religion takes a much more prominent role in the lives and affairs of the people in your ongoing narrative, and is typically entirely fabricated. While this frees you from concerns about faithful presentation of real-world faiths (to a point; thinly-veiled references to real-world examples are a place where you should tread lightly and think carefully), it brings up a host of new challenges since you’re inventing a whole new worldview, possibly with real effects on reality itself.
Usually, world-builders inventing their own faiths have no shortage of ideas and inspiration for their fictional deities and religions (and I am no exception, as the title image shows). This is less about helping you come up with those ideas, and more to look at the ramifications of them. If religion and the divine take a more central place in the story, for whatever reason, then they’ll be under greater scrutiny.
By and large, you can get away with almost anything for symbols, sacred garments, and rituals: humans have done every combination you can imagine over our tens of thousands of years and countless cultures. What’s important, if you want to sell it, is the “Why?”
The Pentarchs, the dominant religion in the fantasy setting I mostly write about, are a small pantheon of five deities. The symbol is five arrows extending beyond a ring, the ring indicating their protection of their faithful and the outward arrowheads representing the five gods protecting their followers and lighting their way. The yellow on white represents a shining sun motif with the arrows, further tying it on a primal level to the warmth and security of the sun itself.
By comparison, I was raised Lutheran, and the unadorned cross we used instead of crucifix has a story behind it that fills volumes.
The parallels to Christianity and Catholicism are there deliberately, to evoke that feeling of the Catholic Church and its unique role as both temporal and spiritual power on Earth during the same time period. In my work, that’s a deliberate stylistic choice.
As in the real world, despite constant assurances that the Divine has intervened or acted in the past, and sent heroes and prophets and more, the gods have never been seen in person by anyone now living. Are they real, or not? Certainly magic exists in my world, and priests have powers that other magic users do not, and they insist those powers come from the gods, but it’s another stylistic choice of mine to not say, definitively, where those powers come from.
Whether it’s front and center, or just a source of the odd bit of profanity, religion is worth taking a few moments to think about in the context of your work. Or, perhaps not: The Empire Strikes Back is considered the best one of the bunch and contains Han Solo exclaiming “Then I’ll see you in Hell!”, a line that makes no sense at all in the context of The Force and in the absence of Christianity...but if you try to point that out during the movie, even I’ll tell you to shut up and stop ruining things. Don’t overthink it if it works.
Any details about your setting’s religion or great and unknown powers?
