Religion has been on my mind of late. Not any of the current established worldly religions, but how to create one. In my second book, I created a world set in medieval times, but not on Earth. It’s easy to create town names and character flaws but to create a whole new religion, that’s hard. It can’t be an obvious duplicate of an existing religion. Creating a belief system, and then the history of how it spread across the land is a daunting task. I’ve found several websites with instructions on how to create a fantasy religion. I’ll be working on this for quite some time.
Truth be told, I doubled my work because my world has two religions. There will probably be more, but it currently has two. I believe the second religion will be easier to develop than the first. I created a character similar to ABC’s and CBS’ MacGyver. This man knew how plants and the known chemicals interact with each other. He excelled at improvising with what’s available. Soon, a following started and now it is more of a cult than a true religion. Still, it needs proper vetting so I can use it again and again in later books set in this world.
History doesn’t write itself, especially the history of your fantasy world. The more details you can define, the better your world will be. The better the world, the more believable your story is. You may not use but one percent of the history of your world in your book, but it’s worth it to do the work. Having a logical progression of the history of your world, and its religions, are far better than tossing in random events.
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What I’m Reading – Many readers I know like to inquire what their favorite author is reading. At the end of each blog post, I’ll let you know what book I have my nose in. I may not be a published author yet, but I hope my choice of reading material inspires you to read. I’m currently reading the first book in Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael series, A Morbid Taste for Bones. I encourage you to read a variety of topics.
Hi Alan
In college I took extra courses in Anthropology. I was in personality and culture or psychological anthropology. I came across an interest theory. That religion was an institution that corrected psychological problems that were caused by that culture. If a child was spanked by the parent for discipline, the religion might stress turn the other cheek or forgive your enemies. Perhaps if the culture said it was good to die for the sake of group then a religion where a afterlife was important, especially if after death you woke up with forty virgins. I can’t recall a book or author except ,”Basic Personality”, and I don’t think the concept was in this.
What an excellent exercise, creating two religions. It’s a challenge I would have run away from…as fast as possible; however, it is an amazing cultural and philosophical puzzle. Thanks for another example of the freedoms in fiction.