Gabrielle here!
Like many nerdy middle schoolers who were obsessed with reading, I quickly became obsessed with Greek mythology. I loved reading graphic novels about the different Greek gods, reading mythology-inspired stories like Percy Jackson, and watching videos from Crash Course and Overly Sarcastic Productions teaching about different legends. So naturally, I became very interested in creating my own mythologies and including them in my stories. And predictably, things got convoluted since mythologies get complicated quickly. But was that the just impulse of an overly-excited preteen, or is there something to spending hours pondering a fictional belief system? So today we’re diving into how to handle religion or mythology across several different genres!
Why This Matters
Why bother taking the time to learn about this very specific aspect of worldbuilding? There are a lot of stories where none of the characters are religious and a lot more where it would be insane to bring up any form of mythology. However, religion does not just impact the people who actively practice it. A religion or mythology illuminates a culture’s values. So understanding the mythologies a culture values, the religions it practices, or the elements of different mythologies and religions that the culture emphasizes opens a window into what that culture considers important.
Level #1: The Real World
If you’re writing a story in a real setting, the influence of different religions and mythologies are everywhere. In America, national holidays like Christmas and Easter come from Christianity, the rod of Asclepius decorates hospitals, and statues celebrating the folk hero Paul Bunyan speckle the country. There are a lot of physical ways that religion and mythology pop up in a setting’s culture, even if your main characters don’t follow any sort of religion. For example, when I drive through Ohio to go back to college, I almost always pass a billboard declaring “Hell Is Real,” and no one on the road can miss that.
So when you’re working with a story in a real setting, do some research on the religious norms of the setting. What’s the main belief system in the setting you’ve chosen? Is there only one major religion or is it more of a melting pot? How does that impact the physical environment?
Level #2: Real Place, Different Time
Time has a big impact on how different religions are practiced. Heck, time is what makes the difference between a belief system being religion and a mythology. So if you’re writing in a time period that isn’t the present, you’ll need to either research how the religions in your setting were practiced in the past or consider how the future would shape different styles of worship.
Is the story taking place in a past time period where a well-known mythology is an active religion? How would a story set in ancient Greece where figures like Athena and Zeus are actively worshiped treat them differently than a story set in the present? Do some research into the different ways people practiced and how those practices may have blended into the popular culture of the time.
Or if your story takes place in the future, have the old legends warped with time? Have new ones developed? Take a look at what’s led to different trends in religious practices. That can act as a starting point for your own creative development.
Level #3: Real Place, But Add Some Magic
Now we’re adding some fantasy! This is any kind of setting where the story’s still in the real world, but there’s some sort of speculative fiction element. Whether there’s a secret world, magical realism, urban fantasy, superhero fiction, or some combination of these genres, the real world is the springboard for a fantastical story.
In a lot of these stories, mythology blends with the real world. Whether the gods are coming back or mythological monsters are chasing the protagonists, there is a whole genre of mythology-inspired fiction—most famously, the Percy Jackson series. For these stories, you’ll need to research the mythology you're using. Just because you’re adding a creative twist on it doesn’t mean you can get away with not doing your research; in fact, it means you’ll have to do very thorough research to understand how to best use parts of the mythology in creative ways.
But even if you’re not writing a story that is entwined with mythology, it’s still important to consider how religion or mythology would play a role in this story. Have the new elements influenced how real belief systems are practiced or interpreted? Or are there whole new belief systems because of the added elements? If that’s the case, then you’ll have to create a new religion or mythology. And if you’re creating a new religion, you’ll need to follow the steps outlined in level 4. And speaking of level 4…
Level #4: Original Setting
These are stories that take place in a unique fantasy or science fiction setting—whether it’s a new planet or so far in the future and so warped by time that it might as well be a completely original setting. Just as every setting has some sort of culture, every setting has some sort of belief system that shapes society.
Even if it’s a primarily atheistic society, there will still be some sort of system in place to answer these three questions: how did the world come to be, how should we act towards one another, and what happens when we die? Whatever kind of culture you want to build, there needs to be a system in place that answers these three questions.
Additionally, consider what stories—whether through active religion or mythology—the culture tells about themselves and other groups. What do these stories reflect about their values? How many different groups tell the same stories differently? This is one of my favorite worldbuilding tricks. In one of my WIPs, a pivotal moment in the story involves characters from two different cultures sharing—and bickering over—two versions of the same story from their different cultures. It allows the readers to learn more about the world, and get a clearer understanding of what the characters value and why they value those things, there’s a little bit of foreshadowing snuck in there, and it’s wrapped into a fun scene where the characters get to bond.
Finally, when building out a religion, consider the logistics of the religion. How does it spread? How large is it? How do people practice their religion? Do those practices impact other parts of their life and culture? Are there different variations? Not all of these questions will probably be relevant to your story, but having an idea of what the answers would be will help your world feel richer.
As with most worldbuilding in these genres, you’ll have to do a lot of digging and learning. Research how real-world religions function. Learn more about how stories turn into legends or the forces that create long-standing mythologies. Use what exists to learn how these complex structures come to be.
A Final Word
While religion and mythology are incredibly important parts of worldbuilding, it's important to remember the scope of its influence. Religion won’t impact every story equally, so it’s up to you as the author to determine how much time you should dedicate to researching and on the page to this part of worldbuilding. The goal of worldbuilding is to create a rich, believable world, and if you can accomplish that with an hour of work or with twelve hours of work, that will be time well spent. Now with all my talk about how religion influences culture, it's about time we actually talk about how to create a culture. So in two weeks, Emily will dive into how to build a culture. Thanks for reading and bee brilliant!
Comments