The main character of any fiction you are writing now

[veinglory]

I thought it might be interesting to discuss the beliefs or the protagonist of your current work in progress and see what range we have.

My current WIP is a fantasy with an elven protagonist. He uses magic as a spiritual force that is generated by the land. Thus he is a person that deals with magical energy and see people as having innate abilities to store and use this energy, which comes in two forms. However none of the characters in this book refer to God or Gods at any point. This is simply how it is designed and I dare say the average reader would not notice it. There are a number of powerful but non-god entities in the story including dragons and a kind of vampire.

The main thing I found interesting is that it took some effort to remove colloquial use of 'god', 'soul' and similar terms from the dialogue even thought they really don;t fit the cosmology at all.

[t0neg0d]

I think that the 7 characters that my current WIP revolves around border between 3 (or at least I was hoping for 3) different belief systems:

Pagan
Agnostic
And I was hoping for an Atheist for one character in particular. This would have made for interesting views of the situations they encounter. Unfortunately, I am not seeing a way to portray an Atheist without upsetting some persons view of Atheism and I am planning on a rewrite for the character at this point. =(

Interestingly enough, the book revolves around a false religion.

[SPMiller]

My fantasy WIP's protagonist is essentially ISTJ. Initially, he's religious, if not exactly devout.

One major plot point is the revelation that the entities his society believes are gods are actually glorified energy beings (who were originally human) feeding off the energy generated by their believers.

By the end, as you can imagine, he no longer believes in the divinity of these beings. Whether he then accepts the concept of even higher powers is not addressed in the text--I may add brief notes on this if, in further revision, it becomes relevant to the story. But he does maintain faith of a sort: that he has the ability to right perceived wrongs.

[Captshady]

Mine is agnostic. He's had a rough life, and thinks that "god," "God," "Allah," or "the Dark Overlord" see us as insignificants, like ants are to humans.

[Captshady]

I'm not really planning on my MC to mention anything religious either. But while doing character development, it came up (worksheet).

[Alpha Echo]

My newest MC is Catholic. She grew up in a Catholic school, though her parents sent her there just for show, and now she's very active in her own church. She believes in God in her heart, but from the heartache and loss she's experienced, she's not actively exercising her faith. She only is active in her church b/c it's what her rich, snotty lawyer husband expects to maintain appearances, just like what her parents expected.

[t0neg0d]

Mine is agnostic. He's had a rough life, and thinks that "god," "God," "Allah," or "the Dark Overlord" see us as insignificants, like ants are to humans.

Not to pick nits, but Agnostic means that you have not formed an opinion. If your MC see "god/s" as considering us insignificant, he would be a Pantheist or Deist, depending largely on other facets of their outlook.

This is only said to help you better define your character accurately.

[Captshady]

Not to pick nits, but Agnostic means that you have not formed an opinion. If your MC see "god/s" as considering us insignificant, he would be a Pantheist or Deist, depending largely on other facets of their outlook.

This is only said to help you better define your character accurately.

My bad. I've never looked up the term agnostic, I just kind of took it for what it was defined as, years ago.

Thanks for the correction!

[Ruv Draba]

I'm in the early stages of design for a political thriller set in modern Afghanistan. Among the cultural tensions I'm trying to draw out is the tension of secular vs religious law. Whether any person in the story is atheist I'm not yet sure, but if we view societies as characters, some act as though they are.

One of my people-characters I'm designing to be an 'outsider born to the society'. So, a person who holds to the behaviours of the society - and many of the values - but who may be questioning the beliefs. I'm also considering using an 'ignorant outsider' - one who enters with what feels like superior knowledge but which is actually unquestioned ignorance.

Neither character is archetypically what their cultures would have them be. Their biggest challenge may not be to produce a common truth, but to find a common framework in which to discuss it. Hopefully they'll thrash out something between themselves.

[zornhau]

Ironically...

I'm writing a fantasy novel in a quasi-medieval setting. The main character, Sr Ranulph Dacre, is an authentic Medieval knight, meaning he believes in God, but subscribes to some near-heretical ideas: in his mechanistic worldview, victory is theological validation, and being an active knight is penance enough.

I'm not writing with an agenda, but I suppose I am reclaiming knighthood from other and later Christian traditions.

I don't think writers should worry about giving offence when we portray other world views than our own, but I do think we should strive for authenticity.

Sir Ranulph's faith is as self-consistent and robust as my own rationalist atheist world view. It doesn't break in my WIP. It very much doubt it will break further down the line, since even if his "god" were to be proved false, he would assume that this was the "real" god's will.

[Nakhlasmoke]

There is no religion in my current fantasy. I don't know if it qualifies as atheist, as there's not anything to not believe in, it just doesn't exist.

The magic is drug based, and so no need to call on higher powers.

[Ageless Stranger]

Funnily enough, mine lives in a world which is literally only about eight thousand years old and god is real, and yet my MC is kinda an atheist in that he keeps religion out of his life as much as possible and would prefer it it god didn't exist.

[Higgins]

I thought it might be interesting to discuss the beliefs or the protagonist of your current work in progress and see what range we have.

My current WIP is a fantasy with an elven protagonist. He uses magic as a spiritual force that is generated by the land. Thus he is a person that deals with magical energy and see people as having innate abilities to store and use this energy, which comes in two forms. However none of the characters in this book refer to God or Gods at any point. This is simply how it is designed and I dare say the average reader would not notice it. There are a number of powerful but non-god entities in the story including dragons and a kind of vampire.

The main thing I found interesting is that it took some effort to remove colloquial use of 'god', 'soul' and similar terms from the dialogue even thought they really don;t fit the cosmology at all.

I'm writing a kind of ensemble (yes, its fiction and le's just hope I'm "comfortable" with the "word" ensemble...please god and all the saints and moderators, I hope ensemble is not read as an intrusion into areas I have not done the proper research on...or on which I have not done the proper research) piece...a bunch of college kids from the mid 1990s in the Pacific NW of the Good Ole USA ( the "ole" is not "serious" and only mildly inane so you don't have to suggest to Medievalist that she insist the "ole" is pointless...after all maybe it is there for a reason such as local flavor...okay that was "inane" but this is a paranthetic remark...I'm obviously not "comfortable" with "parenthetic" but I clearly have at least heard of it if not read it extensively, the mere fact that it is here and spelled better the second time suggest some acquaintance with the word...though -- I hasten to add -- in no way up to the standards of any of the better moderators. Perhaps if I knew more about parenthetic remarks I would have ended this one sooner.)

So there they are in my "fiction"...and (god help me) they are based on real people and not archtypes. I guess if I knew anything about what I so quaintly think of (if indeed my thought processeses might be compared to the thought processes of other less "quaint" people) as fiction, I would not have so blythely (oh boy...blythely...Jesus H. Christ -- call Medievalist now) -- or quaintly -- just said "based on real people"...but in my own naive way I swear on all that is Holy...yes I honestly believe they are based on real people.

Anyway...these kids in my story all think there is "some kind of higher being"...and that something about quantum mechanics just might make them have a post-mortem (oh boy) existence.

Except...now that I think (excuse my use of that term with reference to my exceedingly ill-informed self) about it...one of them is a mathematician with visions and she might have some more elaborate system of beliefs...though in all the six to 8 drafts of the tale...her belief system seems to be roughly that she loves her home town and gets a kick out of math. But -- let's face it -- she is a very odd girl.

In conclusion. If I have offended in any way, either by inanity or a patently (oh boy) uncomfortable use of words more properly reserved to my betters, or by an imperfect understanding of basic conventions such as fiction or archtype, please feel free to ignore me. I append the method for ignoring a user and I remain...

Most sincerely yours,

Higgins



FAQ: How to Ignore a User
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Go to your User CP panel
On the left, under the category of Miscellaneous, click Buddy / Ignore Lists
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[fullbookjacket]

I'm an atheist but I don't think anyone could deduce that from the fiction I've written. My characters simply don't discuss religion. That's not to say that I'll never write about it. Heck, Dan Brown made a killing writing about it.

[GLAZE_by_KyrstinMc]

My main character is an angel from Heaven, so I suppose she passes for Christianity. :D

[JoNightshade]

Interesting topic!

My primary MC (there are 3) isn't religious at all. He's never gone to church, etc. But when he does something horrible, and then something horrible happens to someone he loves, he eventually comes to the conclusion that nothing makes sense unless there's some kind of 'reckoning' after death - ie, innocent people go to heaven and wicked people are punished for their crimes. Mainly it's because he doesn't see any justice in this life.

[vixey]

I honestly hadn't considered the religion of my MC, but since he's a modern 15 year old Scottish boy I suppose he's Church of Scotland (since I'm Presybeterian, I suppose I understand his religion). It's a YA fantasy where he's (sounds way over-done, I know) transported back about 500 years. There'll be druid type of elements and magic (no werewolves or vampires). Really, religion or philosphy hadn't figured into the story. But interesting question.

[AyJay]

My MC lives in a fantasy world where ancestor worship is the religion, and he is a centuries-old descendant of the holiest of ancestors, the founding father of the kingdom. He's a 15 year old boy and not particularly interested or impressed by the staunch dogma of the clerics in his world. He's on a journey to uncover secrets about the heroes he was taught to revere.

[AMCrenshaw]

Wrayth, one of the MCs of Courier communicates through the spirit, which is a binding energy of all the living. Living people have communicable/individual spirits and dead people's spirits are like dead people themselves. So ghosts can exist in 'spiritual pockets' (say it like Jim Gaffigan), but that's a side-point. The communication is in images, memory soups, streams of consciousness, what-have-you.

There are is one deity, called God. It has two faces, the sun and the moon. It's a little like yin/yang.



My other WIP, Kommein is about a nonviolent Catholic Worker who is also a nontheist. He gardens, tends to drug addicts, plays basketball with poor kids in a run-down neighborhood, and holds demonstrations in the face of an oppressive government. He reminds people that this way of life use to be a religion.

AMC

[Ruv Draba]

My first draft is now complete and in revision, and the main character has changed a lot. He's a 15 year old Afghan boy for whom Islam is an unquestioned fact of life - like eating rice. A more important fact for him though, is his Pashtun culture's code of badal or vengeance. This is his ruling passion for the duration of the story, whose logline is as follows: With his mujahadeen father dead to a Russian land-mine, fifteen year-old Tofan seeks to be the man of the family. But when his brother is raped by a local lieutenant, his Pashtun code of badal calls for mortal vengeance. Can a fifteen year-old boy navigate the treacherous waters of Pashtun tribal society, or will his naive efforts destroy what remains of his family?

Edit to append: The short is now in SYW here (http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2785739&postcount=1).

[Bartholomew]

My protagonist is Christian. She attends a university of applied sciences; her extremist family disowns her for it, and the people around her are trying to abuse her beliefs to get what they want.

[Bo Sullivan]

My two main characters live in Victorian England. I am three chapters into my WIP. They are both terrible villains, one male and one female who form a relationship whilst in Newgate Prison. They are not religeous and they believe in taking from the rich and fleecing them for everything they have in order to survive and improve their own lives. They are both Cockneys from the East End of London.

Barbara

[Zoombie]

My current MC is the long lost heir to the Empire who was raised by villagers up North. He's just been told that he's gonna have to reunite the Empire.

But along the way, he's gonna see if he can skin a few hookers alive. Yeah, he's kinda...got sever sociopathic stuff going on. He's very intelligent, though, and incredibly observant. And he's pretty much the best choice for the job of not just reuniting the Empire but also defending it from the GIANT BUGS that are going to come down and eat everyone.

So, think of it as a mix between King Arthur, Starship Troopers and Natural Born Killers.

Really, the only "religious" character is Watcher Thorbin, who is a member of the Watchers guild. They have complete freedom to do whatever they deem necessary to catch anyone who's violated the Five Precepts (think the 10 commandments, but less of them) in a manner so egregious that it requires special action. Like, say, a serial killer. Like, say, our main character. Thorbin (which is a temp name I stole from a video game...don't tell anyone) believes completely in Justice. Its kinda a God for him now. He's scarier than the bugs!

But not scarier than the main character.

God I love this job.

[Dawnstorm]

Here's the background to my current fantasy:

Magic is something like a life force, something like a psychoreactive shapeshifting creature that inhabits all the world. It could be sentient, or it could just be echoes of millenia of casting, praying, telling campfire stories etc. Magic is dying. It doesn't want to.

Social groupings reliant on practical magic for their legitimisation are in a bit of a jam: no more utility spells for the mages; lottery healing for the priests. So how do we heal our sick if the priests can't do it anymore? Well, there's this group of physicians who look promising (relying on various traditions - herbalists [pagans!], torturors [sadists!], and veterinarians [anti-humanists!]), but they do icky things like cutting up bodies to look inside. Yuk.

Then a series of disasters jumps up obliterating living things into an evenly spread goo. Magical disasters? Rumours spread "the Aimless One" has returned (if he was ever real in the first place, and you can't really trust rumour).

Then the Aimless One strikes in Feyshore, a free merchant's city at the southern tip of the continent, where a delicate balance of the three main factions (mages, priests, physicians) is in place. Envoys are sent to investigate.

The mages send an elderly battlemage who's been humiliated into teaching history of magic, and his assistant the fat female mage (and everyone knows women can't be mages). No, they don't take that seriously at all. Decadent academics the lot of them, they're just sending who they think is expendable. The "Aimless One's" dangerous after all. The elderly battle mage wants nothing so much as "feel the power again". His assistant needs money to keep survive, and a bit of reputation couldn't hurt either, to advertise her artifact identification workshop.

The Order of the Writ send a Knight Investigator, whose triple function is to investigate the Aimless One, "vanquish" him should it be necessary (i.e. if others - say the mages - could tap into that power), and also keep a check on the Feyshore chapter of the Writ, who on the whole support the heretical view that the Aimless One represents "the Wrath of God" (they don't believe in Gods, but for this thread the term should do) and it's directed at the Order. Bloody reformers. Knight Investigators can do as they like: lie, steal, murder... and get away with it, as long as it's for a good cause. Problem: the Knight Investigator in question doesn't quite buy that and brings his student to show him that it's really a crappy job. The student, though, must uphold a family tradition...

The physicians send a healer who's dying from a chronic blood disease. She's volunteered in a desire to be useful again (apart from documenting the progress of her disease, that is). There's a chance she could be healed by a priest (hey, it still happens; just not often), but she's too embarrassed to go for that. She's accompanied by her assistant from across the sea, who has special knowledge in anatomy; from where he won't tell.

So these folk meet in Feyshore, just at the time when the Roving Village arrives, out of schedule. The Roving Village is home to merchants, gamblers, circus folk, and other madmen and -women. They are said to have a sinister plan, but what they really have is a sinister guest:

The schizophrenic undead psychic the Order of the Writ has - in a moment of folly - called the miracle child and attempted to educate, all because she was born dead and resurrected shortly there-after. The voices in her head want her to be a goddess, but she doesn't want to do as she is told. Wayward child! Ungrateful child! Why do you hate us so! She wouldn't hate them half as much if they'd shut up once in a while. But they haven't - for about sixty years now.

The Aimless One's attack has left two survivors; a beekeeper who babbles about trolls and bees - people pay polite attention - and - poor darling - a girl around 12/13, everyone dotes on. But she's odd. For starters, why don't insects bite her? Could she be the... No, no way, impossible.

Quite possible, though. So sayeth a gambler who has taken a liking to her, as she reminds him of his own troubled past. Life would be so much easier if there weren't that nagging feeling that killing is "wrong". But a good gambler knows that imagination leads you astray. The only way to arrive at the surprise, though, is to play the game and indulge in your preconceptions.

So does everyone else, after all.

So what's the name of the game again?

(about 2/3 into 1st draft)

[Buffysquirrel]

If you asked my MC, he'd say he was a Christian, but he doesn't really think about it that much. He doesn't go to church (because of things that happened in his childhood, he got out of the habit). Gradually, he gets involved with a sect that are sort-of like Quakers in outlook, except without the pacifism. It's a change for him because he's always believed in/been part of a hierarchy, and these people just don't have one.

[MaLanie1971]

My main character, Libby represents me spiritually five years ago. An Evangelical Christian who truly believes everything she has been taught by her parents, church and bible belt culture until she meets three characters that challenge her beliefs using history as evidence that the relgion was man made.

[benbradley]

Buffy, inspired by a comment in a viral video titled "If atheists ruled the world," kills many, many times, all the victims coincidentally being characters in all the "Twilight" books and movies.

[marisaMARTYR]

My WIP is mainly about religion and belief systems. I have many main characters, one of them being atheist and perhaps the mainest (is that a word?) character. Actually, it's told by several character in their viewpoints. I created new religions (and cults) since it's an alternate universe. My atheist character is mainly atheist because her mother is and she wants to stay as far away from any religion as possible. My other character is the complete opposite. Then there are three others: one created a cult, one isn't really religious, and the other (a child) doesn't know what religion is.

[MGraybosch]

I thought it might be interesting to discuss the beliefs or the protagonist of your current work in progress and see what range we have.

My current project, Starbreaker, has an atheist as its protagonist. The supporting cast includes agnostics, a Discordian, and a deist.

[Ruv Draba]

My main character is an atheist and serial killer, and she's about to meet a god. The experience itself doesn't humble her -- in fact it barely even fazes her, but when her self-delusions come crashing down she eventually becomes a meek and submissive theist.

Is that a good thing? I dunno. It's a dark fantasy, and she doesn't give up her serial killing. Religion just makes her happier about it. :ROFL:

[BarkingPup]

*cough* is this considered necromancy? Well, I'll jump on the bandwagon anyway.

I suppose my characters are the religion. In the world they live in they're considered gods of a sort. Kaleb, however, doesn't think he's a god... merely above humans in general. He's a sociopath and stays arrogant throughout his capture and torture whereupon he escapes and... suffers nothing psychologically. I don't think he believes in himself nor the other 'gods' (especially after eating one) so he's atheist?

Zik isn't much better, really. She lives in a hive-mind society so I suppose she used to believe in the Queen before becoming disillusioned. So maybe she's atheist too? Later on she is sort of 'martyred' but that's only because Tanak wants to use her memory for his own hive-mind society without the need of a Queen.

And Posco's society has no gods nor religion (or at least that he follows) so he doesn't count.

:\ my characters aren't the best religious examples apparently.

[Higgins]

My main character is an atheist and serial killer, and she's about to meet a god. The experience itself doesn't humble her -- in fact it barely even fazes her, but when her self-delusions come crashing down she eventually becomes a meek and submissive theist.

Is that a good thing? I dunno. It's a dark fantasy, and she doesn't give up her serial killing. Religion just makes her happier about it. :ROFL:

I'm thinking about writing a story about an idealistic young Shinto Agronomist who trains as a pilot and gets an Imperial Rescript from a Divine Emperor commanding him to get in a plane loaded with bombs and crash into a particular warship that the Emperor says needs to be blown up because it is carrying an atomic bomb that will be dropped on the Emperor. But the real meat of the story involves the spectacular flying Ace whose sight returns after a primitive silcon chip is embedded in his brain: can he fight his way through hundreds of radar-guided planes and antiaircraft guns to protect the young Shinto agronomist on his Divine Mission? Or will analog fire control prevail against the primordial digital man?

[Ruv Draba]

...can he fight his way through hundreds of radar-guided planes and antiaircraft guns to protect the young Shinto agronomist on his Divine Mission? Or will analog fire control prevail against the primordial digital man?Will it come out on PC or just Xbox? And dammit when will there be a Nobel Prize for Literary Gaming? Or hell, Interstitial Air Combat at least. :tongue

[Higgins]

Will it come out on PC or just Xbox? And dammit when will there be a Nobel Prize for Literary Gaming? Or hell, Interstitial Air Combat at least. :tongue

Sounds like Pure Anime Xbox to me. Here's a "little diety" Shinto Anime plot summary (from http://www.anime.com/KamiChu/):

Yurie Hitotsubashi was just an average middle school student living in the city of Onomichi on Japan's inland sea. She spent her days worrying about exams and trying to get Kenji, the clueless boy she likes, to notice her. Then during lunch one day she suddenly announces to her friend Mitsue that the night before she had become a goddess.

Their classmate Matsuri quickly latches on to Yurie's newfound divinity as a way to promote her familyís bankrupt Shinto shrine. She hopes that replacing their hapless local god, Yashima-sama, with Yurie will make the shrine more popular (and profitable). Now, with Matsuri as her manager, Yurie has to grant wishes, cure curses, meet aliens, and attend god conventions (and even join the "Union"). All the while attending school and working-up the courage to confess her love to Kenji.


http://www.anime.com/KamiChu/

http://www.abcb.com/parents/index.htm

http://www.theofantastique.com/2007/06/07/shinto-and-liminality-in-anime/

http://school.phippy.com/shinto/world.html

[Maryn]

Ryan Murphy is not a believer in much of anything, except the power of vodka. He was raised without religious instruction and his use of the words Jesus and God are as exclamations only.

Anton Keese was raised Catholic, was molested as a boy, and abandoned his faith. He considers himself an atheist, although agnostic is probably closer to the truth, since when things get really bad, he tries praying.

Interesting question, and quite interesting to read the replies.

Maryn, glad you asked

[Higgins]

My main character is an angel from Heaven, so I suppose she passes for Christianity. :D

I think all angels are Jewish. They don't need to be justified by the blood of Christ and they do Jehovah's work directly and freely pass in and out of the Divine Presence.

[Ruv Draba]

I think all angels are Jewish. They don't need to be justified by the blood of Christ and they do Jehovah's work directly and freely pass in and out of the Divine Presence.Don't they date back to the Mesopotamian Ur-Nammu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Ur-Nammu)? Or was that just Judaic-influenced archaeologists seeing things in mythopoeic representations of rain-clouds?

[Higgins]

Don't they date back to the Mesopotamian Ur-Nammu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Ur-Nammu)? Or was that just Judaic-influenced archaeologists seeing things in mythopoeic representations of rain-clouds?

I would assume angels have a relation via traditions about winged beings going about various kinds of cosmic business to all kinds of winged beings going about various kinds of cosmic business.

We can skip the 'Irad, the rather ambiguous "Watchers" of the Books of Enoch and go straight to:

http://www.mesopotamia.co.uk/gods/explore/exp_set.html

under ApKullu Griffins and ApKullu People and Anzu and Gula and so on. No lack of winged beings going about various kinds of cosmic business over Mesopotamia and the Levant. Even the Greeks had plenty of winged beings such as Eros and Iris and some Victories (Nikes).

[Dawnstorm]

Somebody needs to write about an atheist god.

[MGraybosch]

Somebody needs to write about an atheist god.

I think somebody in Japan already did. Does the name "Haruhi Suzumiya" ring any bells? :)

[Dawnstorm]

I think somebody in Japan already did. Does the name "Haruhi Suzumiya" ring any bells? :)

Hehe. True, I forgot.

[Rhys Cordelle]

My main character is a strong believer in a monotheistic religion. I have two other P.O.V. characters who are non believers (one because she thinks the world is too cruel to have a compassionate god watching over it, and the other does not believe because he has uncovered information which contradicts the church teachings).

Most of the other characters in the plot believe in a pantheon of gods, and one atheist character is someone who could be percieved as a villain or hero depending on your point of view. She wants to overpower a church she sees as corrupt and dangerous, but she uses corrupt and dangerous methods in her attempt to discredit them.

[Kaiser-Kun]

Religion is important in my WiP.

There are three gods, called the Alfa. They came from space one thousand years ago, and brought magic. The Alfa mated with the humans of this planet, and their descendants carried the gift of magic, becoming the Divira race. The ones without magic are the Efira. The Alfa foresaw a terrible future, and went into sleep to wake up when they were needed.

The series revolves around preventing the extinction of magic, since no Divira have been born for twenty years. To do this, the last descendants of the Alfa seek to awaken the sleeping gods.

Near the end of the book, it's revealed that the Alfa strengthened their magic with time, with every generation giving power to them. This allows them to trascend physical death.

[Ruv Draba]

Recent main characters:

A disgruntled social-worker who burns her case-load to death. She starts off non-theistic but ends up vaguely pagan.
A British aristocrat who loses his reputation and his face in a battle. He's High Anglican and retains his faith throughout, but not his confidence in the aristocracy.
An elven nature-worshipper whom I think becomes some sort of socialist. I wrote her as an exercise. Her story is outlined here (http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4485801&postcount=123).
A sentient newt who's a member of an outcast tribe losing their traditional lands. He's an ancestor-worshipper.

[bluebell80]

I tend to write atheist MC's. My current project has an atheist MC with a questioning religious supporting character. Since zombies have overrun the world, there are some questions of where God is in all of it, how he could let this stuff happen, and if there is really an afterlife and souls. My MC is very atheist, especially after what has happened, and I am finding it very interesting to see the two conflicting differences between how the character's are handling the propective of life after zombies.

[knight_tour]

I thought it might be interesting to discuss the beliefs or the protagonist of your current work in progress and see what range we have.

My current WIP is a fantasy with an elven protagonist. He uses magic as a spiritual force that is generated by the land. Thus he is a person that deals with magical energy and see people as having innate abilities to store and use this energy, which comes in two forms. However none of the characters in this book refer to God or Gods at any point. This is simply how it is designed and I dare say the average reader would not notice it. There are a number of powerful but non-god entities in the story including dragons and a kind of vampire.

The main thing I found interesting is that it took some effort to remove colloquial use of 'god', 'soul' and similar terms from the dialogue even thought they really don;t fit the cosmology at all.

My experience was very like this, especially with how the elves view the energy that connects all things. The men, including all three main POV characters, have no inkling of what a religion is and thus no notion of 'gods'. Ironically, the only person in the story who has any religious belief is the scientist who arrived from earth. He was agnostic, until he found this planet with so much of the same flora and fauna as earth. Since evolution wouldn't work that way naturally, he had to come to grips with the idea that there is some sort of interconnection between everything in the universe.

[fullbookjacket]

My experience was very like this, especially with how the elves view the energy that connects all things. The men, including all three main POV characters, have no inkling of what a religion is and thus no notion of 'gods'. Ironically, the only person in the story who has any religious belief is the scientist who arrived from earth. He was agnostic, until he found this planet with so much of the same flora and fauna as earth. Since evolution wouldn't work that way naturally, he had to come to grips with the idea that there is some sort of interconnection between everything in the universe.

Your basic premise is called "convergent evolution." That describes how organisms with very different lineages can develop similar characteristics. Mammals, for example, have developed wings just as birds have, although the evolutionary split occurred long before birds evolved from dinosaurs and mammals evolved from small reptiles and before either had wings. So theoretically your world could occur within the evolutionary process. If carbon-based life is the norm that would occur across the Cosmos, it's not unreasonable to think that forms like fish, mammals, reptiles, birds, cephalopods, etc. would evolve.

Anyway...there's at least one other possible explanation for your fictional world. Species from Earth could have been transported to another planet and left to evolve. Or maybe species from that world were transported to Earth in the distant past. On Earth, there was an explosion of new species in a very short (relatively speaking) period of about 10 million years in the Cambrian epoch.

[knight_tour]

Your basic premise is called "convergent evolution." That describes how organisms with very different lineages can develop similar characteristics. Mammals, for example, have developed wings just as birds have, although the evolutionary split occurred long before birds evolved from dinosaurs and mammals evolved from small reptiles and before either had wings. So theoretically your world could occur within the evolutionary process. If carbon-based life is the norm that would occur across the Cosmos, it's not unreasonable to think that forms like fish, mammals, reptiles, birds, cephalopods, etc. would evolve.

I agree that evolution on other planets can of course produce similarities to things on earth, the issue here is that there are exact species, such as wolves, rabbits, oaks, etc. As the scientist from earth was on the very first ship developed to go to another galaxy, he doesn't see any means by which these species were transported from one to the other. And on this planet, advanced technologies don't work properly. Physics and time all are muddled in certain ways. When he tries to reproduce electricity or gunpowder, they work in only the weakest sense, i.e. the gunpowder just fizzles. He has spent over 6000 years living on this planet at the time of my story, while he has aged only about 25 years. He doesn't look on the coincidences as being 'god' in the sense that, say, Catholics mean, but he does view the energy that he can see flowing through all things as being in some way responsible.

[fullbookjacket]

Sounds like an interesting premise, Knight Tour. Is the quandary solved and the truth revealed in the novel?

[knight_tour]

Sounds like an interesting premise, Knight Tour. Is the quandary solved and the truth revealed in the novel?

Not in this novel, because I couldn't do it the way I wanted. In order for a first time writer to get published, from everything I have read, I need to both keep the novel self-contained and within a rather small word-count. Even with cutting things way back I am at 130,000 words.

[fullbookjacket]

Not in this novel, because I couldn't do it the way I wanted. In order for a first time writer to get published, from everything I have read, I need to both keep the novel self-contained and within a rather small word-count. Even with cutting thing way back I am at 130,000 words.

I think you're going to find it virtually impossible to get a first novel of that length even looked at by an agent. I would recommend you think about splitting it into two novels. Not necessarily by just ending a first novel halfway through the manuscript, but by moving storylines to set up two different complete stories. I wish you luck, because it won't be easy.

Don't make that decision on my input, however, because I still can't seem to land my own agent. See if you can get a couple more opinions in these forums.

[zornhau]

I thought it might be interesting to discuss the beliefs or the protagonist of your current work in progress and see what range we have.


I'm writing a Military Swords and Planets tale. The main character, Julian Greentree leads a squadron of voidbeast riders - think Lovecraftian things with space wings - in battle against the Myrmidions of the Ecstatic Myriad who ride the eyestalks of their Bound God.

[Zoombie]

I have two mains in my story Wake Up. MIRS (Magical Internal Regulation Service) Agent Milo Valentine and her/his partner, Max Wu. Milo was not really much of a believer in anything, but now she/he believes in the basic tenets of humanism. Wu is Catholic, though he kinda stopped going to church in his old age.

[Queen of Swords]

I thought it might be interesting to discuss the beliefs or the protagonist of your current work in progress and see what range we have.

My main characters tend to be non-believers, with one exception - in a previous manuscript, the heroine was a religious fanatic. Her people worship dragons. If a dragon told her to jump off a cliff, she would do it, and if it told her to push someone else off the cliff, she would do that just as willingly.

The hero was an outspoken atheist. He couldn't not believe in dragons, given that they clearly existed, but he didn't treat them as gods and wasn't prepared to drop to his knees the moment one of them gave him an order.

I tried to keep the heroine's faith more or less intact in the face of everything that happened. Although she's more tolerant of other views at the end, she never stops believing. It was curiously fun to write.

[Cliff Face]

In the script I'm working on which is based on characters from my saga, the MC is a Goddess who doesn't believe in religion. The premise is that science can do all the things that we call magic, so even though she's a Goddess, all it means is that a large population worships her for who she is. She didn't create the Universe, nor did any other God.

I loves her!

[Ruv Draba]

I'm designing a story that was originally conceived as a short, but now looking novel-length. Here's the premise:
Born with an unusual imagination, the young amphibious weedneck Glid is the black sheep of the Rednail tribe, so when he is adopted as a pet by the lonely dryfoot Shea, he finds a chance to learn where another weedneck would have languished and died. As Glid comes to adulthood and sees the systematic devastation the dryfoot wreak on his species, he grows convinced that subjugating the dryfeet is key to weedeck destiny. But the dryfeet are many, and command fire and steel, while the weednecks command only fish and stone. Can Glid's revolution do anything more than hasten an inevitable weedneck extinction?

This story's main theme will be about zeal -- especially zeal for the stories of one's people. The dryfeet believe they're a superior species because they are more numerous, have better tools and originated off-world. The weednecks believe the dryfeet are evil because they are destroying weedneck dignity and way of life. While religion doesn't feature in the story, superstition and xenophobia do. Dryfeet believe that weednecks are responsible for their plagues. Weednecks believe that dryfeet evil is contagious.

A secondary theme will be forbearance. Many of the characters in this story are wronged by the zealous excess of others. Some react in self-righteous outrage and thereby themselves commit zealous excess; some learn to contain their reactions and respond with moderation and growing understanding.

[Rufus Coppertop]

My two MC's are twelve year olds in an alternative Roman empire. They believe in a multiplicity of gods. The mother of one of them is a sibyl. They believe in werewolves because their uncle was a werewolf and werewolves are common. They don't believe in vampires though. Only a complete idiot in this world would believe in vampires.

[Maxx]

My two MC's are twelve year olds in an alternative Roman empire. They believe in a multiplicity of gods. The mother of one of them is a sibyl. They believe in werewolves because their uncle was a werewolf and werewolves are common. They don't believe in vampires though. Only a complete idiot in this world would believe in vampires.

Yep. I've excluded vampires from the internal metaphysical world of my current MC as well. He has lots of other beliefs though. His mother is the Moon Goddess and he believes that is very embarrassing.

[Scandiaca]

I have about 8 characters in my WIP.
three are Japanese, all of them have this mix of Buddhism and Shintô which is quite common for Japan, but only two of them would consider themselves religious.
one of them is kind of a family believer... she believes in her obligations towards her ancestors.
three of them are atheists
one is kind of following the nature religion road.

[RavenMoon]

Religion is the main theme of my novel. My MC is apart of a race I invented called the Glori, who were the first race to be crafted by the Divine from two older species. She herself would be considered polytheistic, she worships five guardian gods and a legendary figure (I guess similar to Hercules or Jesus if you need a comparison) named Wakan Loyuten.

[Ophiucha]

Theism in my world is very much reflective of my own view of theism in life. I don't think of theism as a matter of belief. I don't think we can know for sure if there is or isn't a God, though some people are damn sure one way or the other. I just don't consider that to be important. I think reverence, fear or love, worship is the cornerstone of religion. One cannot be a Christian if they hate Christ. They can believe in Christ, but that alone does not make one his follower. If you will.

I write fantasy. In my world, there are beings of great strength and eternal life, who created the world and the beings on it (directly or indirectly). They are functionally gods. Everyone believes in them. They are right there. You would be delusional not to believe in them. The measure of theism is instead judged by whether or not you consider them to be worth praise, or worth fear. If you would make a sacrifice to them, if they had a doctrine - would you follow it?, etc. My characters, good and bad, are nearly all atheists in this sense.

[Her Dark Star]

Religion does tend to feature in my worlds because it is powerful influence in culture. My MC's tend towards the atheist simply because my own lack of belief has so far made it difficult to write a convincing character of faith.
However in my WIP, the sisters of the MC are all religious in some way. The MC will also see a lot of evidence of higher powers but hates them as he is majorly anti-authority. He knows gods exist but he just doesn't like the fact.

[ConChron]

I thought it might be interesting to discuss the beliefs or the protagonist of your current work in progress and see what range we have.


I follow my MC from childhood, through life, through death and beyond. She starts out as religious because that's how she's been brought up to be. It's a bit of "everybody does it so I do it too". Then she starts to question what she has been told and after death she pretty much concludes that she's either a goddess or there are no gods at all. The later being her final conclusion. Her religious thoughts are never a main theme, it's just there among the cookies she eat and the sunset somewhere.

[akaria]

My MCs are all angels but there is no concept of God for them. They are servants of the Creator and run around doing it's bidding but would laugh at the idea of worshipping it. Why would you worship your boss? In this world the Creator is just what it says on the tin. It goes around forming stuff out of the void then leaves some minions in charge and goes on to the next project. It occasionally checks in to see how things turned out. If it likes what it sees things are left as is. If not, nuke it from orbit and start all over.