Author: lupestro

Religion can play several roles in fiction. In world building, it can form societal norms, act as an imposed alien order, or be considered a personal anomaly of no social consequence. In character building, it can be an ideological conviction, a personal relationship, or it can simply define a character’s understanding of “what is.” In any case, if you are going to invite religion into a story, there are a few things I think it helps to look out for in handling that element.

A story is ultimately about characters facing some conflict. Even in a story with religion in it, this conflict doesn’t have to be primarily religious. Instead, religion informs a character’s approach to handling the conflict because it is a part of who the character is. Of course, the conflict can be religious. Crises of faith when faced with difficult situations are the very stuff of drama. Just make sure this contributes to the story you are trying to tell and isn’t a distracting sideshow.

Theological discourse is the bane of action. Don’t bore your reader with dry exposition or impassioned sermons. Any faith worth embracing or examining will result in behavior. Does it lead to further conflict? Heighten the sense of danger? Treat religion in the same way as you do other motivations, through what the character experiences of them in the moment. 

Nobody’s soul is a consistent, orthodox expression of some set of abstract postulates, even if they want it to be. No believable character embodies doctrine. A character who is trying to live up to what that religion means in his or her life, facing external pressures and internal drives, perhaps reaching for some internal integrity or wholeness, is much more interesting.

Don’t use religion decoratively. If “the gun on the wall in the first act goes off in the third” in your writing, use religion in a way that matters, however subtly, or let it go. Also, use it consistently. A character isn’t going to forget his or her faith except when it’s needed for plot. Even if the character isn’t “always on” – who is? – when they’re “off” should make some sense in the story.

The final vital thing to avoid with religion in fiction is “the altar call”, either explicit or implied. A religious character’s understanding and conflicts are that character’s own. The most you can do without violating your reader’s trust is to offer the reader a sense of how the character lives his or her faith, how that life “works.” The reader may identify with the character, leading to questions about their own lives – or not. It’s their affair entirely. Leave it there.

Overall, in my own work, I find religion, and especially the encounters of characters with different religions, a rich opportunity for drama, for exploring the spiritual landscape that we inhabit together. Amid all the other relationships, I explore various faiths I’ve had some contact with over the years, certainly not in every story, but frequently. 

By applying the principles I’ve outlined above, I think I’ve navigated that landscape in a thought provoking, encouraging, and entertaining way without offending people or boring them stiff. The feedback I’ve gotten from people I’ve shared the stories with so far has borne that out. What do you think?

Over the New Year, I heard that Anthocon would not be held this year and I was deeply disappointed. I attended it last year, my first writer’s convention, and until I had, I didn’t understand just how rich and important the convention experience would be. Here are the reasons it was important to me and why it might be one of the best investments you can make in your writing.

People. 

It is easy to sit and scribble away for hours every morning, submit your work to a gazillion magazines through automated feeds, and perhaps sharing your work with a small local group of fellow travelers, without fully coming to terms with how much this whole business of writing is about people. 

At a convention, you can’t miss it. You converse with other writers – screenwriters, poets, writers of mysteries, horror, fantasy, children’s books, with publishers, with agents, with illustrators. You get to be a fly on the wall listening to stories told by people with a lot of experience, and, most importantly, you get to observe people who’ve been in the game for a long time interacting with each other. It will immediately become clear to you that the publishing world is a community. That epiphany changed everything for me. 

Lesson: Participate in community

Attitude

What’s your attitude toward your writing? Toward other writers in your medium? Toward writers in other media? Publishers? Agents? You’re a storyteller. What stories have you told yourself? There’s nothing like meeting living, breathing people in those jobs to rewrite those stories, especially when it turns out they’re mostly like you, trying to figure out how to capture a piece of the public attention with some really cool ideas. 

It was truly encouraging to see how much most of everybody wants most of everybody to succeed, even when submitting to the same places. The “most of” comes from what happens if someone starts shafting people. Some of the most interesting stories you hear are about creative people applying karma. 🙂 

Lesson: Be generous, be kind, and don’t be a d*ck. 

Contacts

I met some individuals at the convention that I have kept connection to since, either through Twitter or email. 

I had to tweet E.J. Stevens after I’d picked up a couple of her books at the vendors room – and then proceeded over the next several months to devour the Nook versions of everything she’s ever written. Her talk at the panel discussion on writers platform was really helpful, too, when I started on mine. 

Other writers I read a bunch of as a result were M.R. Tighe, Jeff O’Brien, and E. Catherine Tobler. I suspect that most of the people I kept contact with I was able to do so because I bought their book, which had their name on it. 🙂

Lesson: Remember people’s names

Information

There are a lot of people out there that have learned a lot, some of it the hard way. You will learn something from every session, whether it is a panel, a presentation, or a set of readings. You will learn a lot that you can use from the right sessions. 

Lesson: Go, sit, listen, remember

Yes, go!

Unfortunately, I won’t be at Anthocon this year. Fortunately, there is a writer’s side to most genre readers conferences. Based on my experience at Anthocon, I’ll make it a point to attend one or two conferences every year, now. 

See you all at Boscone in February. 🙂

I figured it was about time to give my writing a home on the web, where readers can discover other stories they haven’t read yet, we can discuss themes and characters, and I can pass along news about where I’ll be and what I’ve got in the works. The site is still very much a work in progress. My next goal is to get my mailing list in place and provide a signup for that.