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Today’s Writing Tip Topic: Religions – Cheat Sheet.
If you are looking for a starting place to work out your religion(s), look no further than the religion cheat sheet. You can use this at any point to organize what you have (though you may need other categories depending on what you’ve built), or you can use this at the beginning to launch your discussion into your religion. From my experience, these questions are the most I’ve ever needed to answer, but as with any world-building, I don’t tend to need to know all of this for my stories. Its been nice to have when I discover my religion just became the centerpiece of the story (Discovery writer at work!)
You do not need to fill out every section of this sheet to have a solid religion and you do not need to fill them out in order.
Without further ado, here’s the sheet.
Type:
This refers to the type of theism of the religion. The major types are monotheism, polytheism, and non-theism, but there are many others. Wikipedia’s article on Theism has a good list under General conceptions along the side.
Nature of the Divine:
Are your divine beings spirits (animist religions generally follow this route), sprites, dragons, gods, demons, angels, so on. I’ll often go into a general overview of the gods. That is, if I have gods of every little thing in the world, I’ll include that here. If I want the gods to be based off the language, I’ll include that in here. If the religion is based off ancestor worship, that goes here.
Place of Worship:
I generally use this as where the religious ceremonies take place: temples, churches, gardens, everywhere, family shrines.
Founder:
The Founder isn’t necessarily the actual founder, but whomever the religion believes founded the religion. Think Abraham for Judaism, Mohammed for Islam, and Jesus for Christianity.
Origins:
This is a category, I don’t always use. If the religion has an origin story, such as Jesus’ tale in Christianity or Mohammed’s in Islam, I include that here. This can be more myth than history or it can be a real historical event. You can also choose to put the origin myth – that is how the world began – in this slot.
Major Deity(s):
This is where I include the major deities. That is the gods that are worshiped by a predominant amount of the worshiping population. For monotheistic religion, this will be the only god included. I include their domains – that is what they are worshiped for, like Poseidon is worshiped as the God of the Sea – if there is a domain. For some religions, you may not have deities.
Minor Deity(s):
Minor deities will not be included if they are not relevant to the plot of the story. You can have thousand of minor deities depending on the religion and its not worth listing all of them, unless its relevant.
Focus:
This is why are the people worshiping the deities or following the religion. This can range from avoiding divine punishment to achieving a good afterlife. Sometimes there are many reasons a religion is being worshiped. You can either write them all down or pick the major focus.
Major Beliefs:
You will likely have a lot of beliefs for this religion, but try to narrow it down to the big ones. Think:. Divine right to rule or the cast system or karma. Anything that majorly influences the religion should be included under major beliefs.
Afterlife Beliefs:
This is where you put what happens to you after death. Is it nothing? Do you go to an afterlife? Are there nine afterlives, some good, some bad?
Ethics:
This is the slot where you put moral guidelines. Think: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you from Jesus or the ten commandments. You may not want to include every little moral guideline, unless your religion has few of them, list instead the ones that are relevant and/or major guidelines.
Practices:
Does your religion not eat meat? Do they pray five times a day? Do they attend mass every Sunday? Do they sing songs of praise every third Monday? This is where you list how your religion shows they are devout.
Prayers:
Not every religion is going to have prayers. You may build a religion that has exactly one prayer. You may have a religion, where what you say doesn’t matter, just as long as you do pray. You may have a religion that has thousands of prayers. This is the category where you make a decision on if you’ll have prayer and how it will work. I’ve put this in a separate category, instead of under practices, since often prayer needs more information than you might put under practices. You can also use this category to write out one or more prayers you want to feature in your stories.
Rituals:
This is another category that can go under practices, but I’ve separated it, since you may want more detail on it. Some religions won’t have rituals. Some religions have very important rituals. These are often well-structured events. Think: Sunday church for Christianity or mediation.
The following four are specific types of rituals to think about.
Birth Rituals:
Adulthood Rituals:
Marriage Rituals:
Death Rituals:
Symbols:
These are holy symbols. Think the cross for Christianity or the Star of David for Judaism.
Holy Days:
These are holidays. Anything from the birth of the founder to the solstice to whatever day you feel like your religion should be celebrating.
Clergy:
Who are the clergy? Are they called priests and priestess or something else? Male only? Female only? Are they the only interpreters of the holy text? Are they the people who write or rewrite religious texts? This is where you give a basic run down of who the clergy are and the basics of what they do in the religion.
Hierarchy:
This is your clergy’s hierarchy. Are there high priests above everyone else? Is there a pope? How is your religion organized?
Lifestyle of the Clergy:
How do the clergy live? Do they live humbly and modestly or in opulent castles? Are they restricted from certain acts or required to do certain things? Do they live differently in different parts of the world? For example does a priest living in the city live a different life than a priest living in a rural town? Maybe priests only live in cities. These are the details that should be ironed out here.
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