RichardGarfinkle
Second Edition and Second Laughter
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I've noticed a number of threads where people are having trouble working out how to write ideas in fantasy that are fairly common in mythology and religion.
Just as an SF writer who knows some science will write better SF, a fantasy writer who knows mythology and religion will write better fantasy.
I'd like to make a general suggestion that all fantasy writers be well versed in as many mythological and religious traditions as they can find. Read primary sources where you can (if you know the language, even better). Some secondary sources are also valuable for subjects that have not been written down or collected in one place.
One important caveat. Mythology and religion are not the same thing. Mythology is the stories people tell about their religion (or other similarly important things). Religion is how people practice their religion (the ordinary and the extraordinary instances).
So to give an example from Judaism (the religion I was brought up in): Genesis is part of the mythology. A Bar Mitzvah is part of the religion.
Here's a few useful bits of mythology. Those with other sources please suggest them:
Greek: The Iliad, The Odyssey, Hesiod's Theogony, the plays of the tragedians (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides).
Norse: The Elder (or Poetic) Edda.
Hindu: The Ramayana and the Mahabharata (the longest book I know of).
Irish: The Táin Bó Cúailnge.
Welsh: The Mabinogion.
Chinese Buddhist: The Journey to the West (to find out where "Dragonball" comes from).
Navajo: The Diné Bahaneʼ.
Zoroastrian: The Zend Avesta.
Sources on religion can be a bit trickier. We have, obviously, a lot on Christianity, Judaism, and Islam available, as well as sources on modern practices in Buddhism and Hinduism. Some cultures are private in their religious practices; others are more open.
For ideas on ways a world can work spiritually that are different from a lot of western culture, I think it's a good idea to read documents on Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism.
Taoism: The Tao-Te Ching, the writings of Chuang-Tzu (or Zhuangzi for more modern spelling).
Confucianism: The chinese classics, particularly the Analects. The writings of Meng-Tse (or Mencius as he's often named in Western works) are a good idea.
Buddhism: A couple of thousand years of sutras.
As for secondary sources, for those who want to know where vampires slayers come from: The Night Battles by Carlo Ginzburg.
Obviously, this list could go on for a lot longer, and it's not necessary to read everything, but it's important to be well read in the stories that came before fantasy writing and from which so many of our ideas are derived.
Just as an SF writer who knows some science will write better SF, a fantasy writer who knows mythology and religion will write better fantasy.
I'd like to make a general suggestion that all fantasy writers be well versed in as many mythological and religious traditions as they can find. Read primary sources where you can (if you know the language, even better). Some secondary sources are also valuable for subjects that have not been written down or collected in one place.
One important caveat. Mythology and religion are not the same thing. Mythology is the stories people tell about their religion (or other similarly important things). Religion is how people practice their religion (the ordinary and the extraordinary instances).
So to give an example from Judaism (the religion I was brought up in): Genesis is part of the mythology. A Bar Mitzvah is part of the religion.
Here's a few useful bits of mythology. Those with other sources please suggest them:
Greek: The Iliad, The Odyssey, Hesiod's Theogony, the plays of the tragedians (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides).
Norse: The Elder (or Poetic) Edda.
Hindu: The Ramayana and the Mahabharata (the longest book I know of).
Irish: The Táin Bó Cúailnge.
Welsh: The Mabinogion.
Chinese Buddhist: The Journey to the West (to find out where "Dragonball" comes from).
Navajo: The Diné Bahaneʼ.
Zoroastrian: The Zend Avesta.
Sources on religion can be a bit trickier. We have, obviously, a lot on Christianity, Judaism, and Islam available, as well as sources on modern practices in Buddhism and Hinduism. Some cultures are private in their religious practices; others are more open.
For ideas on ways a world can work spiritually that are different from a lot of western culture, I think it's a good idea to read documents on Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism.
Taoism: The Tao-Te Ching, the writings of Chuang-Tzu (or Zhuangzi for more modern spelling).
Confucianism: The chinese classics, particularly the Analects. The writings of Meng-Tse (or Mencius as he's often named in Western works) are a good idea.
Buddhism: A couple of thousand years of sutras.
As for secondary sources, for those who want to know where vampires slayers come from: The Night Battles by Carlo Ginzburg.
Obviously, this list could go on for a lot longer, and it's not necessary to read everything, but it's important to be well read in the stories that came before fantasy writing and from which so many of our ideas are derived.