Advice for writing prayer

Honest, sincere devotion does sound cheesy from the perspective of someone not experiencing it. If they don't sound cheesy you're probably doing it wrong. Seriously, go ask an eight-year-old boy what he thinks about sappy love longs.

That said, for pre-written prayers and songs repeated as part of a tradition the main impression you want to give is of age--this is something written long ago, possibly revised over the years, by people with an excellent ear for language. It's going to make beautiful use of slightly archaic language and out-dated styles. If your world-building includes that sort of thing, here's where you can show it; if not, just look at real-world examples and rely on the reader recognizing certain styles as sounding "religious".

For something more individual, the work of a single person, it's obviously going to depend on the character and how they express themselves. Possibly with some (clumsy, depending on the character) attempt to imitate a "traditional" style as above. Including a bit of this will help with authenticity, I think, unless their religion discourages such things.

Beyond that, the most important thing is that language about deep affection is nearly universal. Our culture tends to reserve overt expressions of it for romantic love alone, but close friendship and religious devotion aren't all that different. Think of how you'd describe your feelings about a dear friend or beloved family member and use that as a basis.

breaking_burgundy said:

Does anyone have any advice on writing prayers in a way that doesn't make them sound cheesy?

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As someone that grew up with a Roman Catholic family, let me just say that the "standard" prayers (the ones you don't make up yourself) sound pretty cheesy. There's just about no way to avoid that Beyond that, they're all along the lines of "RELIGIOUS_FIGURE IS SO GREAT!" or "Please give me X."

For example, here are some prayers with the fancy speech stripped away. As you might expect, they're all super tacky and are usually used to praise God, ask for something, or are used as an affirmation of faith.
As you can see, they're all along the line of saying, "Simba's kingdom will last forever! All hail the eternal lion! Please don't kill me today, thanks." However, that's pretty much what prayer is. It's just wrapped in this fancy-sounding speech that makes it sound very formal and old (and some of these are very old).

So my advice for you would be have your prayers be written/spoken in a more archaic and formal style of speech.

No offense is meant to anyone who uses these prayers

It is what you want your characters to say that I think you should focus on - when you have worked out the what then the how should be slightly easier. I would also suggest that you try to find some modern translations/versions of prayers and explore how, from one prayer many variations can evolve. For example:

Psalm 133 - hine ma tov - can be translated in various ways:

.הִנֵּה מַה טוֹב = Hine mah tov
Behold how good
וּמַה נָּעִים = uMah-Nayim
and how pleasing
שֶׁבֶת אָחִים גַּם יַחַד = shevet achim gam yachad
if brothers (people) could sit together in unity
(in Hebrew, the masculine also includes the feminine when a mixed group of people are concerned)

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hine_Ma_Tov

How good and how pleasant it is that brothers can dwell together.

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Tanakh, Jewish Publication Society 1985

It is truly wonderful
when relatives live together
in peace.

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http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+133&version=CEV

How good and pleasant it is
when God’s people live together in unity!

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http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+133:1-3&version=NIV

How would you rank the above for cheesiness?

I think the cheesiness can diminish with earnestness - if the characters are deeply devout, having them recite these prayers won't sound as strange, because we know they are expressing a huge part of their life in a traditional manner.

I think some of the psalms have better variety of tone and language if you need some help getting started. Best of luck!

Part of the cheesiness comes for archaic language that sounds phony or overly-exaggerated in comparison to how we talk in real life. But the good news is, you DON'T have to copy that style! You can just have the prayers be in normal conversational language, for example:

"Dear creator, thank you for giving us food, shelter, health and happiness." instead of "Oh Lord we give thee thanks for our nourishment and blah blah fancy words go here"

lolchemist said:

Part of the cheesiness comes for archaic language that sounds phony or overly-exaggerated in comparison to how we talk in real life. But the good news is, you DON'T have to copy that style! You can just have the prayers be in normal conversational language, for example:

"Dear creator, thank you for giving us food, shelter, health and happiness." instead of "Oh Lord we give thee thanks for our nourishment and blah blah fancy words go here"

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Especially if there's no in-story reason for the religion in question to preserve the exact wording of such things. Not all religions are ritualistic or traditionalist in the same ways (or at all).

Oh, and this seems like a good time to remind everyone that using "thee" and "thou" in an attempt to sound fancy and formal is utterly, hilariously wrong. Seriously, just don't. Especially if you don't know why it's wrong rather than simply cliched.

A favorite prayer of mine:

Dear Lord please bless to us this bread.

Give bread to those who are hungry.
Give hunger for justice to those who are fed.

Please bless to us this bread.

ETA: apologies for not citing source. Thought I could find it easily but not so. I saw that in a book my mom had, credited to one of the Liberation priests who worked in Central America somewhere. Can't find any info though. Still, nothing cheesy about this, to my ear.

Are you making up the religion that is predominant, or are you basing it on an existing religion?

How important are the prayers to the story? Does the reader need to understand them? For a long time, Catholic church masses were done in Latin. There are some congregations that still use this dead language. You could try that route. Use an ancient language for the prayers.

I would read some prayers written by Catholic saints. Many of them have a good blend of old-fashioned poetry and modern clarity. Here's one by St. Anselm of Canterbury:

O my God teach my heart where and how to seek you,
where and how to find you…

You are my God and you are my All and I have never seen you.
You have made me and remade me,
You have bestowed on me all the good things I possess,
Still I do not know you…

I have not yet done that for which I was made….
Teach me to seek you…

I cannot seek you unless you teach me
or find you unless you show yourself to me.
Let me seek you in my desire, let me desire you in my seeking.
Let me find you by loving you, let me love you when I find you.

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Every prayer contains varying degrees of fear (respect of power kind of fear), desire for benefit, and genuine adoration. Figure out how present you want each of those elements in whatever prayer you're trying to write, and whatever words you come up with after that will have a more focused, authentic feel.

ETA: I suggest Catholic saints because they are what I am most familiar with. Other religions also have beautiful prayers, but I can't recommend any good ones off the top of my head.

The only prayers that don't sound a little cheesy are the prayers to Khorne.

And that's because it's hard to not sound awesome while screaming: BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD, SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! LET THE GALAXY BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURN!

But not every prayer can be like that.

I think studying real world prayers would be a good place to begin. But don't let yourself be trapped by western/christian prayers. Go everywhere and look at everything. You'll never know where you'll find something cool!

Well, what kind of prayer are you trying to write? There are a lot of different types of prayers, which are structured very differently. There are formal prayers, informal prayers, prayers of praise, prayers of request, and then each kind changes depending on whether you're dealing with a monotheistic or polytheistic belief system and whether a spiritual intercessor of some type is used or not. Some religions have rituals as well as words which are included with prayers.

I could probably give you pointers on how to write a prayer, but I'd need to know more about your fantasy religion and the situation in which the prayer is going to be used.

And it shouldn't sound silly if you do it right, because you'll understand why it's structured the way it is, why you chose the words and order that you did.

In general, unless the prayer is super-important to your character or is relevant to the plot, I wouldn't include more than two or three lines, which gets you out of a lot. If you can't write lyrics that sound good, just stick to prayers. Most prayers aren't complicated, they're just straightforward and honest--"Dear God, please help me do well today, and not curse at anyone." "Dear Apollo, please grant me success in my lyre competition." "Oh Mighty Zeus, you are the mightiest of all gods."

Read some prayers from different religions and see what you like.

I've had to deal with this because my YA historical is set in 1536-7 and prayer was a huge part of people's lives then, along with belief in relics and everyday devotion to the saints in a way that seems weird to us. I looked at what other authors do and found that they use it most successfully when it is closely tied to moments of high emotional tension: the prayers you say when you're scared, or desperately longing for something, perhaps because even non-religious people find themselves praying at such moments.
I then read a lot of prayers of the period to get a sense of the style and wrote my own, so I could tie it very closely to the plot, rather than use a real one verbatim which would have some less relevant bits. The more obviously relevant to what is happening in the plot, the better. It goes to beta readers today so I can't yet be certain it has worked, but I think it has.
If you work at convincingly describing your characters' emotions when they are praying or singing, you won't go far wrong. Your reader will be so far inside their head that it won't sound cheesy to them even if it does to you.

In my story, the prayers are more personal and really depend on the character. The teenage girl in my storyline has a bad habit of cussing out the gods and demanding things of them in her prayers. This fits in with her character since she is arrogant and confident in her own power. At the start of the story, the only god she treats with respect is the God of War who is also her patron god.

On the other hand, her mother and older sister view the gods with respect and often take the time to do the prayers and proper rituals to honor the gods.

I have not really put much thought into the prayers themselves, but I have spent alot of time building the religion of my world and the gods themselves. I do tend to keep the prayers simple when they do show up. One thing that is a concern is making things too cheesy sounding. Pretty much, the prayers in my series are either the characters asking the gods for help or the teenage girl telling them to stop screwing off and help her out.

I second, or maybe third (I lost track), taking a look at the Psalms. They've very poetic, song-like, prayers. Bible Gateway is a good reference. My favorite is Psalm 40, but 119:81-88 is really pretty. I recommend looking at 46 and 138 also--they're a couple of the most well-known.

I agree with what others have said, as long as your characters' devotion and genuine feeling comes through, it won't (shouldn't) come off cheesy. Good luck!

Since you don't specify whether this comes from Christian...'mythology' (sorry, can't think of a better word), I recommend taking a look, even if you just google the wikis, of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. There are quite a few prayers, religious songs, customs etc. which would naturally spring out of inventing a quasi-medieval world. What surprised me (and one of the little things I enjoyed) was how organic and not at all cheesy it seemed.