writetyper

Dila slams the hand brake into place and turns off the engine of her car, then yanks the keys from the starter and grabs her bag. Being late to her book club meeting, an innocuous event, because all the parking spots near the library was taken was the cherry on top of her otherwise horrible day today. There'd been the snobby old lady who cut the queue in front of her at the grocer's, then there was the call from her boss (on a Saturday, no less) that forced her to open her work laptop for a stupid email that could've been forwarded to her WhatsApp, then there was the inexplicable thirty-minute traffic that snaked right outside her complex all the way to the library (which was only a ten-minute drive away).

Of course, none of her book club members minded that she was late, but Dila held all the fury in the world as she stomped through the stairs and banged open the library doors and stomped again on the carpeted floors of the library to where the meeting was taking place.

"Sorry I'm late," she huffed, her brows furrowed as deep as they could go.

Rayan, who was in the middle of gushing about his current non-fiction read to the rest of the table, dismissed it with a good-natured wave. " 's all good Dila," he says. "You came right on time. I'm currently explaining the best philosophy read I've ever come across in my entire life."

"You say that with every book you come across," says Jan, who pulls out a seat next to her for Dila. Watching her friend throw her bag on the floor next to the chair, then yank a book out of her bag, Jan leans over and whispers, "The traffic got you?"

"The entire world is out to get me," grumbles Dila. Rayan, sitting across them from the table, continues ravishing over his book of the month while the other members oohed and aahed and commented in intervals. "All I wanted was a relaxing Saturday with some coffee, a novel, and a fun book club sesh, but then my boss called me over a stupid email and some woman at the store cut my line and laughed at me for it. And then the traffic. How was I supposed to know the traffic would last a fucking half-hour when I'm only a few kilo away?"

Jan patted her friend's shoulder in comfort. "There, there. Sounds like it sucked a lot. But hey, you're with us now. Screw all the people who made you miserable today and bonk them with your book. I'm all in for listening to your read of the month."

Dila smiles. She settles into her seat, whispers a grateful, "Thanks Jan," and focuses herself back on Rayan.

For the purposes of this analogy the child is shit at colouring in, because I only wanted to give the general idea.

So, we can all agree that the child who draws a house probably isn't trying to communicate anything in particular other than “look at this cool house I drew”, right?

Cool.

So… Why is it seemingly in the middle of nowhere, when most children live in houses with neighbours?

Why is the main body a square and the roof a solid triangle when that doesn't look like any house that has ever been built anywhere?

Why does it have a wood-burning stove with smoke actively coming out of the chimney, even though the sun indicates warm weather?

Why is the sun smiling? Why is it yellow?

Answer: because the child has seen picture books, and films, and the drawings of other children, and has on some level absorbed that this is what a house is meant to look like.

Face to face, the child almost certainly wouldn't know where to begin communicating “yellow is a colour culturally associated with happiness and warmth, and two dots accompanied by a curved line symbolically represent a smiling human face, so I have combined these attributes with the sun to convey that it is a very warm and pleasant day”.

Or “historically most houses in my country used fire for heat and cooking, and even though this is no longer the case for the majority of households, most media portrayals of houses are inspired by other, older, media portrayals and therefore include the chimney. I have chosen to follow this trend.”

Or even, “I have poor motor control because of my age, and large, 2 dimensional shapes are easier to draw than anything involving detail and perspective”.

Yet this is all information that you can pick up from detailed study of the house drawing.

Ultimately, it's not about what the writer intended. That's what the whole death of the author thing means.

#oh that last line gutted me #is there a place between perfect and failure?

Good news! There is!

Gods without religion. The Gods are real and a known historical fact, but virtually nobody is religious.

Cultural racism/discrimination without structural racism/discrimination. Discrimination that exists only in microagressions or mean comments, without existing in any sort of structural way.

Secret history with no clear reason for it to be secret and no clear method for maintaining that secrecy. Major parts of the world's history are kept entirely secret, even though there's not an obvious reason to do so and even when history has shown this is virtually impossible to enforce (especially in a world with any movement or communication across borders).

I wanted to actually give a full response to this, because I think it's a great question.

Religions consist of a few things:

Stories

Beliefs/creeds

Rules/norms

Traditions

These aren't quite collectively exhaustive, and they're certainly not mutually exclusive (they are closely tied to each other), but they encompass the vast majority of what makes up a religion.

Stories are probably the simplest part of a religion: the written or oral tales passed down in the religion that tie to its beliefs, teachings, and/or origins. The Bible, the Torah, the Quran, stories about pantheons, creation stories, etc. all serve to both explain the world and provide guidance on how to live a proper religious life. These stories don't need to be part of the official canon of the religion and can be about historical figures tied to the religion (e.g., Catholic saints).

In stories, this may show by through people telling or referencing stories, through art or architecture depicting those stories, or through references to holy books, as some examples.

Beliefs are about the shared ideological viewpoints of the religion. These are often documented in the religious stories, but don't necessarily have to be. They can be as formal as the Nicene Creed or as informal as just a general shared understanding.

Theism is a major belief for the vast majority of religions, though it is not necessary. It also includes belief in what is sacred, what is acceptable, whether there is an afterlife, what good or bad traits are, etc.

If the religion is a theistic one, this belief would also include one about how the god(s) engage with the world and with people. Do they believe there is direct physical engagement (see: Zeus and the many mortal women he sleeps with) or that guidance is provided spiritually? Do they believe that there may be intervention in times of crisis? Do they believe that the god(s)'s hands are shaping the world constantly or that they created the world and then stopped? Do they believe that the god(s) listen to direct prayer from anyone or that specific locations, objects, rituals, or qualifications are required? Are the god(s) benevolent? Omniscient? Omnipresent? Do they care about humans?

In stories, this can show up any way you show the character thinking about the religion or gods. Do they think that the god(s) support their actions or if their actions follow their religious teachings? Do they care if that's the case? Do they always wash their hands carefully because their religion teaches cleanliness is important? Do they believe that certain things are good or evil?

Rules/Norms cover the institution/enforcement of those beliefs. These may be strict laws outlined in religious texts or by religious institutions (e.g., dietary restrictions) or general norms (e.g., dressing up for church). This may dictate how someone can engage with the religion or how religious people can engage with the broader world.

This is also where two religions or sects with similar beliefs really start to differentiate from each other. One might explicitly disallow something that a different one begrudgingly tolerates, even if both believe that it's bad

The structure of the religion also starts to come into play here. If a religion says only men can serve certain roles, for example, men will then be the ones playing those roles in the religious institution.

In stories, this is shown the same way any other rules or norms are.

Traditions, in my view, cover a wide range of things, from big societal traditions like holidays or rest days to small personal traditions like prayer. This is what you do as part of a religion--the actual actions taken by individuals or groups to participate in the religion.

Do people go to a physical location on a regular basis? Are all locations equal or can a person only go to certain ones? Is there someone who leads services? If people congregate for worship or other religious practice, how often? What does it look like?

Do people pray individually? What does that look like? Do houses have shrines or other dedicated areas for worship, or is it only conducted in congregate areas?

Do religious practices include specific rituals? Specific objects? Specific clothing?

This is also where the structure of the organization really shows up. Is there an organized structure (a la the Catholic Church) or is it religional? Local? Individual?

And especially when writing a non-Christian faith, watch the phrases you have characters saying. It is very funny to me when I hear bibical scriptures quoted by characters in a fantasy world where the Bible never existed.

Homogeneous countries works exactly twice: when the "country" is a tiny island in the middle of the ocean untouched by other civilizations, or a tiny planet in the middle of an asteroid field untouched by interstellar travelers. Migration, trade, and intermarriage have always kept human civilizations from becoming stagnant both culturally and genetically. Sometimes groups try to keep others out, but uncontrollable events like famine, disease, and war make humans seek outside connections.

my frustration with other writing applications is that i will write my scenes out of order and it's hard to move things around and rearrange them on a regular document.

but with obsidian there's this canvas feature where you can just write all your scenes and plot moments on these little cards that you can freely rearrange. you can color code them and connect them too.

here's the canvas i've created for my current multi-chapter fic: (if you zoom in you can see all the text in each card this what it looks like zoomed out)

as you can see, i color code them based off chapters and will group them next to a document card with the working title of the chapter. anything not color-coded are scenes that don't have a proper place quite yet or it's just world building references. this app can also be good for note-taking and collecting research!

best of all, it's FREE!!! the only downside is that if you want your stuff to sync across devices, you do have to pay for that. i constantly hop between my laptop and desktop so i pay for the syncing. but if you write on only one device it's completely free!