Religious or fantasy?

deejaybunny12
Religious or fantasy?
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Posted on:
Dez 2, 2007 - 09 33

I'm sorry for typos for I am freezing right now (after months).
Okay, so I was discussing my novel with my older sister and she said it was a fantasy novel, but to me it seemed more religious. I can't give you my exact summary, but it does, or might include when I reedit, these things:

Death (the person)
The devil
Spirits of some sort, or ghost
The dead coming alive
Life-in-Death (not the person, but the feeling)
Immortality.
A cross necklace
Punishment from Death for doing an evil crime.

Please telling me. I'm hoping it's more of a religious story then fantasy, because I feel guility for creating ANOTHER fantasy pirate story :(
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deejaybunny12
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Posted on:
Dez 2, 2007 - 09 34

Oh, and I forgot to mention, this is mostly what the character is thinking is happening, more like an anagram of what's really happening. They're all crazy, so this is what they see.

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TraXyGlowing Halo
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Posted on:
Dez 3, 2007 - 15 48

Sounds pretty religious, but I suppose it's all what you chose to do with the ingredients. :)

Perhaps the difference is whether the point of the novel is about religion and faith or if you are just using mythological beings to tell a fictional story where you're meant to be entertained, and not to start thinking about what you believe in... if you know what I mean? For instance, "Good Omens" by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett is about the Antichrist, the Four Horsemen, demons and angels and what have you, but it would be slightly misleading to group it in with religious literature, as it's definitely more of a fantasy comedy that just happens to play on religion.

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Aux-ArcsGlowing Halo

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Posted on:
Dez 14, 2007 - 15 48

Why can't it be both? CS Lewis The Chronicles of Narnia is both. His 'The Screwtape Letters' is both as well. Having a novel involving religious items or a religious plot line doesn't preclude fantasy. There are many religious fantasy novels out there. Yet ANOTHER fantasy pirate story as you call it isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's up to you as the writer to find a new and interesting way of presenting the 'same ole' ' thing.

Pencil Eater

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Posted on:
Feb 19, 2008 - 20 56

If it's set in a world that doesn't have a specific Religion or Religions mentioned in it, it's fantasy. If there are Real World Religions (EG: Judaism, Islam, any form of Christianity, Hinduism, Budhism, Sikhism, Etc.), it is then religious fiction. But you can blur the line. For example, my novel series has 80-90% of the characters worshipping to some extent this Creator Deity named Raya. Essentially he is the equivalent of the Abrahamic God (sometimes he's even referred to as God in the text.) But this world is not Earth, so many Earth-made Concepts of God don't apply (e.g. there are other gods that exist in the same sphere as God that are mutually neutral and sometimes friendly towards God. Satan as a fallen Angel doesn't exist, instead the direct Antagonist of God and his Wife, a star much like our Sun named Shams, is a planet-destroying tree that creates monsters and natural disasters and pestilence, etc. God And Shams have 4 kids that are not Creators, but help to rule over the world and have divine powers that they use to help maintain balance in the universe and fight the silly evil tree.) There are equivalents of many religious characters (Jesus, but his name is Suhayl, Mary, Muhammad, Ali, several apostles and angels as well as famous Nagas and Garudas and such.) and there are sects of Raya-worship that come close to Judaism, several kinds of Christianity and Islam and other religions. But I'm not just replacing names: The people face some issues that are different than ones on Earth (like being possessed by a Djinni or infected by a zombie) and those issues that are important to Earthly religions (resisting or inciting or absorbing converters or the converted, doubt, fellowship, idolatry, relations with non-believers or other religions, equality among gender, age and class, war/murder, etc.)

Thus, as you can see, you can be both Fantasy and religious in the same novel. Also, apparently there are some Christian novels about Pirates...so, it's a-ok to go either way if you don't wanna do both.

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