FAITH IN FANTASY

By Kasie Whitener

The very best fantasy novels all have a faith structure.

The faith structure is the myths, legends, and religions of the world being created. When an author works out those things, he or she has developed a foundation for social morality and for characters’ aspirations.       

•  A young girl may discover she has talent for magic but knowing there’s a possibility that she does comes from stories she’s been told: myths.
• A knight might wish for glory in battle but believing he can achieve it comes from knowing others have done so: legends.
• A character might ask a higher power to intervene, but the habit of doing so and the faith that the higher power will respond comes from training: religion.

Authors who work out the faith structure for their fantasy novels are imagining the world before their characters arrived and after their characters have gone. How was that world made? How will that world persist?

When I started reading a new vampire series recently and within 50 pages had not seen any evidence that this author had worked up the faith structure, I put the book down. While “vampires” and “faith” might seem mutually exclusive (the church has always campaigned against the evils of gothic horror), all conscious beings that persist must have a moral code and that code is established by a faith structure.

In Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Dart, we are introduced to a faith structure born of a lead prophet and his companions who settled this world, each of whom had a particular realm of humanity. Tribes of humans are associated with a particular companion and their professions, families, and customs are all part of that heritage. Carey’s faith structure is so complete, I find myself wanting to identify with one of the tribes. This is not unlike Harry Potter’s Hogwarts School of Witchcraft sorting people into houses.

Many fantasy novels employ Ghost, Fae, Goblin, Trolls, Elf, or Wolf lineages and rely upon the already-established rules that govern these beings. For example Fair Folk, Fae, or Faeries cannot lie but they can deceive.

We know the lineage or heritage of a character will determine behavior and that competing lineages set up drama for a novel. But establishing a new faith structure takes time and creates a tremendous amount of exposition which must be carefully incorporated into the story. That’s why the best novels do it: because it takes time and craft and purpose.

When I decided to build a faith structure into my vampire novel, I researched the existing mythology: how vampires came into existence, what they worshipped, how they reconciled things like death and birth. I wanted something new, but something that paid homage to the craft of vampire storytelling, something that showed I’d done my due diligence.

A faith structure makes some things sacred and other things forbidden. It creates rules that govern individuals and communities. Without it, a vampire novel is just a new chapter of fiction in someone else’s fantasy.