Sympathetic portrayal of devout, rule-abiding characters
I'm having trouble portraying religious, devout characters as protagonists or viewpoint characters. When I try, I get the sense that the reader - not sharing the characters' beliefs - will have trouble accepting the characters' non-rational beliefs and obligations. More crucially, even if he accepts that, "yes, OK, the character believes in this stuff," I think a reader would have trouble ascribing importance to those beliefs in the way that the character himself would.
To put this as bluntly as possible, I want to write about characters who are firmly committed to obeying a set of rules. They don't need to like all the rules. They don't have to find reasons the rules are worthwhile. They certainly don't need or attempt to convince the readers of anything - and probably share their opinion that some of the rules are pointless, or even horrible. But they follow the rules, or try to; they see the rules as being axiomatically important; upholding the rules is a value in and of itself - not just a value among many, but one of the very highest.
I find that this type of character naturally clashes with the reader's expectations of what a character should be doing. And while there are plenty of fictional characters who act in ways most readers would find unwise or outright abhorrent, a good author usually manages to get across the viewpoint, personality, and motivation that explain why the character acts this way - essentially, what is important enough to him to elicit so radical and unusual a reaction.
I haven't seen this done with religiously observant characters. And I don't know how to do it without sounding as though I'm preaching.
Some examples I'd have difficulty with:
- A person who gives up on the chance for a romantic relationship with somebody whose religion is different than his own.
- An Orthodox Jew who can't join his friends for meals because their food isn't kosher.
- A fantasy story focusing on a religious ceremony which is purely ceremonial, and yet is also truly, genuinely important to the character.
I feel as if in all these cases, the reader's own values and beliefs will keep him from feeling invested in the things which are important to the character. (I may be wrong on this! But that's my instinctive response.) If the readers come out feeling the protagonist should get over his beliefs, and focus on "the important things," then I haven't immersed them in the character and what's important to him.
Contrast with viewers wanting to see Rachel and Ross together even if they don't particularly like Rachel and/or Ross, or accepting Dexter's need to murder despite the fact that it's an irrational, arbitrary urge. Usually, when something is important to a character, we can get readers to accept that. We may criticize the character for his priorities and choices, but we'll still care about what's important to him. For some reason, I feel that this doesn't work with a religious character - that the (arguably) arbitrary and immutable nature of his beliefs makes them difficult to accept as significant or worth attention.
How, then, can I portray such a character sympathetically? Examples and examinations of such portrayals are very welcome.
HEAVILY EDITED 7/3/11 for improved focus.
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For an excellent example of a sympathetic and devout character, I'd recommend The Book Of The Long Sun by Gene Wolfe
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"I'm having trouble portraying religious, devout characters as protagonists or viewpoint characters. When I try, I get the sense that the reader - not sharing the characters' beliefs - will have trouble accepting the characters' non-rational beliefs and obligations."
Well there's your problem right there. If you think of the character's beliefs as "non-rational", there's no way you'll be able to paint him believably. I often hear atheists say that religious people believe things blindly on "faith" with no evidence, or despite the evidence, and that religious people reject the very idea of reason. This is nonsense. I have never, ever heard a Jew or Christian or Muslim says anything remotely like this. Our beliefs are based on historical and scientific evidence, reason, and logic. You may not find our arguments convincing. I'm not going to get into cataloging or debating the evidence here -- the point is to discuss writing believable characters and not converting you to my beliefs or you converting me to yours. But believers believe based on evidence. I take it for granted that even for beliefs that I consider absolutely crazy, if I asked the person why they believe this, they would give some rational-sounding reason. Maybe it's, "But the psychic knew all about my dead grandfather -- how could he know that?", the sort of evidence that I would poke a million holes in. But to the believer, he was right there and heard it with his own ears. It's totally rational and convincing.
If you are trying to write about someone whose beliefs you disagree with, whether those beliefs are religious, political, social, whatever, if you're going to make the character believable, you have to get inside that person's head and understand WHY he believes this way. "He believes this because he's irrational and just blindly follows whatever he's told" is not going to cut it. Your character will be a caricature.
I'll use Christianity as the example because as a Christian, I think I understand Christians pretty well. :-) You mention following a bunch of rules. A sincere Christian does not see following God's laws as a burden and obligation. We believe that we were created by God. As our creator, God knows more about us than we know about ourselves. Therefore it makes sense that his rules are smarter than any rules we would make up ourselves. When I buy a new electronic gadget, I read the instruction manual because I take it for granted that the people who built the thing know how to use it properly. If they say to install the ink cartridges with the arrow pointing up, I don't say, "Who are you to tell me how to install ink cartridges in MY printer! I think it makes more sense to put them in with the arrow pointing down. You're probably telling me not to do that just because you want to take away my fun." No, I assume that the manufacturer has a reason for any instructions they give and that I will get the best use out of gadget by following those instructions.
Etc. For anything religious people do that you find irrational, the religious person probably has a good reason for it. Or at least, a reason that sounds good to him and to all the millions of other people who share his beliefs. To write the character, find out what that reason is. You don't have to find it convincing, but you have to find it comprehensible.
Part 2
As John Smithers said in the comment, to make an interesting story you have to have conflict. I agree that an atheist converting to Christianity or a Christian converting to atheism can make a good story. But that's not the only possibility. You could also have someone struggling with his own beliefs.
For example, you mentioned a person giving up a romantic relationship because they don't want to marry outside their faith. There's a very obvious conflict there. On the one hand they have a strong emotional attachment to this person. On the other hand, their religion has a rule against marrying outside the faith. Perhaps the person sees the logic in this rule, and then it is a struggle between emotion and reason. Or perhaps they don't see any logic to it, and so they struggle to understand why there should be such a rule and why they should obey it. I've known Christians who have had this very struggle.
Or you could have conflict between people of two different religions, where each says why they believe what they do and they argue back and forth. I have a hard time seeing how you could do that without the book either being a tract to convert people to one religion or the other, or ending with nothing resolved, just people debating and then ending up saying, "So I guess we disagree." But I'm sure a creative person could come up with a good story.
More interesting, I think, would be if religious differences where just a background in the story. Like it's basically a story about soldiers in World War 2 but along the way there are some discussions of religion.
But I don't know where you're trying to go so, whatever.
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Interesting predicament, I agree with the answer above that you might face difficulties in realising a justifiably, strict religious character if you don't identify with the religion yourself at all. It will no doubt affect your writing if you yourself find the beliefs the character holds with such esteem as "arbitrary and immutable".
Understanding what, in the world around us, drives people to hope/believe that there is something more than this is key. Immerse the reader with the optimism and promise of divinity and describe any deviation from this in the harshest light possible, but make the internal conflict clear as to not completely alienate the reader. Initially most non-religious readers will find your character hard to identify with but bring his humanity and flaws into contact with his pursuit of divinity; most readers will then, hopefully, begin to understand and identify with what motivates your characters choices.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/1919. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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Show, don't tell.
If the religion is that important to the character, then it will be apparent in almost every aspect of the person's life.
Physically:
- Clothing: men and women (and don't forget the Mormon "garment")
- Hat/turban/skullcap/scarf/veil
- Hair: length (that is, when is it allowed to be cut), style, hidden under a wig, hidden under veil
- Face: for men, beards/no beards; for women: how much can be shown
Food taboos:
- Various animals are or are not allowed
- Mixing meat and dairy (I know one Jewish woman who couldn't be bothered to figure out meat vs. dairy so she always ate vegetarian for lunch at work)
Behavior:
- Resting on the sabbath (Orthodox Jews can take this to staggering lengths. "Not operating machinery" can be parsed to "turning a doorknob is okay, turning a deadbolt is not.")
- Attending services
- Some people attend services daily, not just weekly
- Crossing oneself when passing a church
- Tithing
- How does the person swear?
- How does the person speak? (I've known fundamentalists who, without exaggeration, manage to work the name of Jesus into every third sentence.)
House décor:
- Pictures of saints/popes/Jesus/Mary etc. on the walls
- Crucifix/Mezzuzah/Buddha
...You get the idea. Once you've established that this is A Religious Person, and if you write about the varying rituals from a kind perspective rather than a mocking one, your reader will grasp the importance of the religion to the character, and will understand why s/he does whatever it is you're trying to do.
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