National Novel Writing Month - Atheism?

[Jennifurret]

Hey everyone. You may or may not have heard of National Novel Writing Month (http://www.nanowrimo.org/). It's a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. It's a lot of fun if you like writing; it teaches you to be creative, write now and edit later, and to manage your time well. Anyway, I've been doing it for the past four years, but I haven't been able to win yet. Hopefully the 5th time is a charm, so I want to work with an idea I'm really passionate about...so I chose atheism.

Problem is, I don't have a plot. That's where you come in!

If you ever wished to have more fiction novels that deal with atheism (or related topics), throw out any plot ideas you have. I'm open to any suggestions! Even tips for what NOT to do (how not to stereotype atheists/theist, etc) would be appreciated. So...brainstorm here, and maybe you'll actually find the book by me some day!

And just as an aside...I generally like to write things that would be considered futuristic/speculative fiction, with some sci-fi/fantasy in it. I guess I would be aiming to create something along the lines of the Golden Compass, but not necessarily as fantasy like. Any help would be greatly appreciated =)

Thanks!

PS: Hemant, if you need filler and want to post this, that would be great ^_^;

[Jasen777]

Well, there's the classic "resistance force brings down future religiously fascist government" story.

[happycynic]

I've actually been writing a novel along atheist lines for a bout a year and a half, off and on. It's nowhere near being finished, although i'm pretty sure it fits the 50K word limit. My plotline has to do with two feuding theocracies, one sorta modeled after the romans and the other modeled after european rennaissance or middle ages. The main character was born in one, kidnapped and raised in the other to save his soul, and ends up being an espionage agent for the Patriarchy (big central church) of the euro-theocracy. It's set in a fantasy world, in that it has new cultures and geography and so on, but i'm also trying to keep it realistic (i.e. the main character is not indestructible, just smart and knows when to get the hell out of dodge, and there isn't magic or anything).

Anyhow, if you want to use the basic model of feuding religions and one confused individual caught between them, who ends up realizing atheism, that would be fine by me

A little bit of advice: be VERY subtle about the atheist message. Anythign overt will spook the non-atheist reader (whom is probably the target audience for a pro-atheist book, anything else is preaching to the choir or picketers outside the church). I know that's a problem with the earlier chapters of my book.

btw... some shameless self-promotion: would anyone be interested in reading what i've got so far? I'm always looking for feedback, but of course i'm a little wary of showing around to people who don't already know i'm an atheist.

[Jasen777]

I'd like to read it. I'll pm you my email.

[hoverFrog]

I've been pondering this basic plot for a few weeks now.

It's a thousand years in the future when a Christian theocracy rules North America and is at war with the break away states of Canada and the former US. Oil has run out but we still have a lot of technology. Some things have moved on but transport (for example) is largely animal powered. I was going to introduce a class of warrior mercenary imported from the Middle East who are allowed to fight on Sundays. The son of one of these mercs is my main character who is placed in foster care while his father fights in the war. Rather than focus on the fighting I wanted to explore how the boy is educated in the creationist school and how he and his fellows process news stories from the media. I was thinking of having some underground educator willing to explain evolution and the scientific method to the boy but it's still up in the air.

50,000 words eh? In 30 days. Hmm. Less than 2000 words a day with room for a few days off.

[Jennifurret]

Hoverfrog, you should try Nano with your idea. It sounds interesting (though I think I would personally kind of suck writing about wars).

happycynic, I completely agree with being subtle. I was thinking of making the religion in my book more of like a magical society. It would have the same exactly kind of themes, without bringing an actual god into the issue. This may be too Wizard-of-Oz-ish, but I was thinking of there being this big head magical guy everyone in society looks up to for help (aka, analogy for God). Main character finds out early on somehow that he's a fraud, tries to tell people, gets casted out as a criminal/heretic. Wizard says its for the good of society that they think they have hope in solving their problems...aka, he'd be misguided good and not just pure evil. His misguided good could eventually lead to an end-of-days sort of war, which the people gladly accept because they honestly believe it is best for them, and the MC somehow has to stop him. ...What happens after that, I have no idea.

Does that seem too cliche? How would our heretical hero actually stop him? Hmm....

[happycynic]

That's something i had to confront in my plot-line as well-how the MC would actually solve this immense problem of entrenched societies that really look forward to ripping each other apart. Basically, i came to the conclusion that he realistically couldn't. Instead, i'm going to have him get a smaller group of people organized, people who live on the fringes of both feuding cultures (i..e. mixed families or the "heretics") and get them out of the middle of it. He doesn't stop them from fighting, but he pretty much helps found a new state/society that's seperate and outside of the feud, one that doesn't have a religious motivation to go off and kill ppl.

[hoverFrog]

Hoverfrog, you should try Nano with your idea. It sounds interesting (though I think I would personally kind of suck writing about wars)

Really? OK then, I'll dedicate the entire month of November to writing my first novel. Eek!

[asheernut]

Jennifurret, It's great to see a fellow nano-er on this site!

I am also planning my novel to be atheism-related. I will be writing about a woman who gets into one of the many god-men cult in India after having a series of setbacks in her life. Although the book is not about an atheist MC, I am going to try and show how these god-men can control and eventually ruin a person's life.

Good luck with your SFF novel! Although I love reading the genre, I have never been able to think up a good enough plot to write one myself!

[skepacabra]

I had an idea for a screenplay that was along the lines of Jasen777's first idea written above. It took place in the near future but with a alternate history that diverged from ours in the 1980s. It involves a very detailed back story and mythology, possibly more than could ever be presented in feature length film where it's sort of similar to the premise of that show Earth: Final Conflict or the miniseries V with 3 alien survivors from a 1947 crash who are messengers of a benevolent alien race and didn't go public until the 1980s. The main character works for their Scientology-like corporation and is kidnapped by a resistance who are frequently linked to terrorism. They convince the main character that the aliens have a hidden agenda and even have a secret weapon capable of destroying the human race. Gradually the main character goes from denial to acceptance only to discover at the very end that there was one piece of information the resistance kept from him because he wasn't ready for it yet, which is that none of it is true, that there never was any aliens at all, and that the real weapon that's capable of destroying the human race was faith. It incorporates the 40 years between Jesus' alleged ministry and the writing of the Gospel accounts. It had a kind of Day The Earth Stood Still belief functioning as the Judgment Day idea.

I also have a number of ideas in other genres. For instance a comedy about a church pastor who losses his faith but is forced to still do his job until a replacement is found. It feels very Robin Williams to me, where at first he starts goofing around and turns the church into a circus causing the stodgy church authorities to get angry but gradually he finds a much better way to reach people spiritually, and ultimately becomes a kind of Humanist leader. I definitely have this image of a tearing pages out of the bible scene ala Dead Poets Society.

[Jasen777]

I'm planning a subtle pro-atheist alternate history story myself. In fact, there are no atheists and atheism will never be mentioned. There will however be Marcionites. (My favorite Christian heresy).