Sympathetic portrayal of devout, rule-abiding characters

Question

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.

Answer 1

While you might personally have issues with the three items you listed, calling religious belief arguably arbitrary and irrational and letting that viewpoint seep into your writing is going to make your task very difficult. You yourself need to learn to sympathize with a religious viewpoint first. You don't need to accept it, but you need to believe that someone can be fully using their mental, emotional, physical, and other capacities and still believe in God/gods/reincarnation/the spirit world/what have you. If you can't get yourself past this issue, you should reconsider the character.

I'll walk through the three situations that you listed as difficult and describe how I write the character:

A person who gives up on the chance for a romantic relationship with somebody whose religion is different than his own.

First of all, don't make this an easy, obvious choice. You could write this character many ways. Take a conservative Christian character, perhaps, who winds up in a romantic relationship with a committed agnostic who, while not opposed to her beliefs, is confident that he will never share them. The Christian might remember days in her self-assured youth where she could never imagine herself dating (or, to be very conservative, courting) anyone but someone who shared her views on God and Christ. Then she might remember being totally bowled over by the experience of this guy - all the amazing things about him. Make the decision agony. At the same time, you have to make God and her belief in him compelling. Show what she loves about her faith - the fact, perhaps, that she can rest in God working all circumstances for good in her life and his unconditional acceptance of her. If you were to write such a conservative Christian character, you would need to find out what Christians love about their God, or at least their church. You can certainly put in pressure from a legalistic family or church, but while that's realistic it's far less likely to be sympathetic than a young woman who cannot imagine going against what she believes God has told her.

An Orthodox Jew who can't join his friends for meals because their food isn't kosher.

Think about the character Danny in The Chosen. We readers initially see Danny through the unsympathetic viewpoint of Reuven. However as Reuven gets to know Danny, he finds out things that make this character sympathetic - the coldness of Danny's father, the voracious mind Danny has, etc. Reuven even comes to respect Danny's cold, extremely conservative father Reb because of the congregants great love for Reb and the sense that Danny's cold father really loves his son. Chaim Potok, the author, does an excellent job of bringing us inside motivations and showing the cost of following one's beliefs.

So in the case of an Orthodox Jew keeping kosher, make kosher matter. Associate it with good memories of family, tradition, and G-d (to use the Jewish form of respect). Also explain the friendship and make it matter, perhaps more to the Orthodox Jew than to his friends who won't eat kosher for a night to allow him to join in. You can even make this character noble, someone who is true to his values and deserves respect. Make him upright in all areas of his life.

A fantasy story focusing on a religious ceremony which is purely ceremonial, and yet is also truly, genuinely important to the character.

I'm not sure what a purely ceremonial ceremony is as opposed to a regular religious ceremony. Still, let's take an example of Passover. Passover represents G-d's rescue of the children of Israel from Egypt long, long ago. Dig into what it means to the Jewish people and you should be able to make it matter to your readers, as long as you can see why it would matter to a character. Or what about the example of Christian baptism of an adult convert to the faith? Dunking in water or being sprinkled by it doesn't really seem like much on the surface. You have to understand what's behind baptism - the symbolism of dying to self and doing wrong and coming up into new life in Christ where one strives to serve God because he is great and worthy of honor and do right to other people because it's what we ought to do. Baptism represents a very serious milepost in the life of Christians and understanding it will help you significantly.

TL;DR - first you have to be sympathetic with the characters and see both the value of their faith to them and the ways that it motivates them in the world, then you can write them in a sympathetic way.

Example books to read:

• Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
• The Chosen by Chaim Potok
• The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
• Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton
• Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor

Answer 2

I'll admit outright that it's late and so I won't read all of the rigorous Q&A presented here. However, I would like to present you with a few examples, off the top of my head, that may be of use to you in your quest:

1. First thing that pops to mind is "The Slave". I'll assume you've read it, since if you hadn't it is an inconceivable wrong you must right at once. The main character faces the exact same dilemmas you are talking about, and the book is beautifully written and extremely moving (sobs sobs) - even a sarcastic feminist heretic such as I couldn't force her own set of beliefs on the character, and wouldn't expect him to act any other way, tragic as it was.

2. Mad Men is a good example of characters having different sets of beliefs and ideas about life than our own, and still being totally believable in their actions - even if those are sometimes quite terrible by our standards.

3. Also, URGH! I've looked for half an hour for another very specific story and I'm trying to remember it's name, or the author, or where I came across it. But it was also by one of those Jewish-Polish authors, so it's a good thing to brush up on some of those. These dilemmas are their bread and butter.

4. Something I'll bet you hadn't come across. The anime series Kino's Journey. A very good series, really. Kino travels between fictional cities, and each city has a strange culture or tradition of it's own. Explaining will ruin it. Go find a DVD somewhere.

5. Murakami has plenty of characters that are terribly obsessed with cleanliness, order and cooking, to the point of those becoming rituals. Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, maybe. (I must reluctantly admit I hadn't finished that book. boo-hoo on me).

6. Look at "In the Penal Colony". Though that might be taking it a notch too far.

As a rule, though, a character undergoing a process is more interesting than a character staying in the same spot. Someone who decides not to have a complicated romantic relationship isn't as interesting as someone who has it and regrets it. But I guess if it's not really the main or only focus in the story, it won't be a problem. The ceremony example is actually quite interesting, btw. I'd read that story.

Answer 3

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.

Answer 4

I don't know what specific issues you ran into; nevertheless, general advice I can give you is: imagine you're writing a person with foreign customs.

You have to state the beliefs (implicitly or explicitly, but they have to be noticeable), and possibly their reason or origin.

• Portraying the characters as feeling uncomfortable around situations that run against their beliefs helps stating them.
• Having someone get curious as to the character's behavior will give it a chance to state their reasons, and their attitude while talking or rejecting the activities that go against whatever they believe in will give them depth.

A quick example:

Nelaf was led to the tent used as dining room. So far her travel was faring well, even though it was too early to say so. She was glad she'd been taken in by this fine caravan.

She felt an odd smell, too much like charred flesh. Her stomach revolted as she tried to detect the source. Whoever had sustained such a harsh burn had to receive healing urgently.

"Wait!", her escort called, but the urge to stop the suffering was to great. She ran into the kitchen, following the smell, and what she saw made her burst to tears: rows upon rows of animals were being roasted.

"How could you?", she screamed. She was surrounded by monsters. Who could kill a brother and eat it? Nature provided food... why would anyone commit such cruelty? It was inhuman.

The wanton massacre committed by these men made them unholy: who could kill their mother and live with it? The laughter and talk from the dining hall only made everything worse. She had to get away from these people.

It is very hasty, but the basic theme is there: you can portray it as heavily as needed. And work on it, because it might sound exaggerated until you polish it.

Answer 5

Good question. I would also tie the religious / spiritual side in with the social aspect, creating a wider "common ground" for people to relate to who do not necessarily relate to the belief system. As a matter of fact, "going against ones' religious beliefs" is generally not very far from "going against the social system one was raised in", and stressing the social aspects may make it easier for a wider range of readers to deal with. Of course people from the same background will relate to the character that much more (Orthodox Jews as per your example). It's probably unavoidable. But if you do a good job of portraying the protagonist's wants, conflicts and emotions - and if you are careful to ensure that the character is not defined ONLY by his / her religious beliefs, but by a wide range of traits which will create understanding and empathy - there should be no problem in getting the message across loud and clear.

Would love to read some of your stuff, incidentally.

Answer 6

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.

Answer 7

Try an experiment: take one aspect of that person's faith and go into ridiculous emotional detail. Maybe have flashbacks. Maybe take everything slowly. Obsess over that aspect until it is itself a reflection of the character. It's possible that once you've established that one small facet, everything else can be seen through that perspective even if you don't go into too much detail, and the reader will have more respect for the character.

Although probably a bit more juvenile than you're aiming for (and in sequential art form as opposed to written text), your description immediately brings to mind for me "Hereville" by Barry Deutsch (can be read here: http://www.hereville.com/webcomic/ ). At one point there's an interlude where everything stops for Shabbat, including the plot itself. It' rather well-done.

Answer 8

"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.

Answer 9

For an excellent example of a sympathetic and devout character, I'd recommend The Book Of The Long Sun by Gene Wolfe

Answer 10

My opinion is that if you want to express the view point of a "eccentric" character, and not just present it, the only way to achieve it is to think in a "subjective" way. It's hard to express a subjective element in a objective light IMO, so just ignore your feelings and find that sweet spot between truth and lies that makes it stick but not stink. Then when writing, pretend that's absolute truth. You don't have to show miracles in a story to somehow make some imaginary gods semi-believable in a work of fiction. If you can't, then I'd have to guess the beliefs of your character are too shallow, or your setting and background for your character needs more work.

The cases I faced were not (directly) religious characters, so take it with a grain of salt, but it may still work for you. My advice though is that when in doubt on how to write, the solution is usually: write until you get it right. You can only theorycraft these things so much… and even then it's only useful if you can make the theory work.