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WriteOn!: The stories our people live by. [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-02-06

A society of any kind is bound together by a story or stories. But stories don’t tell themselves. In your world, how are the stories transmitted? And just as important, why are they transmitted? What is the motivation to support or change or challenge them?

Traditional societies, in real life and in fiction, may rely on oral transmission. This in turn may be the duty of people in general, though there is usually a class of storytellers who specialize in the longer and more artistic works. If there is such a class, or several such classes, is it open or closed? Is it restricted by gender? What relationship does it have with power? Is it part of the ruling apparatus, or is it tolerated by it, or persecuted? Are there institutions like a king’s jester, empowered to say uncomfortable things by cloaking them in humor or madness, or taking advantages of festivals or religious events?

Religions are primarily stories as well. How do the stories the priests tell fit in with the reality of political power? Does the priestly class have the duty of educating people, insofar as they have any formal education? Or is this primarily a job for the scholars of secular history and philosophy, as it was in Ancient China? Are there competing education systems, say different for priests and mages? Is there a system or systems of apprenticeship or discipleship?

How is the past used by people? Is it considered a repository of wisdom, or a mirror for the present to examine itself, a favorite old Chinese metaphor? Is it constantly present in quotations and references, or is it a specialist study of the few? If it is not well known, is this because the knowledge is deliberately restricted, or because it is considered of little value or uninteresting?

If the society uses writing, where did it come from? Who invented it? When writing comes into use, who teaches it? Is literacy common? Is it valued? Does it improve the life chances of those who invest time and energy into learning how to read and write? Is it a restricted skill, or may anyone use it? What about peasants? Are they welcome to learn to read and write? What about women? Is literacy among them encouraged, tolerated, or banned?

If the society is primarily literate, are books common, or rare? Has the society found a way to produce cheap written material, such as block or type printing? Is literacy respected or disdained? Are books considered accurate? Do people care what is written about them? Does the government operate a system of censorship or licensing to control the spread of printed matter? If it does, are the criteria moral, or religious, or patriotic, or simply because the government is nervous about certain types of information, such as magical spells? Are those who produce books and sell them licensed or otherwise regulated by the government?

In my “practice” fictional world, that of the Elder Scrolls, literacy across classes is assumed, though it is unclear how it is taught, and it is a respected skill. However, history is a jumble; each of the Ten Civilized Races has a different “authoritative” take on the history of the world and the divine powers active in it, with written sources to back themselves up. It is a world like Ancient Rome, where all the stories are in some sense true, held in an uneasy unity by general toleration of an ill-defined divine pantheon and the antics of a messy crowd of lesser deities.

Challenge: Write a short piece with one of the stock characters, or one of your own, turning historical memory to their own advantage. This could mean quoting a precedent, asserting a principle, following up a clue in the past, justifying something with a historical precedent, or challenging someone else with a contradiction or a riddle drawn from an agreed or disputed history.

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