Inventing rites and rituals — some lists from the observation journal

I’m planning a post on how rites and rituals show up in short stories, and wanted to refer back to this observation journal page. So I’m posting it earlier than it would otherwise have appeared! (Edit: the post on rituals and short story structure is now up.)

I was thinking about the way rites and rituals — as human an urge as covering surfaces with patterns — can shape a story or be the base for building a world.

I wanted to play with these ideas and effects without using the most obvious existing rituals, or ones I didn’t fully understand. So I made a little ritual-generator out of two (non-comprehensive!) lists: purpose and subject. You can expand the lists with your own interests and knowledge.

Purpose of rite/ritual/invocation/ceremony/sacrament/etc

evoke	encircle	hide	confer	sever	transform
invoke	farewell	recognise	transfer	separate	renew
summon	welcome	acknowledge	steady	remove	improve
avert	remember	identify	support	transition	reform
banish	remind	pledge	seek	prevent	return
shame	mark	sacrifice	request	bar	reset
remove	own	gift	petition	acknowledge	bless
honour	possess	invest	accompany	protect	heal
secure	join	partake	harmonise	ease	speed
protect	disguise	approach	beautify	liminal	ease

Subject

life	crops	journey	freedom	future	holy
death	plants	partnership	seasons	past	unholy
ages	vehicles	marriage	days	present	phenomena
roles	houses	relationships	tides	meteorology	legend
human	tools	adoption	times	disaster	deities
animal	utensils	disowning	celebrations	hopes	health
bird	endeavour	roles	events	aspirations	processes
fish	jobs	teaching	memorials	departed	industrial
weather	calling	ruling	history	children	war
land	commission	serving	government	elders	domestic
business	contract	vow	promise	physical	abstract

The writing/illustration exercise

• Take one or two items at random from each list and combine them (e.g. gift/legend or renew/own/animal).
• Then expand them into a rite or ritual, getting more specific (e.g. a generational ritual to pass ownership of a community’s founding legend or an annual rite to renew ownership/stewardship of draught-animals).
  (Note: Keep an eye on where these brush against or trample on rites and rituals actually in use, and on places you might want to push against expectations, use discretion, avoid stereotypes or come down hard on (or redeem) a ceremony you’ve suffered through.)
• If you know the world in which this story will happen, you can draw details and aesthetics for the ritual from it — weaving it into the substance of the world. Or you can start with the ritual and add details and aesthetics from things you like or notice around you (art deco/modernist!), and discover more about the place and people that way.
• Then, if you’re using this to build a world or story, ask what could go wrong (or more right than was anticipated!), and follow the implications. (Control, enforceability, cost and benefit are some other interesting if cynical questions to ask — or consider e.g. the evolution and varied iterations of the ritual, and what it means to different people.)
• Make a quick sketch (written or drawn) of a scene.
• Bonus round: Note where the story or world started to grow, or where it didn’t. Repeat the process, and see if there’s a pattern, or if there are questions that helped grow it. Is there a echo among the ideas that resonate for you? Are there more entries you’d add to the lists?

More to come when I post about rituals and story structure. (Edit: it is now up)