What do you think of when the idea of Hell starts getting talked about? Okay, so not many people start up casual conversations around Hell. It gets thrown around more over the phone as a place where telemarketers are told to go…or maybe you see it in cartoons, with a bunch of naked people wandering through the flames and devils picking their teeth with pitchforks. Or maybe Hell is that place you go if you don’t attend church and put 10% in the offering plate when it comes around (though only lip-syncing the hymns can be just as bad).
To start with, what are words that pop up in your head when you think “Hell”?
A few come to mind for me…Dark. Fire. Pain. Isolation. Agony for all eternity. A generally un-fun place to experience.
Hell, in other words, is the stick to the carrot of Heaven. It implies a moral code and structure to the universe that says, “If you do this, you are rewarded. If you do this, you are punished.” If a story has any sort of Hell/Heaven distinctions, then this involves several further concepts:
1. It implies a supernatural dimension to life.
2. It implies an afterlife.
3. It implies some system that enforces who goes where.
However you fashion the details of this system is up to you. But have you wondered, when creating a world, what happens to the people when they die? Is there anything waiting for them afterwards, and should they be concerned about what it is so there aren’t any nasty surprises?
This is all based on the traditional form of Hell. Most people are familiar with Hell in this way, and so we tend to gloss over it whenever we come across it. How, then, can you shake up this idea and make it your own so people might take a second look at your story?
What if…
Hell were a physical location where souls went to after death?
Hell and Heaven switched characteristics and inhabitants for some reason?
To promote efficiency, could there be a business merger between the two?
What other tweaks and questions would you put forward to shape a fresh twist for your story?
I see that smile.