jta_8888

What law? you may ask.

Well, my guess is as good as yours!

Perhaps about, oh, three to four months ago, as I was driving to the store, I was hit with a story idea (gasp!).

Filled with part The Village, part I, Robot, my brain filled with the thought of a young girl, 13-16, who (as far as I've decided yet) was taken in by nuns of one Kesswall Abbey.

To make a long story, well, longer, (or to get to the Village/Robot bits) I was thinking that she was sent to a city that was governed by a set of rules, or The Laws. An image of a towering, well, tower came to mind, and on it were the laws set forth by the cities founders.

Of course, months later, I'm still confused as how to go about deciding what these laws are.

I've narrowed - at least two out of three - them down to two basic (basic, basic, basic!) versions:

1. Don't kill
2. Pray

Yes, quite the laws! Can't really write those into my story, so I was wondering if anyone had advice as how to create laws, or, just advice on how to word said #1 and #2 so they sound...political.

o_O?

Verago

1. Thou shall not dirty thy hands with the blood of your fellow man; nor shall ye come upon any of your fellow men with any malicious intention.

2. Thou shall offer daily worshippings to your God.

jta_8888

Ahh, thanks =D

Verago

Need me to old-ify or politic-ify any more text, let me know. I love the way people used to talk.

jta_8888

I'll be sure to do that!

Drzava

Seems strange to use thou and your in the same sentence...

a good guide to archaic English: http://home.unilang.org/main/wiki2/i...rchaic_English

jta_8888

The laws don't really - I actually want to stray from it if I can - have to be written in Old English type words.

But should I choose to use the language, thanks for the link!

Lord Raiden

Hmm, I've seen some books similar to this which might make this even better or at least give you some ideas for adding to this. If you're going to have these laws, make it a very Orwellian type state. 1984 is a good one to read to get your feet wet in that area. Another, and I'll be darned if I can remember the name, involves a guy who stumbles onto a humanoid population, I believe they're either on future earth or another planet, not really sure. Anyways, everyone is genetically manipulated from birth into a teired social structure and controled with a special drug that's handed out daily. The person's intelligence is determined by how much or little oxygen they're given as they're growing and the set of genes they're given at this huge genetic farm where they grow all these humans. (if anyone can think of the name of the book, that'd be helpful, cause my mind is drawing a blank)

Those are good ones to read to get an example of some of what I'm talking about. You don't have to go that route, but that'd be at least one route you could research. Brazil and Equalibrium are two good movies to watch to get a sence of that same type of society as well. The reason I'm mentioning this is when you have something like this with a whole huge list of laws drawn on a tower, this kind of overbearing society plots usually work really well. Then once you have that, expand on it and make it uniquely yours.

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mammamaia

political, huh?... ok:

1.
No citizen shall willfully and with malice aforethought unfairly truncate the average life-expectancy of a fellow citizen or undocumented immigrant.

2.
All citizens will pay appropriate reverence in an acceptably obeisant manner to all deities officially sanctioned by their duly elected/appointed government legislative bodies.

...political enough forya???

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