No matter how fantastical or how realistic, every fictional world has its own set of rules characters must follow, both written and unwritten. These include social and class expectations, government-imposed laws, and, in some genres, laws of magic or even of physics.
One of my favorite world-building exercises, which came out of a playwriting class I took in college, is to start fleshing out those rules by creating a “Hammurabi’s Code” for your fictional world.
What Is Hammurabi’s Code?
Hammurabi was the king of Babylon from roughly 1790 to 1750 BCE, and his code is a set of laws that governed his society. It is one of the oldest surviving law codes, and let me tell you: it is thorough. There are 282 laws listed, along with the consequence for breaking each, and it covers everything: wrongful accusations, theft and burglary, violence, how to handle wives who won’t cooperate, how much to pay veterinarians, and so much more. As you might imagine, given the time period, some of the punishments are pretty brutal, and others look like they might’ve come out of a Monty Python sketch. You can read the whole code if you’re interested, of course, but here are a few samples (headings my own):
Accusations of Crime
2. If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser.
3. If any one bring an accusation of any crime before the elders, and does not prove what he has charged, he shall, if it be a capital offense charged, be put to death.
Stolen Property: A Series
9. If any one lose an article, and find it in the possession of another: if the person in whose possession the thing is found say "A merchant sold it to me, I paid for it before witnesses," and if the owner of the thing say, "I will bring witnesses who know my property," then shall the purchaser bring the merchant who sold it to him, and the witnesses before whom he bought it, and the owner shall bring witnesses who can identify his property. The judge shall examine their testimony--both of the witnesses before whom the price was paid, and of the witnesses who identify the lost article on oath. The merchant is then proved to be a thief and shall be put to death. The owner of the lost article receives his property, and he who bought it receives the money he paid from the estate of the merchant.
10. If the purchaser does not bring the merchant and the witnesses before whom he bought the article, but its owner bring witnesses who identify it, then the buyer is the thief and shall be put to death, and the owner receives the lost article.
11. If the owner do not bring witnesses to identify the lost article, he is an evil-doer, he has traduced, and shall be put to death.
12. If the witnesses be not at hand, then shall the judge set a limit, at the expiration of six months. If his witnesses have not appeared within the six months, he is an evil-doer, and shall bear the fine of the pending case.
Violence: A Selection
195. If a son strike his father, his hands shall be hewn off.
196. If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.
197. If he break another man's bone, his bone shall be broken.
200. If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out.
202. If any one strike the body of a man higher in rank than he, he shall receive sixty blows with an ox-whip in public.
206. If during a quarrel one man strike another and wound him, then he shall swear, "I did not injure him wittingly," and pay the physicians.
Veterinary Medicine
224. If a veterinary surgeon perform a serious operation on an ass or an ox, and cure it, the owner shall pay the surgeon one-sixth of a shekel as a fee.
225. If he perform a serious operation on an ass or ox, and kill it, he shall pay the owner one-fourth of its value.
Creating Your Own “Hammurabi’s Code”
The world of your story may look very different from Ancient Babylon — or not — but whatever it looks like, you can bet it has written and unwritten rules that your characters have to play by (or choose to break). If you’re writing a suburban fiction, those may include HOA rules, city ordinances, and countless unspoken social guidelines. If you’re writing high fantasy, then your magic system will have its own set of rules, practices, and limitations. In science fiction, you may be reimagining the laws of physics. A wild west setting may have a code of honor rather than explicit laws, while the legal code in a futuristic dystopia is likely to be at least as comprehensive as Hammurabi’s.
See where I’m going here? While your “code” itself isn’t likely to make its way into your manuscript, the rules of your fictional world — whatever they may look like — will guide the ways your characters behave and the choices they make. They’ll also reveal a lot about how society operates and thinks, in general. (For example, see Hammurabi’s rule 2, which indicates their grasp on forensics wasn’t exactly up to 21st century standards.)
So sit down with a blank Word Document or a fresh notebook page, and start crafting the rules of your world. You can split your document into categories like “Town Ordinances,” “Social Expectations,” “Playground Rules,” “Magic Guidelines” and/or anything else that’s relevant to your world. Start with the rules you already know about, and then keep writing. You’ll be surprised by how much you discover about your world.
Have you written your “Hammurabi’s Code” yet? I’d love to see it! Share your favorite rules in the comments below, or drop me a note to share what you’re working on!