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Today’s Writing Tip Topic: Politics!

So you’ve decided on what style of government you want. You’ve answered the big questions about how your government is going to run. What’s next?

Now its time to think about your government in the current day (whatever is current for your story). What are the major events happening that your governments needs to deal with or is a part of? Maybe there was a trade embargo from another country that was once an ally. Maybe there is about to be a revolution/civil war. Maybe the price of grain went way up and bread-makers are marching to protest. Maybe there was an epidemic. Maybe a new country was discovered. There’s a lot of potential major events that can influence how a government needs to act. This is part of your current history (check out my post on building history, here), but its vital to know what events the government can react to before building how they react to them.

Before you can build how the government will react, you must build who is reacting. Consider your major players: Presidents or kings, advisers, heirs, high ranking officials, high ranking feudal lords, representatives, whomever is the major forces in your government. Because these are the people who will be reacting, you need to know who they are. You don’t necessarily need to build a full character sheet for each major player, unless you want to and/or they are actually going to be in your story, but you should know a few things about them. Such as, their alignments and goals. Do they seek out power? Are they in it for the honor? Are they all about the will of the people? Are they racist bastards? So on. You should also know where they rank in the government. Can they be overridden by a higher official or are they a feudal lord with near complete control over their territory? You can go in as much depth or as little depth as you want, but you should have some basic idea of who they are.  Having an idea of who they are will make it easier to build the political dynamics that are the basis of any decision a government has to make.

So, how does the government react? This is more than just they sent soldiers over to the western border to quell the bread-makers (poor bread-makers…); That’s just one end result. The important thing here is what were your major players thinking? Did they support crushing the bread-makers? Maybe all the bread-makers were orcs and one of your government officials absolutely hates orcs. Maybe another has interests with the cereal community and while the bread-makers don’t mean much to her, the cost of grain going up is hurting her interests too, so she wants the bread-makers’ protests to succeed. Maybe the cost of grain went up because of the hazardous nature of working with grain (grain entrapment is sadly a thing), and one representative wants to see workers be paid well for the hazardous work they are doing.

These varying opinions on the bread-maker’s plight will change how the government reacts. This is also why its important to know the rank of the individual. Perhaps, the orc hater is the heir to the throne and the cereal official is only a Marquis. The heir to the throne’s opinion is likely to be weighed more heavily than that of the Marquis.

So let’s assume then that the soldiers were sent to the western border to quell the bread-makers, because the the crown prince hates orcs. Now its time to decide on results. Let’s assume that the bread-makers were quelled and the grain prices have remained the same. This creates its own political environment. First: the price of bread has likely gone up which may make it harder for the general population, which in terms creates resentment and potentially the groundwork for revolution. Second: our political figures are affected. The cereal Marquis has to consider how to deal with the fact that the price of grain may have wrecked havoc on her interest in the cereal community. This can have some serious effects on how she proceeds in the future. Maybe she pulls out of the cereal industry or maybe she funds the revolution, provided that the next ruler drops the price of grains. Maybe, she finds another way to force the grain price to drop, which is less than ethical (not that funding a revolution so you can profit is all that ethical….).

Every result of any action the government takes or avoids taking changes the political picture.

As always, remember, in writing there’s no such thing as absolute advise. Enjoy your story and have fun writing!