Tag Archives: fantasy writing

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World building – governance

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When I started getting into the nuts and bolts of the plot of War of Shadows, I needed there to be a fairly solid government system. It would have been easy to just have a king and some lords, but I decided to go in a little deeper. Perhaps I was thinking about Duke Leto vs. Baron Harkonnen, and how that appealed to me. While reading Dune, I never really understood how the title of Duke related to the title of Baron, so I looked up peerage. I think I learned something there, I don’t remember. What I do know is that I wrote up an entire governance system for one country in my world, which I forgot about. While re-writing chapter 17, I decided I needed to work out something about a title. So, I went back to my notes to see how the ranks compared. At first I skimmed through my notes and though I had copied a Wikipedia article or something, but it also seemed oddly specific. After a few more minutes of reading, I realized that I had actually written up an entire peerage, based off of the British system, for my country and also a bunch of details on how the governance works in the country. It’s set up for political intrigue and back-stabbing. Anyhow, since I thought it was fun, I figured I’d share it, so here it is, as it appears exactly in my notes (Beware, this hasn’t been edited!):

 Concerning the governance of Swarendrin

The kingdom of Swaerendrin is a strong monarchy. The king is both head of state and chief executive. However, the power of the king is somewhat balanced by the noble classes. These are largely hereditary titles, being passed to the eldest son. In instances where there is no son to inherit the title, the king may assign the title at his own discretion. In very many cases the king holds these titles and lands himself, to be assigned to allies. Titles of nobility amongst the Swaerem are as follows:

Duke – This is the proper title of the most senior lords amongst the nobility, though the name of the title is rightly dhaat. However, very few indeed refer to the title directly, instead using the honorific ‘Lord’ in lieu of the title, and is often accepted as the right title. It is the highest rank of nobility behind the king.

Marquis – This is the proper title of a special class of dukes, who hold lands upon contested or border lands. These men are permitted to engage in battle and press men into service without prior consent of the king, as would be required of any other Duke. The correct title of these men is ræn dhaat, strong duke. Again, these men are referred to only by ‘lord’ in virtually all settings.

Earl – This is the proper title of minor land lords. These men are appointed by the king, and also pass the title on, but are in fact the subject of the local major lord. The right name of this title is Eord, but as with the title of duke is rarely used. Often these men are addressed by Lord, and usually described as minor lords or minor nobility.

Count – Non hereditary title bestowed by the king, for governance of large cities. This appointment has no term, and few counts last more than a hand-full of years. Often they are removed in the interest of public contentment.

Master – Non hereditary title bestowed by the duke, for smaller cities, towns and villages. These are given in terms lasting no longer than 5 years. The local lord has authority to name all Masters, except when overruled by the king. Application of the title master is excessively inconsistent and is typically applied to any man with greater authority.

Baron – land owner of noble birth, rightly called Ryen. This title comes only with land, and is subject to the governance and taxes of the Duke or Earl. Men with this title are very often tapped as caretakers of lands normally held by dukes and earls. Those possessing this title will be addressed as ‘Sir’ or ‘Lady’, but never lord. The title is inherited, but unlike other hereditary titles, the baron may choose his heir and is not obligated to gain the approval of the King, Duke, Earl or Marquis. This law has produced a number of baronesses.

Ældorman is a fighting man of either the nobility or merchant classes. This title is bestowed by Dukes and Marquis. These are the considered the trained fighting men, and are given land, though that land cannot be inherited. They are never called by their right title, and only referred to as oathmen or sworn men, these men are correctly addressed as sir or master. This title is not transferred by heredity, and is usually considered outside of the peerage. Like to all others within the peerage, they employ armbands of precious metals to distinguish themselves. While dukes, earls, barons and the like use a single arm-band as a sign of rank, these men tend to wear many, as a sign of fighting prowess.

Kingsman is like to an ældorman, excepting they are named by the king, and may only be of noble birth.

In addition to these titles, the king also appoints a council, called the kings thanes who are responsible for a wide variety of governance tasks. Also, there is the council of common thanes, who are also appointed by the king, at the recommendation of the wealthy men amongst commoners. The widely held belief amongst most is that the council of common thanes (council of thanes) holds the bulk of power in the kingdom. The lords and king permit this belief to continue as a way to make commoners think they have some control over the government, and therefore support it.

These lords do not have formal organization, and band together in adhoc fashion as needed. These affiliations are usually in accordance with the political interests of the time. The non-titled moneyed men of the kingdom, choose members of a body known as the parliament, which consists of men form their own ranks. This body is considered to be the representation of the commoners, and exercises some limited power on their behalf. Dukes and the king often permit this body to carry on as if it had real power. With such a large common population, this is considered an essential component in maintaining a well ordered society. During times of peace, this body is permitted to govern the greater part of the kingdom. However, when the kingdom is under attack or during periods of turmoil, the members of this body often line up with lords sympathetic to their own interests.

Even with the parliament in control of many routine aspects of governance, the office of King requires much more than a single man to handle even the most routine of affairs. To this end, the king has many agents and designees. The chief body among these is the council of theigns. This group consists of one dozen men chosen by the major lords of the mors, and confirmed by the parliament, though the parliamentary confirmation is only a formality. These men are intended to be advisers to the king and assist in decision making processes for the kingdom. The position of king’s theign, while prestigious, and ostensibly powerful, is a term appointment for no more than five years. These men will be responsible for becoming intimately aware of any situation the king may require advice on. They are not permitted to become involved in any topic where individual prejudice might cloud their judgment.

Along side this complex and layered government is an organization known as the sisters of fate. The sisters of fate remain largely outside of actual governance, but they play a key role in blessing all decrees and decisions made by the king, and Dukes. They also magically bind agreements, giving them real weight and the promise of real consequence should both parties fail to uphold the terms of said agreements. The sisters of fate are a far more important organization to the population as a whole, providing healing, spiritual guidance, and binding of marriages, to name a few. While some men do serve this order, they do not practice the magic common amongst the women.

photo credit: Château de Sarzay via photopin (license)

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Writer’s improvement hell – conflict

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Conflict. All by itself, the word isn’t so imposing is it? Much of the time it’s used to describe something extremely real and horribly bad -but it’s somewhere else, not a whole lot to worry about. If we drop it into the writing context though, it suddenly grows to 300ft, sprouts wings and has a thong of flame. This thing will kick your ass. It’s a huge imposing beast that, from one angle, looks like a world dominating demon, on the other, might be a fresh pile of dog poo in your front yard. Either way, there it is – causing problems.

Conflict is what makes a story. You don’t have one without it. Yet, I feel like it’s one of the lesser talked about aspects of writing. I picked up my Fiction First Aid book, which is a pretty reliable resource for debugging problems, and flipped to the index. Characters are covered over the course of some 50pages, while the topic of conflict is packed into a mere 4 pages! Now, I’ll concede that lots of the conflict comes from your characters, but conflict is what causes the suspense in your story. That suspense is what keeps the reader thinking Then what? and turning the page instead of going to bed.

As I face the completion of the first full draft of my book*, I’m starting to think about** polishing and all the little bits that need to be shored-up or just flat re-written. Now, this is where the writer’s improvement hell comes in. One of these things is tweaking things so that the conflict is present in a way that keeps the reader interested enough to continue turning the page. There’s conflict a plenty in the book, what’s I think is still lacking is that extra bit of suspense associated with it.

Sounds like you know what needs work, so what’s the problem?

Well, first of all, I THINK I have this problem. This is a case where I’m too close to the work to precisely see where these problems are present. The few people who have read the early drafts so far haven’t said this is an issue, but I think it’s going to take a full draft before someone might take a look back and say: you know what? this book just wasn’t exciting enough***. Not only that, I’m not entirely sure how to fix the problems without overdoing it or just plain missing the mark. My solution is to try and look at the story as a reader instead of the writer, and try to understand where a little more suspense is necessary. Another thing I will do is ask others to read the work to see if they found it interesting and compelling enough to continue. Finally, I’m planning on taking a break from editing as it nears the end. It’ll be time to do a bit of reading and thinking about how other authors manage suspense, or fail to, and use that as my guidebook when I go back over it again.

*Curse you chapter 19! – in the end, I will defeat you. I will OWN you. You won’t have any choice but to do my bidding. Then, we’ll see who’s laughing.
**Read: Become paralytically consumed with, really
***Read: Needs more suspense – the conflict wasn’t resonating.

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Writer’s improvement hell – developing themes.

Notes Mess

I have precious few hours remaining before Sunday is over, concluding my week off for writing. I didn’t manage to accomplish my goal of having a first full draft. I just stacked too many other things on to the week. It’s not that I didn’t make progress, because I did, I just didn’t make it as far as I wanted to. Part of the problem though wasn’t life, it’s that I continue to get hung up on things that need to be fixed. As I’m some 82K words into the book, going back to make some edits that work in various elements every time I think about them is no longer practical. I’m better off writing the idea down and setting it aside to include for the next pass-through of the draft.

One of the things that has begun to really take hold of my mind is theme – or themes, I suppose. In writing the War of Shadows so far, I haven’t been focused on theme, instead concentrating on hitting plot elements, character development, and increasing tension. Theme hasn’t been at the front of my mind. Now that I can go back and think about the story as it is, I can start to pick out weak threads of theme that are running through the book. In moving toward the climax and resolution, as well as set-up for book 2, I’m finding that theme is becoming an essential component for the story to hang together.

In every literature class I’ve ever taken (you can count this on one hand, I’m a computer programmer by training, and research analyst by profession), I’ve hated the discussion of theme. This originates, I think, from high school lit. classes where a book is read and discussed with inadequate context. Now that I’m older and can combine much more knowledge of history and politics, I can now better see what some of these books were trying to do. However, as a young person, they made little sense, and digging out any sort of meaning was a tedious and sometimes painful experience.

So if I hate discussing theme so much, why have I brought it up?

Because, as a writer it’s important. It’s important for the reader too, even if they don’t realize it. For the writer, the themes you choose help to guide the characters and plot. It acts as a bit of glue for the story as it progresses, themes also give a ‘feel’ to the story. I’ll offer up all of the Middle-Earth work by Tolkien as an example. A theme of change or diminishing of the world is present throughout all of those stories. This theme helps to tie the stories together, and also helps to make the change feel vaguely sad, but not tragic – much in the same way that we wish we could go back to places and times that are gone, like a child that has grown and left the house.

For the War of Shadows, and it’s associated series, I’ve got a few themes in mind that I’m looking at developing. There are several options at this point, because it’s still a fairly early draft. The one that’s at the front of my mind right now is the concept of ‘perception of choice.’ I suppose you could call it destiny, but it’s not quite like that, it’s not a pre-ordained sort of situation, it’s more that the characters are being pulled into a much larger conflict, while believing they are acting in their own interest for much more limited goals. It’s less along the lines of the chosen one, and more like the situation in Star Wars Episodes 1-3. Each side believes they are fighting a war for their own interests, but it’s not like that at all. The Chancellor is acting the puppet-master to reach his own goals. Really what’s going on is that the protagonist believes s/he has a choice, or is somehow in control of events, but in reality there is no choice. Another example comes from  the Harry Potter series, though it’s really a very minor theme. An example of how it shows up is near the end of book 7. Harry has the choice of chasing the horacruxes or uniting the deathly hallows. He chooses the horacruxes. In the book, you have the sense that this is a real choice, but it’s not. Harry will still have to destroy all of the horacruxes and face Voldamort. It’s only an illusion that he might have a choice.

The question that comes up for me as I consider this and attempt to work out how to go back and include it, is how do I pull this off? First off, I’m going to try and be subtle about it. The theme is generally present, but a few conversations muck it up a bit. I need to go back and revise those so that they don’t tread on this concept. It’s not anything like a major revision, just modification of dialogue, and motivation. The next thing that needs to happen is that I need to play the concept up a little bit in places where it’s missing. In those places where it’s not present, it will result in a certain amount of discontinuity in the story.

The next question, I suppose is why am I picking this theme and expanding it? Does it even matter? Yes, it does matter, the main reason I’m expanding this theme is because it’s going to be the backbone for the plot across the books. It’s not going to be spoken to directly, but the motivation of certain characters and the reactions of others will depend on this theme. It provides a framework for the plot and characters. So, I may dislike the discussion of theme, but it’s starting to seem so essential to me that I’ve got to master it, and understand how to use it in my favor as a writer.

 

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