I don’t do the sorts of stories that follow deep political maneuverings with religious overtones, but other people do, and I certainly read them. My mental archetype of that sort of thing is less GRR Martin and more the real Italian Renaissance. Certainly the Vatican makes all the world government schemers look like amateurs.
I may have been raised Catholic (it didn’t “take”) and I don’t particularly follow the scandals, but I just read this excellent summary of the soon-to-be-changing papal situation here, and I was struck by its analysis of the complex motivations within the College of Cardinals, its recognition of human belief, venality, whim, indulgence, and psychopathy, its deep understanding of political bartering, etc., (all very Renaissance) combined with the infections of modernism, both political and sexual, with unavoidable doctrinal ramifications.
That combination of historic (“this is how real sophisticated humans in this sort of lifetime governing institution scheme and behave”) and modernism (“more cultural disruptions every year challenging existential millennial doctrine”) is an excellent model to consider in fiction. While fantasy or alt-history might be more interested in the Italian Renaissance version, science fiction authors could find ideas for alien cultural encounters, future human social challenges, and religious or just political maneuvering in a wide variety of contexts.
The trick, in my view, is to find just the right POV character(s) to carry a story, and these aren’t the sorts of stories I happen to tell.
But what about you?
Mad Genius Club 
15 responses to “Complex politics in your fiction”
Politics can be dangerous in story because it can be less than fun.
Remember to give your readers reason to wish that some characters will triumph and others fail. The less difference between them (particularly moral) the less the stakes and no amount of peril to the losers will change the thought that if it hadn’t been them it would have been the other guys, and really there is nothing to choose between them.
The real way to complicate a tale of politics with real Good Guys and Evil Villains is to make the struggle such that Good Guys are on opposite sides — for good reasons, reasons that can not be easily fixed — so that you are in anguish knowing one must lose.
I very much recommend “Beyond Kings and Princesses: Governments for Worldbuilders” as a book to help your thinking and processing, especially if you don’t have much of a background in political analysis.
Even if you don’t have big national politics foregrounded in your story, the dynamics between your characters–particularly in an ensemble cast–can still be expanded and used to create tension and set stakes. And the background stuff is important to know, too, because it is often the backdrop of character motivation.
Sold. Thanks for the tip. 🙂
Public service – Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0898WFKTW
While that’s one heck of a story opening– folks have never stopped talking about who the next Pope will be.
And when they’re hiding, it’s not because of the Vatican, it’s because of other groups.
It’s the same as any other set of politics– if the other side knows what you’re going to do, they know how to prepare, rather than having to respond off the cuff; this is part of why trials in the US don’t allow the prosecution to spring stuff at the last minute.
One of the complicating factors in my Star Master duology is that the good guys’ military is disorganized with weak leadership, and the bad guys’ military, which had been relatively strong, is in decline due to feather-bedding and political appointments…and the Only Sane Admiral on their side is, in the second book at least, having second thoughts.
Wolf’s Trail has the hero initially hired to deal with a monster problem in a small town (one of two “rival” hunters – the headman called in The Cool Modern Guy, but a prosperous farmer who’d lost a family member called in the hero, from a long line of monster hunters). Then the larger, newer town nearby, whose burgomaster doesn’t even believe in monsters, develops a different but connected monster problem. Trying to keep people safe while navigating the priorities of the big town burgomaster (think nicer version of the mayor from Jaws) and the small-town headman (a pompous ass who becomes dangerously reckless when his own family is involved) is a big part of the hero’s challenges. He remarks somewhere that “One deals with lupomancers and other traffickers in dark magic by shooting them in the face with silver bullets; doing this to politicians is frowned upon.”
Politics will be getting a little more exposure in book 4, since 1942 is an election year in Texas and, of course, they’re in the middle of WW2.
I’ll have to read the book on Beyond Kings.
So far I’ve had politics as part of the world building and background stuff, but only because it drives how characters interact with the main characters.
The fanfic thing actually had a really bad conflict going on in the background. It impacted the main characters, but they never were aware of it. I just had to have it mapped out in my head because it influenced several other characters so it had to be consistent.
Similar with the w(n)ip. There’s a bunch of internal politics brewing and exploding in the background that the main characters are really directly aware of, but it drives other characters’ behavior so I needed to map it out.
But the stories aren’t about the politics. More, sometimes the politics in the background drops a mountain on the main characters. And the politics themselves are more about what the individuals involve believe or want, and how far they’re willing to go to get them. That may be an overly narrow view, but I can’t help but see politics and to a degree religion through that frame.
Oy vey! Politics and religion? Well, I guess it’s fitting since I’m currently reading Weber’s The Honor Of the Queen, which is rife with both. I generally dislike political thrillers. And I pass on most religious texts, unless I’m looking at the history. OSC did a pretty good blending with some of his stories. I think most of the non-history stuff I’ve read about either politics or religion has tended to be in SF/F. And it’s good to at least have a little background on at least one or the other in your stories to provide some depth of world and a little motivation/threat to keep the characters interesting.
The “Kings” book is on my acquisition list.
One observation – if you look at it a certain way, the Church has always had politics. You could view Judas’ betrayal as a (failed) political maneuver to instigate a popular revolt against the Sanhedrin, and by extension, the Romans that they collaborated with.
Also, thanks for the link to the article about Francis and the issues surrounding his tenure. I was also raised Catholic. I fell away from the church a bit in my late teens/early 20s, but came back to it. My wife is a Southern Baptist (her dad’s a part-time Baptist preacher), so we go to church where she wants as it doesn’t matter much to me where I go to church so long as the church keeps true to the Word. Needless to say, we’ve checked out quite a few, and vowed to never go back to most of them.
I hadn’t paid much attention to either Benedict or Francis. Benedict seemed a let down from JPII and rather ineffectual to me. Francis seems more interested in Marxist ideology than Papal doctrine, but uff da, I didn’t realize it was that bad. Politics has always been a big part of the church, with many a pope more interested in the pleasures of his own body than the body of Christ and bride of the church. Wow! That was eye opening.
R. A. Lafferty, in his Fall of Rome, prefaces a discussion of the infighting at the late 4th century imperial court at Constantinople with a remark to the effect that modern readers simply can’t follow intrigue of that complexity.
I put a family modelled loosely on the Medici – and I’m toning it way down, as I can’t follow that level of complexity enough to write it, let alone demand my hypothetical readers follow it.
Note that none of them did, either. They didn’t need the whole picture and couldn’t figure it out; they just had their parts.
I was catching up on things this morning, scanned the article and went to the next day’s post and my brain went “HEY! those guns have really strange magazines!”
Go back and look again and yep. Love finding AI oddness
Only one backwards looking hand in the lot, too
I settle for no more than 5-fingers altogether on any one hand, if I can get it. The goofiness of the guns is sort of an asset. 🙂