Puck Writes

puck / 20 / writeblr

[introspectres]

Posted this on twitter already but uhhh here we go again

[authorkimberlygrey]

[puckwritings]

look i’m only a page into this but like -

i’m loving it

[puckwritings]

am i starting a new WIP ??? maybe so

[letswritesomenovels]

Tagging dialogue

I’ve always struggled with tagging dialogue. It’s such a small part of the story, that it seems like an easy thing to get right. 

Which makes it easy to get wrong. 

I know other people really struggle with tagging dialogue, too. I was in a workshop with a kid who received feedback saying he used too many attributions with adverbs and that he should generally only use said + an action. 

He submitted another piece, and they said his habit of using said + an action at the end of every line of dialogue was too repetitive and that he didn’t need to use that many dialogue tags at all. 

He submitted another piece, and they said he didn’t use any dialogue tags and they never knew who was talking. 

Then, he had a full blown meltdown in the workshop. Over dialogue tags. 

I want us all to avoid a situation like that, so I thought I would illustrate dialogue tagging rules with a sample from what is probably the piece of writing for teaching dialogue: Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants.” 

The scene is of a man and a woman sitting at a table, drinking: 

Wasn’t that bright? 

That’s good dialogue. It’s concise. It’s clear. It’s interesting. 

How does it manage that? Let’s separate the components of this except and find out.  

Here is just the dialogue:

It’s comprised of eight lines, with the woman speaking four times and the man speaking four times, in turn.  

Here are the dialogue tags. 

There aren’t very many at all. Three “she said”s and one action. 

This dialogue works well because Hemingway lets the dialogue speak for itself. Pun unintended. 

He does what every writing manual says to do. He follows THE RULES:

                                               THE RULES

Use “said.” Exclusively. “Asked,” is fine for special occasions. No adverbs. No fancy attributions. Just said the character. You know all of those lists with titles like “words you can use instead of ‘said?’” DON’T DO IT. DON’T TRUST THEM. SAID IS A PERFECTLY GOOD WORD. 

Only tag your dialogue enough for the reader to see who’s speaking. Once you’ve established who’s speaking, you don’t need to say ‘he said,’ ‘she said’ anymore, because it’s no longer very useful to your reader.

Only describe actions that are important to the scene. * Don’t feel the need to illustrate your characters’ every action. Only show what’s important to the understanding of the scene, the actions that build character and inform the dialogue. The girl putting down her glass shows us that she doesn’t like the taste of liquorice. It adds meaning to her words. Sometimes you can replace a tag with an action. For instance, you don’t really need “she said and put the glass down.” If you say “she put the glass down,” the reader will understand she’s the one speaking. 

Describe thoughts sparingly. When do you do most of your thinking about a conversation? When you’re actually speaking to the person? Or when you’re on your way home wondering if those words in that order means he likes you, or if he likes you? Or lying in bed that night trying to figure out why IN THE WORLD YOU SAY SUCH STUPID THINGS? Most thoughts can be saved for after the dialogue is finished and your character actually has time to mull things over. If the dialogue is doing its job, we’ll be able to see the characters’ gears turning by virtue of their words. 

I personally find it difficult to learn from just the good stuff. So now I’ll show you why these rules exist by completely ruining this dialogue:

This is so much worse than Hemingway’s version. I haven’t messed with the actual dialogue, but my tags have ruined it all the same.

Let’s go through just why it’s so much worse.

It’s redundant. If the girl is saying “yes,” we already know she’s agreeing. If she’s saying it tastes like liquorice and putting the glass down, we can see that she’s complaining about it. Saying that she hates liquorice just furthers that redundancy. This is why most attributions other than “said” are frowned upon. We don’t need “I am responding to your point,” they replied. Or “I LIKE CAKE!!” he exclaimed. Or “Really?” he questioned.

It assumes the reader isn’t smart enough to understand subtext. When writing, assume you’re readers are as smart as you are. “That was bright,” the man said sarcastically. “Cut it out,” the man said angrily. If you think you’d understand that the man is angry when he says “cut it out,” trust that your reader will, too. Because I assure you, they are smart enough to understand it, and when they do, that “angrily” is redundant and insulting. This is why it’s best to avoid adverbs at the end of your dialogue tags. Like fancy attributions, they tell what your dialogue has already shown.

The pace is wrong. Putting tags at every line slows down the dialogue. It clogs up the scene. This is a quick interaction. Most dialogue is quick. When we talk to someone, very little time tends to pass between our responses. This speed should be mimicked in the way dialogue is written and read. This is why you should keep your dialogue as streamlined as possible, and keep thoughts, actions, and tags to a minimum. 

It puts a focus on the writing. All of those fancy attributions, adverbs, and additional tags say: “this is not being said by these two people. I am the author of this text and I am describing what they are saying to you.” That’s a lot for an adverb to be saying. It takes attention away from what the characters are saying and draws attention to the fact that this is fiction. “Said” works well because it’s all but invisible to the reader. It keeps the attention on your characters’ words. 

Hopefully, this has convinced you that when it comes to dialogue, you should let your characters do all of the talking. (Pun intended.) 

This isn’t a definitive list of the rules, though. There are others. For instance: keep your speaker’s action with their dialogue. Don’t pair one character’s action with another character’s dialogue.

If you don’t exactly trust someone who admits to getting their dialogue wrong**, here’s a list of other resources that can help you improve your dialogue tags. These also go heavier into the grammar of tagging dialogue. 

He Said, She Said: Dialog Tags and Using Them Effectively

Keep it Simple: Keys to Realistic Dialogue (Part II)

Writing Fiction: Dialogue Tag Basics

Also: 

A list of attributions to never, ever use

*Many people will tell you that actions work better than “said” attributions in dialogue. People get this advice, like my workshopping pal, and end up putting “he/she smiled” after every line of dialogue. Action as attribution works, but can easily clutter the scene with unnecessary choreography. It’s more complicated and trickier to pull off than just putting “said x” after the first few lines of dialogue. This is why my advice is to only use it where the action is doing work for your scene. 

**I can correct it by the 3rd or 4th draft. Usually.

[grassfire]

every time i blindly slide the usb-c cable against the lip of my ipad looking for the tiny charge port, metal scraping against metal in my dark bedroom

i think of that stupid fucking sherlock scene every goddamn time

[gudgercollege]

This line was an update of a deduction Holmes made about a pocketwatch in the original story so now I'm wondering if the Victorians who were bad at winding their watches in the dark felt the same bitterness that Holmes would assume they're an alcoholic.

[maxkirin]

me: i hate clichés

author: the title of the novel and the final line are one and the same

me, losing my shit: the title of the novel and the final line are one and the same

[foolblue]

me: i hate cliché

author: the starting line of the novel and final line are one and the same

me, fucking sobbing: the starting line of the novel and final line are one and the same

[puckwritings]

in my dreams i see america: i soar down highways, devouring smooth tarmac beneath an endless sky. the West haunts me, that empty expanse of gods’ country, too beautiful to belong to men. we leave our new york (or boston, or providence) apartment in those liminal hours before dawn: you, and i, and the battered old map whose veins we trace to follow the song of our souls.

in my dreams i see america; i put my queer shoulder to the wheel and you call me kerouac, teasing; but it’s ginsberg i recite as we chase the sun and then the stars: no rest without love, no sleep without dreams of love — and even with my gaze on the road ahead I can see you, beaming, from the corner of my eye.

in my dreams i see america, and you’re in the passenger’s seat of my rickety old volkswagen van that we painted golden sunflower yellow because that’s who we are inside. your stick your arm out the window, fingers splayed in the wind, and the whole world is within you. no plan, no future, just me and you gazing up at the stars, tangled in sheets, awakening, bleary-eyed and stiff-necked, to do it all again.

— in my dreams you are america, p.p.

[puckwritings]

hm i should probably ... remove the boy upstairs from my WIP page since it’s No Longer A WIP

[aela-writes]

[me-writing-iguess]

when all of this is over i will sprout wings, draw magic from my hands. i will fly far away from this place, where the trees are tall and the hands that reach for me are far too short. i will let the ghosts come to play, for they are no match for those who do not feed them. they are just allusions after all, desperate souls. and i do not believe in the devil anymore.

when all of this is over i will drown myself in finery and fill my stomach until i am too heavy to move. a fine feast i will make. but i will come not as an angel, but as a free spirit, a small girl, a sleeping queen. wild with the sun and the surf and the possibility of what could become.

when all of this is over i will throw the words from my mouth, inject into them the feeling of being. they all say that you only life once, but it is harder than that. not abandoning the consequences but rather, doing everything as if it is your last. fully; wholly.

i will escape this stale place i am in. unclench my fingers and my panicked heart. perhaps i will join the ghosts, teach them the meaning of being free. they have no reason to be bitter

[puckwritings]

i am a roman candle, star-high, sky-bright. supernova girl with a hand grenade heart. i am an icarus i fly and fly, sun-high, sea-deep, and the waves will choke the life from me.

i, roman candle, go off like saint joan’s passion: fire, fire, smoke and flame a witch (a bitch) to take the blame.

- i dreamt i was a martyr, p.p.

[puckwritings]

i saw langston hughes on the b train headed to manhattan mid the morning rush. statuesque beside my seat, fatherly hands, wise poet’s eyes reading political news the way i’ve always devoured novels. wise. strong. bespectacled, though hughes wasn’t. really, it wasn’t that he looked like him but, “i guess i’m what i feel and see and hear,” and I wonder: langston, did you yearn as I do for a father who did not disappoint? did you always dream of new york from the moment you were old enough to know what new york was? did you glance down at me, pale girl on that early morning train, and see a poet in me the way i saw one in you? did you see my soul?

      —  to the man on the 7 am train , p.p.

[bigskydreaming]

Like the thing about Loki in Norse mythology is there’s like 8000 myths about Loki just being chaotically mischievous and the other gods are like lol oh that scamp, no matter how disastrous his schemes are, their reaction is still pretty much always ‘haha oh that’s just Loki.’

EXCEPT for basically….one myth. Where Loki’s instrumental in the death of Baldur and the gods are all WHOA TOO FUCKING FAR DUDE and send him to Hel to be tormented for all eternity, leading to his ultimate escape/release in Ragnarok to end all things and lead the army of the damned and his monstrous children to pretty much…eat all the gods, destroy Asgard, and burn the World Tree all to the ground so it can all start over.

Here’s the thing though. Norse mythology spanned centuries. The tales of Loki as the mischievous trickster god were told for centuries.

However, for most of that time, the myths were told as part of oral traditions passed down generation to generation, until they were finally compiled in manuscript form in the 13th century, roughly. This is when pretty much all the sagas, as Norse myth compilations were called, are considered to have been written down for the first time, and so they included thousands of stories that had been told over hundreds of years.

They were also regional, though there was a lot of overlap, given that the Vikings traveled widely and regularly across the various parts of Scandinavia. Still, different parts of Scandinavia had their own sagas. Norway had different sagas than Denmark who had different sagas than Iceland, etc. Even though all of them featured primarily the same figures, they each had their own unique stories featuring the gods. However, very rarely did they have radically different takes on those gods.

Now what’s significant about the fact that pretty much every saga we have, where these myths were all finally written down and preserved, is from the 13th century….

Is that pretty much all of Scandinavia had converted to Christianity by the early 12th century, with active worship of the Norse gods being scattered and mostly underground from that point on.

Why is this significant?

Because it means every Norse myth we have a written recording of was not written by people who still actively worshiped those gods. Nor were they intended to be read as such at the time. 

They were written down by Christian scholars who wrote them AS stories. They were intended as collections of their regions’ cultural histories, but not by or for people who still actively believed in these stories or the figures they featured. They weren’t like….TRYING to be super accurate, is the thing. The scholars who wrote these sagas were writing down the stories that had been passed down for generations, but through the lens of people who saw them as stories their ancestors once believed, not ones that pertained to their own current worldview.

And they were writing these sagas for an audience of people who similarly believed as they believed.

Which means that inevitably, some things got ‘adjusted’ to fit the current world view, the zeitgeist of the scholars writing down the stories and that of the people who would read or have the stories read to them from thereon. Because again, they weren’t aiming for being 100% faithful to the tales as they’d been told to them. They were just treating them as stories. And what do you do when the story you’re writing down has elements that don’t make that much sense to you because they were born of and aimed a worldview that doesn’t match yours?

Well, if you’re the Christian scholars writing the Norse sagas, you ‘tweak’ those elements until they make a story that fits your worldview.

So remember how I said the various sagas were regional and had a lot of overlap but some stories were distinct to some regions and didn’t show up elsewhere?

Yeah, Ragnarok is one of those.

Thousands of sagas encompassing centuries of Norse mythology and oral traditions were written down all over the various regions of Scandinavia in the 13th century.

Ragnarok only showed up in one.

The most famous, granted, but still. Everything we’re told in Norse myths about the death of Baldur and Loki’s role in it, leading to his punishment and torment in Hel and his ultimate release and bringing forth the armies of Hel to slay the gods and end the world?

Comes from the Prose Edda and the later Poetic Edda, from Iceland.

Which had primarily converted to Christianity as far back as 1000.

Now, the Vikings? Were actually surprisingly not a big doom and gloom people. Pretty much every assumption of them as such comes from how synonymous we regard Ragnarok with their culture.

It is after all, the ultimate Judgment Day myth, isn’t it? Right up there with Christianity’s Book of Revelations. An apocalyptic end of the world scenario, a war between heaven and hell, where everything is destroyed so that the world can basically start fresh with a clean slate. Nothing old ‘deserves’ to survive, pretty much the only way for a world free of sin and evil to arise is from the ashes of the old, after everything has been cleansed with fire.

Now contrast this ‘myth’ with pretty much every other Norse myth that’s survived. Larger than life tales of grand adventures, noble quests, gods walking among mortals in disguise and heroes fighting giants and stealing from dragons.

Where the closest thing the Norse pantheon has to a devil figure is Loki, the god of mischief….not even evil, but MISCHIEF, because a far more accurate representation of the Vikings’ world view is that sometimes shit happens, because Loki the god of chaos likes to make a mess of things. And what do you do when that happens? If you’re the Vikings, you basically just shrug, go “well, that’s Loki” for you, and drink some more mead.

Loki isn’t vilified in a single myth until Ragnarok, because the Vikings didn’t hate him. And they certainly didn’t fear him. They LAUGHED at him. In nine out of ten myths, Loki ends up the subject of ridicule himself, as he has the tables turned on him or outsmarts himself

Until Ragnarok.

Which, granted, could very well be another Norse myth that was passed down generation to generation in Iceland, land of frequent volcanic eruptions and likely inspiration for Musplheim, the land of the fire giants.

BUT. Which could equally likely, and far more plausibly given the overall context of Norse mythology, simply be a story the scholar who wrote the Prose Edda made up to ‘finish off’ his saga of the world according to the Vikings, from beginning to end.

An ending his Christian audience of the times would understand and identify with a lot better than they would understand the concept of a devil-figure that existed to be LAUGHED at, to show how little the Vikings feared some mythical figure with the power to lie and deceive them….the complete opposite of the way Christians feared Satan.

Basically put….Ragnarok, for all that we think of it as the ultimate Norse myth….DOES NOT MAKE SENSE in the context of almost EVERY single other Norse myth AND in the context of how Norse society viewed the world and their place in it, or their gods and their relationship with them.

Same with Loki’s depiction in Ragnarok.

What both Ragnarok and Loki’s role in Ragnarok DO make sense in the context of, however, is in a bastardization of Christianity’s own doomsday tales of a Judgment Day, stylized to fit the trappings of Norse mythology and feature their gods instead of Christian figures.

With Loki recast in the role of the Devil, as he was the closest fit they could find to that.

And with Baldur, god of light (a Norse god who is at best a footnote in Norse myths other than Ragnarok, and certainly was never the major pantheon figure he’s assumed to be), recast in the role of the Christ figure. Whose death starts the ball rolling for Judgment Day and who is destined to return for it, to triumph over Loki/Satan and preside over the new, purified world once it’s reborn from the ashes of the old one.

Anyway, tl;dr, don’t believe the hype, Ragnarok’s probably not even an actual Norse myth but the invention of Christian writers who were like lol this would make for a great Book of Revelations fanfic AU, and Loki was almost certainly never regarded by actual Vikings as some evil, malicious world-destroyer who would lead armies of the dead at Armageddon whoops I mean Ragnarok.

[findingasgard]

tl;dr of the tl;dr Loki’s not actually evil and more on how Christians bastardize things.

[fruitypies]

Wow, fascinating! Thank you for this very informative post @bigskydreaming 💖

[depresseddepot]

I don’t know how accurate all of this is, but I would like to point out that calling all of pre-1200s scandinavians “vikings” is like calling all of the citizens in the Caribbean during 1500-1800 “pirates.” I’m not sure if OP was just saying ‘viking’ to make things clear (I do that all the time as well), but ACTUAL viking culture is a bit different than homestead scandinavian culture. Storytelling in a farmhouse is a lot different than storytelling on a ship in dangerous oceans.

Other than that, interesting take! It frustrates me to no end that the norse myths and oral stories were written by Christians (don’t get me started on Beowulf, everytime I read it I just think of all the Good Shit I’m missing bc some monk wanted the story but not the “blasphemy”). I trust Snorri Sturluson, but we’ll never truly know if those were the real myths.

[fruitypies]

I believe OP was calling them vikings just to make things clear, as the time between the mid 700s to the early 1000s was referred to as the ‘Viking era’.

Snorri did write some interesting things, but he was still a christian man and edited the myths, even adding new gods and goddesses that were not previously there, when he was writing them in order to suit the society he was living in. Take his stories with a grain of salt when reading them, as they are not wholly accurate to the original myths that were passed down through time.

If anyone wishes to learn about the norse myths and the old norse language in a more proper manner, i highly recommend watching Dr. Jackson Crawford’s videos on youtube. He is an Old Norse specialist and instructor of Scandinavian studies at the uni of Colorado Boulder.

[puckwritings]

misc excerpt from on the shores of halcyon

       4:30 AM.

       Mabon blearily rubbed his eyes, wondering what had woken him, and then promptly sat up as a clattering noise sounded from downstairs.  He wasn't particularly worried about who it was -- doubtless one of his children, or his roommate, or one of the many magical creatures living on his property -- but rather what they were doing. He reached for his housecoat, slipped it on, and headed downstairs to investigate.

        Quiet voices emerged from the kitchen, and then there was another clatter. It sounded like Finn -- maybe he'd gotten high again and was looking for something to eat? Mab sighed. He'd asked his son to keep his smoking confined to decent hours of the day, but apparently the teen hadn't listened.

         He turned the corner to the kitchen, and stopped dead.

         "What is that?"

          A giant eyeball hovered about three feet above the tiled floor.  A hastily drawn chalk circle surrounded the ground around it, which his daughter was furiously touching up. Finn was searching through the cupboard for something, which was probably where the clattering had come from. Nissa looked up when Mab spoke, the smile she gave in greeting rather sheepish. The eye, on the other hand, stared at him. The iris was an unnaturally pale blue.

        "Did you -- did you summon a demon? In my kitchen?"

         Nissa laughed nervously. Finn furiously backed away from the cupboard, a lighter in one hand and a sprig of herb in the other. His dark eyes were wide.

          "Nissa did it!" he blurted out.

          "It was an accident," Nissa countered, then, "His name is Franklin."  Finn ignited whatever herb he was holding and waved it in the demon's general direction. It was hard to tell, but Mab fancied that the look Franklin gave as it rotated to face Finn was reproachful.  "What are you doing?" she coughed. Finn kept waving the herb.

           "Smudging," he answered, as if it were obvious.

           "That's for ghosts, idiot!" Nissa stood and grabbed the herb -- sage, by the smell -- and shoved it under the sink faucet. "Now it smells like weed in here!"

           Mab laughed despite himself. "It always smells like weed in here."

           Finn pouted – an unflattering expression on any eighteen-year-old boy – and crossed his arms. “How else do you propose getting rid of it? You can’t get the banishment to work!”

           Nissa shrugged. The motion reminded Mab rather distressingly of her mother; Rebekah had moved her shoulders in the exact same way a number of times during his relationship with her (including when she had broken up with him). Finn evidently felt the same way:

           “You look just like Mom when you do that.”

           Nissa’s transition from shrugging to flipping off her twin was smooth, smooth enough that Mab had to stifle a chuckle at their antics. Had he not still been attempting to be a stern authority figure, he would have let himself laugh at the way Finn stuck his tongue out in response.

           “Children,” he chided, “Stop fighting. It’s easier to figure out a witchcraft problem if you work together. I had a cousin who accidentally summoned a demon once.”

           “Did you figure out how to banish it?” Nissa’s voice sounded hopeful.

           “No. My grandfather did some complex spell that was far beyond our abilities at the time, and expressly forbade us from ever trying summoning again.”

           “Then why do you have the books?”

           Mab glanced at his son, who was grinning wryly back. “Because,” he sighed, “When I moved to America I thought: ‘fuck my grandfather’ and bought every summoning book I could get my hands on. And then I proceeded to never try summoning anything.”

           “Dad,” Nissa tapped her foot against the ground. “What are we going to do about Franklin, then?”

           Mabon shrugged. “He’s contained, right? Leave him. We’ll just have to keep the circle intact and it’ll be fine.”

           “You’re not mad?”

           He shrugged again. “A giant eye-demon floating in my kitchen, given that he’s contained within a magic circle, is much less dangerous than, say, Renegade climbing through the window and knocking my dishes onto the floor.”

           Nissa stared at him, brow furrowed. “Promise you’re not mad?”

           “Nissa… come here.” There was a moment’s hesitation, but she crossed the kitchen floor to stand in front of him. “You’re practicing your magic. I wish you’d done it at a normal time of day, maybe asked for help, and not used the kitchen, but I’m not upset with you for learning. You were safe, and that’s what matters. I’m not mad. I promise.”

           She visibly relaxed. “Thanks, dad.”

           Affection rushed through him, as it always did when she called him dad. It had taken so long to get to that point; he savored every instance she did it. His daughter was strong and stubborn, and she had a lot of walls that were liable to go up at a moment’s notice. It was part of the reason he was so careful to be gentle and kind around her. He didn’t want her to have regrets about him when she got older; he wanted to make up for all those years he’d missed – even though missing them was Rebekah’s fault and not his own.

           “Of course, Nissa.” He reached out and stroked the top of her head, carding his fingers through her dark hair. “Now, come on, you two. Go to bed. It’s nearly morning.”

           Finn scampered over to pull them both into a hug. “Night.”

           “Goodnight, doofus,” Nissa laughed.

           “Goodnight, Finn.”

           Finn laughed quietly and went upstairs, leaving Nissa, Mab, and Franklin alone in the kitchen. Nissa hesitatingly wrapped her arms around Mab.

           “Goodnight, Dad. You sure you don’t want help cleaning up? I know we made a mess.”

           He looked down at her, saw the guilty expression on her face, and gently shook his head. “Don’t worry about a thing, y ngeneth i. I’ll take care of it. You’re young; you need rest.”

           “Okay.” she let go of him and headed towards the stairs.

           “Goodnight, Nissa,” he called softly. She smiled back at him.

           “Love you, dad.”

           Warmth filled him from head to toe. He beamed. “I love you too.”

           And his daughter disappeared up the stairs.

[puckwritings]

Good News!

I have some VERY exciting news to share with you all: not only is my play “The Boy Upstairs” no longer a WIP, it just yesterday won an award at my college!! As you can imagine, I’m kind of flying high off of the excitement of it; hopefully within the next few years I’ll be able to put on a production of it at my school!

[puckwritings]

get to know me tag game! i was tagged by @pclyxena (who it won’t let me tag for some reason??)

❁ name: puck

❁ sign: leo

❁ height: 5′6″

❁ put your playlist on shuffle and name the first 4 songs:

❥ bang bang, nancy sinatra

❥ san francisco, scott mckenzie

❥ i carry your heart with me, david dickau

❥ boulevard of broken dreams, green day

❁ grab the nearest book, turn to page 23, what’s the 17th line

you neither learned to praise nor pray (pearl by the pearl poet. i’m reading it for my medieval lit class)

❁ ever had a song or poem written about you?

nope!

❁ when was the last time you played air guitar?

about half an hour ago? my brother and i put on my american idiot vinyl & i was rocking out in our kitchen

❁ do you believe in ghosts?

yeah

❁ do you believe in aliens?

yep!

❁ do you drive? and if you do, have you ever crashed?

i am learning to drive? i’m not doing well but i’m learning.

❁ last book you read?

for school? the bacchae. for fun? the shadow and bone trilogy by leigh bardugo.

❁ do you like the smell of gasoline?

no. it gives me a headache

❁ the last movie you saw?

captain marvel!

❁ do you have any obsessions right now?

yes, i’m currently on an emo kick Again

❁ do you tend to hold grudges?

i can, yeah

❁ are you in a relationship right now?

nope! i’m a single potato

tagging: i’m lazy! steal it if you want lovelies <3

[wordsnstuff]

Guide To Political World Building

This is also available on wordsnstuffblog.com!

– This is a subject that I see brought up a lot in book reviews by readers, but not very often when it comes to the writing community. I decided to search the internet and my own experience for as many tips and as much advice as I could find to put in one place for you all. I also addressed a lot questions (in fact, more than usual because I know this is a weak point for most fiction authors) in the common struggles section. I hope this is useful to those of you who have a lot of trouble finding help on this. It should help me as well because I’m in the middle of tackling it for my own series. Happy writing!

Patreon || Ko-Fi || Masterlists || Work In Progress || Studyblr || Studygram

Know What Details Are Important

Not all aspects of a political system in a fictional universe are important to the story-telling, especially when the story is more character or plot driven, rather than driven by the world building. It’s important to deliver relevant information to your reader in pieces, and at a pace that enhances their understanding of events and meaning rather than their knowledge of trivial details.

Know Your Demographic & Your Genre

For certain genres and age-demographics, your world building in the area of political systems and implications should be matured or simplified. The majority of your readership should be able to understand what’s going on, and the way you makes sure of that is know who you’re writing the story for. Certain genres also require a lot less complicated detail in political world building. For instance, YA romance should have less political world building than, say, adult fantasy. Sure, maybe in the case of writing a YA romance, there could require some, but definitely not as in-depth as that of the latter. 

Choose A Model to Alter

If you’re going to do it, especially as a beginner, you need to pick some form of inspiration or something similar to what you’re going for. There are so many governmental systems out there that already exist, and if you should research plenty of them and them mix and match, add and subtract, and twist until you have something that serves your story.

Think of The Implications of Details

Every detail that you make prominent in the reader’s mind should be thought out in terms of the implications. Ask yourself how this affects different groups of people, how it’s evolved over time, what it means for the system as a whole, etc. This will make your story more three-dimensional in the reader’s mind.

Find Issues in Power Distribution

Most government tension (throughout history, at least) has come from inequality in the distribution of power. Whether it be between races, classes, branches of government, figures in politics, or groups of people with different opinions, or all of the above combined, most issues stem from the struggle for power, control, and influence over others. Explore this and find new ways to think of how this could be interpreted from your story.

Think of Culture’s Impact on Politics

Culture has a major hand in how politics works. A society’s values, religious majorities and minorities, gender roles, environment, what an average citizen looks like, how citizens are expected to look, act, use their time, etc. These things all impact political situation and how it changes over time with culture, so explore this heavily.

Common Struggles

– The common struggles section of my “guide to__” posts are general questions sent in by readers on the topic at hand. If you have a question that has not been addressed thus far, you’ll probably find the answer in this section. As always, you’re welcome to send other questions to my inbox if you don’t find the answer in this post. –

~ How do I illustrate the evolution of a society’s politics?… I would choose a few major events and make the causation behind them more prominent than the actual events themselves. History repeats itself, and that’s very important in political foreshadowing and often how a society deals with political situations.

~ How do I write conversations about my world’s politics?… It depends on the tone of these conversations. The way casual conversations about politics are written can tell the reader a lot about your world’s political climate, and can be a very useful device. Heated conversations can be useful in showing different passionate sides of a political issue in your world. I would say, write them carefully and with intention.

~ How do I make the reader invested/interested in the world’s politics?… Show the reader why they should care, make them relate to it, and then make them relate your story to their reality. You have to use literary devices as well. Show, don’t tell works really well here. Don’t show the main character reflecting that the conflicts at the war front are bad. Show the war front. Show the severity. Make them feel the heavy emotions of the people. Show them the real stakes of the political decisions being dealt with in the story.

~ How do I create believable racial tensions?… Again, just mirror reality. Understand why racial tensions exist and mirror that in your story’s context. Racial tension is majorly caused by fear, prejudice, and response to the “other side”. It’s often a long, ongoing battle because it’s rooted in the way people are raised and the constant environment around them. Racism is taught, so show it’s bigger, more outstanding moments, as well as its less prominent ones. No political issue arises exclusively from large, explosive moments. It’s made up of a few big ones, notable ones, and then the many, millions of little contributing moments and factors.

~ How do I write reasonable opposition groups?… You’re the author, so you have the unique opportunity of setting the reader up to see the reasoning behind both or all sides. You can show the evidence and logic behind each one, and make the reader understand why each side believes what they believe, and the personal engagement that leads each side to fight so hard.

~ How do I connect a caste system to political tension?… Political tension within caste systems are commonly caused by people’s natural desire for power and control, which leads to dissatisfaction in cases of being on the less fortunate side of inequality. Caste systems are also typically a pyramid, which means there’s more of the underdogs. These things combine to create political storms because on one side you have few people and lots of power that add up to just a bit more than a lot of people with less power individually, but more when pooled. 

~ How to I create a corrupt government without too many clichés?… The most cliché thing about typical corrupt governments is the one-dimensional evil figures that lead to corruption. Very few authors explore what leads a human who’s only job is to protect the people to turn against them. Explore their motivations and their personal struggle and justifications and you’ll have a more interesting and impactful corrupt government.

~ How do I illustrate a positive government that doesn’t come off as suspicious?… Work hard on perfecting tone, be very careful with what could be interpreted as foreshadowing, and show genuine goodness in not only the government’s words and actions, but actual results. Show your government talking the talk, and then walking the walk.

~ How do I set up the climax of a political issue?… Show the slow burn, and then the inciting events that set off the inevitable explosion. You need to establish to the reader that something is going to happen no matter what, but make the actual consequence and its place in time a surprise. 

~ How do I develop a governmental system from the ground up for the sake of the plot itself?… As I said in a previous point, use a model or several to take inspiration from. In the case of world building being the centre of your story, build your world and your plot together so they complement one another. 

Other Resources From My Blog That Help With This:

How To Write A Good Plot Twist

How To Foreshadow

Commentary On Social Issues In Writing

Tackling Subplots

How To Perfect The Tone In A Piece Of Writing

Tips On Writing About Mental Illness

A Guide To Tension & Suspense In Your Writing

Writing Good Villains

Tips On Writing Intense Scenes

Finding & Fixing Plot Holes

Resources For Crime, Mystery, & Thriller Writers

Resources For Writing Science Fiction

Resources For Writing Dystopian/Apocalypse

Resources For Writing Period Pieces: High Middle Ages & Renaissance

Resources For Writing Period Pieces: 1600s

Resources For Writing Period Pieces: 1700s

Resources For Writing Period Pieces: 1800s

Resources For Writing Period Pieces: 1900-1939

Resources For Writing Period Pieces: 1940-1969

Resources For Writing Period Pieces: 1970-1999

Useful Writing Resources

Useful Writing Resources II

Resources For Writing Sketchy Topics

Resources For Worldbuilding

Resources For Plot Development

Resources For Creating Characters

Mimicking Diversity In Science Fiction/Fantasy

Writing About Another Era

On Making Scenes/Characters Unpredictable

Info-dumping

Writing About Uncomfortable Topics

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