Thaddeus Nowak's Blog: Thoughts and Observations - Posts Tagged "eddie-izzard"

I've made an observation when working on Daughter's Justice (the sequel to Mother's Curse). When writing fiction about royalty, there is a lot more to keep track of.

I am trying to be true to the story and avoid the "crowbar plot twists" Eddie Izzard has joked about in some movies. Which means I want to keep track of the back story and underlying plots that would be impacting the world around the characters. In most of my prior writing, the actions of the main characters have limited scope for the world. In those cases, I could simply make general assumptions about how the country and politics played out and bend them to my needs.

When writing about royalty, or anyone who's actions impact politics at a larger scale, the characters will be interacting (directly or simply causing reactions) with people who have the power to change significant aspects of the country and politics as a whole. However, those secondary characters may not have any direct visibility to the reader.

For Stephenie's story, I found the need to tracks the motivations, timings, and actions of many people who are minor characters in the story, but who's actions and motivations would potentially be seen in how the country is run. It adds another dimension to the writing process. Normally, I would simply make note of these characters. However, since they are "powerful" in the world, their reactions can trigger events that drive the main characters.

My goal is to make the country and politics behave as realistic as possible. Perhaps even thinking about it as a character itself; a character made up of many different individuals.

My goal of course is to keep a lot of that complexity from the actual story, focusing on the main characters and their actions. However, having the richer back story I hope will allow me to paint a more engaging picture of the world.