Greetings, Writers! Welcome to week three of DaKoWriMo. How is January shaping up? Are you discovering unexpected traits of your characters? Slogging away? Having fun? I picked a challenging goal for myself, but I want to make sure I keep the creative juices flowing. I’m hoping this is going to be a really good year, for writing and otherwise.
I’ll be your guest host for the evening. Thanks to bonetti for guest hosting last week and to mettle fatigue the week before. Sensible Shoes should be back next week. Let me know your DaKoWriMo progress updates in the comments. If you haven’t joined in the January jollity, it’s not too late!
bonetti: 30 revision tasks; 11 done
dconrad: 20,000 words; 3000 written.
Leo Orionis: Write ‘A New Viewpoint’. 40-50% done.
Mercy Ormont: Continue/finish Thirty-Nine Years on the Street memoir. Revised earlier writing and 2 more chapters written.
mettlefatigue: Find my WO stories that could go in OFPM. (5 stories found)
Mnemosyne: Finish NNWM 10k-word goal; 4920 written.
reppa: Continuing research on potential projects.
RiverOfTheWest: Complete revisions and illustrations of the history book; 700 words & 5 illustrations.
strawbale: Write another alien story + the foreword to the collection. Story and foreword fully drafted. Second story begun.
TASW: 50 pages of Callie and the Solicitresses.
faction noun
- a party or group that is often contentious
I’ve been thinking a lot about faction. I’ve seen a lot of good storytelling for television lately, and one feature that seems common to it is that there are numerous factions. The protagonist doesn’t have one antagonist but rather many, and this opens up space for the story.
First, it can make the story less linear. Instead of the main character and the story plodding along in a singular fashion, it can allow for a change of pace. After a chapter or a scene, the next section can pick up with the character’s interaction with a different faction (or, if the story shifts POV, the next scene could be from the POV of another faction).
Second, it can produce real surprises. If the protagonist has just one antagonist, they must remain antagonistic to the main character’s goals throughout, else there’s no conflict. But with an assortment of bad guys, an enemy can turn into a trusted ally. And the new friend’s old pals now have a new reason to oppose the main character. I mentioned “face turns” and “heel turns” in a comment in a recent diary. Friends don’t always stay friends, and enemies don’t always remain enemies, and it can add a whole new dimension to a story when the bad guys can change or play different roles at different times.
Third, it lends an air of verisimilitude. The real world isn’t divided into just two camps opposing one another, but innumerable factions. Fictional worlds no less so.
(Of course, sometimes the conflict in a story is main character versus the environment, or versus themselves. I’m not sure how the concept of faction would apply there. Ideas?)
Examples:
- A character whose family had attacked and plotted against the protagonists goes to work for them and becomes an ally, but there are lingering doubts about her loyalty.
- A character who was in prison but is so bad that he even intimidates other bad guys, gets out. The factions allowed the antagonist to remain on the sidelines without compromising conflict, and now that he’s out, he’s dangerous.
- The main characters suffer a setback, and they are convinced one of their enemies is behind it. But which one? If they react based on an incorrect assumption . . .
I once read that audiences like stories with complex characters in straightforward yet challenging situations, and that bad writers often create overly complicated plots with simplistic characters. Faction runs the risk of complicating the plot. And it might not work in some stories, with very limited casts of characters, at all. But as long as the protagonists’ goals remain straightforward and the characters themselves are three dimensional, then the dramatic space opened up by factions can be tremendous. Instead of a one dimensional story, it can have many facets, and yet the central premise can still be simple.
A simple story, complex characters, many facets. That last part is something my stories have been lacking.
Have you used faction in your writing? I think it works well in more episodic storytelling, like a story divided into multiple books, seasons, or TV shows. For a single novel it could work well but you wouldn’t want to shatter the narrative into too many shards. The readers might need a list of the dramatis personae or even charts to keep the factions straight. George R.R. Martin certainly used faction to his advantage in A Song of Ice and Fire. It would be harder to make it fit in a novella or short story, I think.
Tonight’s challenge:
A character in a world riven by faction might change sides. An enemy could become an ally, or an ally could betray a trust. Using your own characters or our well-known heroes in search of a lost jewel, write a scene in which you foreshadow that an opponent just might have more in common with the good guys than anyone thought. Or even show them come around and join the main characters.
OR
Write a scene in which you foreshadow that an old friend might not be as trustworthy as has been believed, and may in fact harbor ulterior motives or sympathies for the dark side. Or even show them jump ship and betray the main characters.
It might be hard to show a bad guy turn good (“face turn”) or a good guy break bad (“heel turn”) in a short passage, which is why I suggest merely foreshadowing it, but you folks always surprise me with your writing. Try to limit yourself to 150 characters.
Write On! will be a regular Thursday feature (8 pm ET 5 pm PT) until it isn’t.