Worldbuilding politics and government

Politics in a story is a question of who holds power, how they got it, how they keep it and who wants it for themselves. Answer those for the people your protagonist meets, make sure their moves hold up when you look at the logistics and the motives, and give readers a side to care about before the schemes get complicated. You rarely need a constitution. You need a few conflicts that follow from what your characters want.

Politics is one of four layers of a society, with worldbuilding religion, worldbuilding economy and worldbuilding culture. For how much world to build overall, see worldbuilding for novelists.

Start with where power comes from

A Mythcreants article on building realistic cultures names three things that give a person or group an outsized hold on a society: military might (generals, warlords, commanders), wealth (anyone who gets the upper hand in the marketplace or inherits a fortune), and cultural legitimacy (religious leaders, rightful heirs to a monarchy, or elected officials). When the leader of a nation does not have the most might, wealth and legitimacy, the article says, prolonged power struggles can follow. Its example is thirteenth and fourteenth century Japan, where the Shogun, who commanded the military, had a long struggle with the Emperor, who had the greatest cultural legitimacy.

That is a usable checklist. For each faction in your story, ask which of the three it holds and which it lacks. A faction that lacks the third wants a crown, and a faction that lacks the first will pay someone for it.

The same piece adds that groups with power use it to promote narratives that glorify them and demonise those below. As it notes, many political leaders throughout history were also religious figures: if you have enough power you can persuade people you have the divine right to rule. Worldbuilding religion has more on that link.

Choose a form of government, loosely

Wikipedia defines a government as the system or group of people that leads a state, responsible for directing the only entity whose use of force is socially acceptable. It lists governments dominated by one person (autocracy), a small ruling class (oligarchy) or the masses (democracy), and notes that modern classifications also treat monarchy as its own category or as a hybrid. Its taxonomy has many variants, such as constitutional monarchy, absolute monarchy and republics with different executive arrangements.

For fiction, three decisions matter more than the label:

1. Who decides? One person, a council, an assembly, a faith.
2. Who enforces? An army, a guild, a church, hired fighters.
3. Who can challenge them, and how? Courts, rivals, a rebellion, an election.

A theocracy, as Mythcreants defines it, is a kingdom or nation run by the authority figures of a religion or by an absolute power that supports it. Pick the model closest to what the plot needs and let the details be invented as scenes arrive.

Check the logistics

Mythcreants' article on poorly crafted political conflicts shows what happens when the practical side is skipped. In one post-apocalyptic fantasy novel it describes, humanity lives in walled city-states and contact between cities is limited to what a rider on a magical motorcycle can carry. Then the threat of war between two cities becomes a major plot point, and the author asks how an army is supposed to get from one city to another, with supplies, through the storms that endanger even lone riders. Its fix is small: make the bikes simply the fastest way across the wastes, and let slower caravans and troop formations exist.

The lesson is general. Before you write a war, a siege or a tax revolt, ask how many people, how far, carrying what and for how long. That is where how to make a fantasy map helps, since distances and routes decide who can threaten whom.

Let leaders act in their own interest

The same article critiques a 2016 Beowulf television series for its politics. The character at the centre of its succession plot does little to pursue her own goal. After becoming jarl she banishes a powerful thane on thin evidence, since gold from his thanedom was found in the house of an assassin even though gold from each thanedom is readily available, and then alienates her remaining allies by insisting they pass new laws. The critic's verdict is that for over a third of the season the main political actor appears to have no regard for her own success, and contrasts the early seasons of Game of Thrones, where we could generally see why the players made the moves they did.

Use that as a test. For any political choice a character makes, you should be able to say what they hope to gain, what they risk and why it is a reasonable move for them.

Give readers someone to care about

Political plots have a reputation for being slogs, and Mythcreants' podcast on making politics compelling says that reputation is about half deserved. It identifies three common problems: a lot of information, because politics is complicated, no one to cheer for, because everyone is morally gray, and no main character, so character development is slow. The hosts say some of these are unforced. You do not have to make everybody a jerk, and you do not have to introduce twenty combatants in the first episode.

Their model is the original Dune novel, which, like Game of Thrones, invests us in one family before the complicated politics start. We care about House Atreides, and once things go badly for them we are ready to cheer for Paul. Invest first, complicate second. A one-line guide for the opening chapters: show one faction suffering from a decision before you explain the council.

Know what the book thinks of politics

In a Writer's Digest piece, novelist Aimee Agresti describes setting her novel in the world of political campaigns and treating the politics as a backdrop to a story about friends. Her advice is to decide your novel's attitude toward the political world, whether satire, dark or dystopian, or fun and escapist. She chose escapist, made the campaign a wild character that throws other characters' lives into disarray, and did not identify the parties or have characters discuss issues. What mattered was the energy and spirit of the candidates and the contrast among their approaches and personalities. Even books that address politics directly, she adds, are about people, so keep the emotional core in mind.

If you invent a world, you have the freedom she took: you can leave out party names and platforms and still write convincing politics.

Keep the issues few and simple

A Mythcreants piece on running political intrigue campaigns, written for tabletop games but applicable to fiction, says that most political intrigue is about a handful of major issues, with characters struggling for power because they hold sharply opposed views on parts of their society. The issues must matter to the audience. It advises avoiding issues that are too obscure or complicated and avoiding conflicts based on a trivial difference unless you mean it as humour. It also recommends making the issues parallel real-life ones, with the example of dwarves fleeing a collapsed mine standing in for modern immigration, and building in breaks from intrigue so the audience can recharge.

How government shapes ordinary lives

Writer's Digest also ran a worldbuilding piece in which Stef Magister uses the linguist George Lakoff's two frames, the Strict Father and the Nurturant Parent, as one lens for a society. In the first, people are inherently flawed and need discipline. In the second, people are good and thrive when supported. He asks how the world's economy empowers characters to overcome obstacles, and whether regulations encourage competition or whether one organisation owns every shop. This is one framework among many, but the questions it raises are useful for any society: what does the state assume about its people, and what does it do about it? Worldbuilding economy picks up the money side.

Frequently asked questions

How do I create a government for a fantasy world?

Decide who holds military, wealth and legitimacy, choose a form of government that fits, and work out who decides, who enforces and who can challenge. Add detail as scenes need it.

How do I make political intrigue interesting?

Give readers a faction to care about early, keep the cast small at first, and make sure characters act in their own interest, as Mythcreants advises.

Do I need to name political parties or ideologies?

Not necessarily. Agresti did not identify any parties in her novel and focused on the characters' energy and approaches.

How do I keep political plots from getting confusing?

Limit the major issues to a few that readers can follow, and introduce factions gradually.

Should my fictional politics mirror real politics?

Mythcreants suggests that parallels to real issues help audiences identify with the conflicts. Writer's Digest's Agresti kept her story far from current events by choice.

Where Musael fits

A writer who has thought about power becomes a writer whose villains have reasons. In Musael's world and characters codex a faction, a title or an institution can each be an entry, with relations to the people who hold or want it, and events can sit on a timeline so a succession or a war happens in a consistent order. Continuity checks can flag a ruler who is in two places at once or holds a title before they earned it.

Sources

• Mythcreants, "Creating Realistic Cultures": mythcreants.com
• Mythcreants, "Five Stories With Poorly Crafted Political Conflicts": mythcreants.com
• Mythcreants Podcast, "515 Making Politics Compelling": mythcreants.com
• Mythcreants, "Five Tips for Running a Political Intrigue Campaign": mythcreants.com
• Aimee Agresti, "5 Tips for Writing About Politics in Fiction", Writer's Digest: writersdigest.com
• Stef Magister, "Politics and World-Building in Science Fiction and Fantasy", Writer's Digest: writersdigest.com
• Wikipedia, "Government": en.wikipedia.org