Rogue Factions
It has been mentioned several times that the actions characters take are not entirely driven by the author. If you read other blogs or articles written by other authors, you will find that they often talk about their characters taking matters into their own hands, or refusing to do what the author intended for them to do. It is truly an interesting phenomenon to behold.
Misbehaving characters rose to the forefront today as I finished the outline of one of the religious factions central to Child of War. My original intent was to have two religions at odds with each other. I had envisioned a “good religion” – one with whom the reader would empathize – and a “bad religion”. The latter is aligned with the major antagonists, and while not a religion of evil, per se, certainly one for whom the reader would find little sympathy.
Ah, the best laid plans, and all that. What happened today is that my good religion went rogue on me. Oh, they started out with the best of intentions, but having been left to their own devices they’ve turned out to be just as ugly, just as ruthless, just as unscrupulous as the enemy. Without ever intending it to be so, my religious sub-theme has become a treatise against state sponsored religion. The concept of a separation of church and state follows quite logically as a result of the rather despicable activities of this particular faction. That was not my intent, but it has certainly become the result.
What worries me now is how my other religious faction will behave. Now that I’ve completed the outline for this “good” faction, I intend to turn my attention to the “bad” religion. Surprisingly, I no longer know what to expect. Will they turn out to be equally ruthless? Will they live up to the despicable reputation they have carried to date? Or, like Elphaba, do we learn that they have been sorely misunderstood and were really the ethical group all along? Those aren’t leading questions designed to instill interest in the reader. They’re questions that I cannot in truth answer right now, since until I see how they behave in the sub-plot, I honestly don’t know those answers.
Novel writing, it seems, is an evolutionary process. We start with a general idea, something we believe will provide the foundation for a good story. As the concept grows and as we start to flesh out the details, however, the resulting manuscript begins to take on a life of its own. Our characters become three-dimensional. They have their own goals, their own likes and dislikes, and they certainly have their own personalities that may not fit very well with the image we, the authors, may have had in mind. That, perhaps, is the most exciting aspect of writing. Learning what happens next in a novel is as exciting to the author as it is to the reader.
So as of today, half of the major religious sub-plot is complete. I start work on the second half – the “bad religion” half – tomorrow. I’m hoping to wrap that up before I leave for New Hampshire on Friday, but there are no guarantees. Stay tuned…
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