Is this Setting bland?

The OP can write whatever he wants, naturally - but if he wants it to be taken seriously as any kind of political commentary, it'll take a LOT more research and thought that the fairly transparent straw-man that currently exists. Starting with the assumption that "Democrat = socialist", followed by "socialism = assassinating political opponents/threats" is already going to have anyone who knows anything about either of those things rolling their eyes and throwing the book as far as they possibly can.

Since I teach political theory classes to people not too much older than the OP, might I make a few suggestions if he really wishes to continue with a plotline like the one he suggests:

1) Drop any obvious allusions to contemporary parties and party structures. You're obviously not dealing with anything that looks like the modern Democratic party if you think it's basically socialism. You also want people to come to your premise without pre-existing biases, which strapping the name of a modern political party to your heroes and villains doesn't help.

2) Never assume that your reader will automatically agree with your point of view. You can't hope to be taken seriously when you look like you're writing propaganda for the Tea Party, but you seem to think it's mainstream consensus.

3) Make sure you absolutely know what the ideologies you're talking about actually mean. You clearly don't really know what socialism is, or what its aims and objectives are other than "just, tax and spend", and you appear to think there is no difference between a welfare state and straight-up Stalinism. I suggest you look into some of the reasoning behind those spending policies, public policies and the resultant societal outcomes in places like Norway, Sweden and Iceland which have very strong and very popular welfare states, as well as very robust and very transparent democratic systems.

4) Perhaps look into some of the international academic arguments surrounding these different ideologies, rather than just looking at modern mainstream US politics and political discourse and assuming it's got the lot of it covered. At minimum, I suggest a cursory glance at the arguments and critics of: John Rawls (in particular his Theory of Justice and Two Principles), Robert Nozick (especially Anarchy, State and Utopia), and perhaps either Michael Walzer's Spheres of Justice, or some of Michael Sandel's works. These are very different political outlooks (espoused by Harvard University political science professors rather than politicians), all of which look nothing like the caricatures you're relying on. They're also extremely famous, so you shouldn't have much difficulty finding introductory essays/podcasts/videos explaining the core theories online.

5) As I specifically mention at the very beginning of every single politics class I have ever taught: If you are going to criticise someone's position, always use the strongest possible argument that they can make. Inventing a weak parody of your opponent's argument and criticising that is called a "straw man", and usually just shows that you either don't understand both sides of the argument, or that you can't think of a winning argument without changing the rules of the game.

6) Related to the previous point, be as critical towards your own personal opinion as you are of your opponent's. If you are simply ignoring any criticism of your favoured approach, including the valid and obvious ones, simply because you can't think of a response or because it makes your argument more difficult, then you are being dishonest both with yourself and with your reader. Your readers, and in particular those who disagree with you, will spot it immediately, and call you out on it every single time.

Hopefully that helps you make your project a little bit less like overt propagandising.

 

@The Question Asker - I'm sorry you sort of got skewered here with one of your very first posts on the site. Hopefully it doesn't chase you away. As you can see, your question sparked a lot of controversy. Obviously you don't have to implement anything we say, but I hope you'll find a way to sift through the various responses here and pick out the things that will be useful to you. Despite the tone of our replies, we aren't attacking you for being you. We're hearing the warning bells sound for your story and are, in our exciteable way, trying to steer you out of danger. You alone know why you're writing this story, so don't let us discourage you from it completely. I really think that if you change the names of the parties and politic ideas, as well as fix a couple plausibility issues with your setting, your plot could be a decent thriller.

Talking politics just has a nasty way of turning people against each other. I'm of the opinion that we need both political parties to balance one another, but that both have lost their way in recent decades. In a perfect world, both parties would be friendly coworkers rather than rabid enemies. Ah well. We don't live in a perfect world. I think you'd feel a lot more freedom to stretch and explore the ideas important to you if you fictionalized your political operations in your story. But again, don't let this make you see us on the forum as hostile. We're not, I promise!

 

Actually, a lot of political systems do just that - just not the creakingly old-fashioned American and British ones (we're both too busy shouting "but it's tradition!" every time someone points out that it doesn't bloody work any more).

Most modern democracies have a proportional representation system, where the make-up of government accurately reflects the political ideologies that the voters want (so no "tactical" voting for your second choice candidate so that your least favourite won't win), and the country is led by a coalition of different parties governing by compromise.

I'm quite a fan of the German model myself, and (considering the aim in both cases is to make it very difficult for one party to gain supreme power) I imagine there'd be considerable support for adopting a similar model in the States if the US Constitution wasn't worshipped as infallible holy writ.


Edit: This actually reminds me of something I forgot to say yesterday. Considering the main point of the plot involves political parties, an in particular one of them keeping things quiet (and presumably undermining democracy in the process) there's doesn't seem to be an awful lot of democracy going on.

The way you talk about the composition of the council and so on, and the way that your main character becomes part of it - it looks like your councillors are just people who have been hired to do the job because they fit the requirements, rather than having actually been elected to represent their constituents.

I'm not sure if this is really on purpose, or just for simplicity, but virtually nowhere just has the one elected position (be that mayor, president, etc) to run the entire place. Councils are made up of elected officials too, complete with their own internal politics, hierarchies of candidates and electoral cycles. I don't get the feeling from your OP that you've looked into this.

 

"I'm sorry you sort of got skewered here with one of your very first posts on the site."

Save your pity. I do not want an apology.

Anyway, I will sift through the multiple posts and see what I can use to improve my writing. Now that I have re-read my Original Post, I see that it had problems out the wazoo. I do want to write ficition, and this incident has shown me that politics and the world of fiction do not mix. I understand that now. Honestly, I will just scrap this altogether. There are other topics out there that I can write about. No biggie.

"...don't let this make you see us on the forum as hostile. We're not, I promise!"

The jury is still out on that.

And also, since I am still pretty new here, is there a way I can "Ignore" a user? Make it to where I do not see posts by certain people? Because I would really like to, you know, not see terobi and Chicken Freak's posts. Ever.

 

That's a shame as they are both quite insightful and as a writing forum we do not make it a policy to squelch opposing ideas or opinions. That kind of censorship is anathema to us. But, if you want to place any member on ignore you only have to click their avatar and you'll get a dark colored little pop-up window. Therein you will find the ignore feature. This does not function with staff members given that they are tasked with the management of the forum.

 

Blatant Real-World politics and the world of fiction don't mix. You have to be clever, sneak up on the reader with your political commentary and stuff it into their brain while they aren't looking. Gulliver's Travels for example. Biting political satire for its time. mere fantasy now for us Yahoos.

 

I would add Francis Fukuyama's The Origins of Political Order to that list. I see he has the sequel out, I'll have to pick it up.

 

I just spotted this thread. It brought up all sorts of interesting points.
Probably the biggest is if it's okay for an author to write a fictional story with a specific agenda to promote an idea. ANY IDEA.

To me, the answer is, yes. Of course, it's okay. That doesn't mean everyone is going to agree or even be interested in the subject matter. It reminds me of a Sci-fi novel series & I can't recall the author and I'm too lazy to look it up, but the first book in the series is called "Live Free or Die."
It's a great book. Awesome sci-fi story & has a subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) political agenda that I disagree with in several areas. However, since the story intrigued me enough, I've read the whole series more than once.

Pushing all that aside, I was more annoyed by the MC randomly shooting a couple of people & just happens to run into someone with information for him. Seems a little too coincidental for my tastes.

 

This seems an extreme reaction (not that you'll see this post anyway).

Might I ask why, since my main aim here has been to make your "political thriller" plot look a little less like a one-sided polemic based on an incomplete understanding of the issues and positions. Considering teaching this stuff to people your age is literally my job, I believe I offered some suggestions and counterpoints intended to do just that.

If you disagree, then that is your prerogative, but to me it just looks like you simply do not want the input of anyone who does not share your extremely right-wing political view. For the record, my reading suggestions were unbiased - Robert Nozick's right-libertarian view of unregulated free markets and a minimal "night watchman" state probably maps pretty closely onto your own political opinion.

Frankly, if this is your reaction to even constructive criticism, writing is probably not something you're suited for.

 

Without being harsh, that right there smacks of either ignorance or political indoctrination.

You'd be well advised to read about Socialism outwith the context of the USA. American views and definitions of Socialism don't tend to align with those in other places such as Europe .

 

This would be mildly akin to China Miéville's The City and the City, sans the magic realism elements.

 

Don't think of it as bland, think of it as simple. Simple can be just as stunning as complexity if done right! Many authors choose this route as it allows them and therefore their readers to focus more on the plot and characters themselves. The last thing you want is your story to be about the setting instead of the plot. Write your story and add what you see as the author (Imma' call it writer goggles i.e. Put on your Writer googles! Lol!) do not worry right now if the it is too bland. A setting is like cooking. You can add as many or take awa- You can always go back to add details when you are proofreading.

 

As I have said before, I will scrap this idea altogether. No more need to keep this thread alive.

I wonder if management can lock a thread?... (Hint-Hint, Nudge-Nudge)

 

We don't lock threads unless they violate forum policy. All you need to do to stop getting updates on this thread is go to the top of the thread page and "unwatch" the thread. It's over to the right-ish. You can set this to be the default as well on your preferences page. I have mine set that way because the notices are just too much to deal with given the time I've been with the forum.

 

Why are you immediately stating what Millington is like instead of explaining it. I would certainly reconsider what you've written.

 

If you're going to make an ideological/partisan piece, the last thing you want to do is to write in an American setting. Politics is a lot less entrenched in life here than in most countries, with the result that most people are generally indifferent and extreme or nutty candidates have an easy shot at winning the primaries. The reaction of the public to this is to:

1. Scream their heads off.
2. Buy into alarmist bullcrap.
3. Close ranks and wind up voting for someone that they wouldn't have even considered six months prior.

I can't see how that will make for a fun story. Even Rand, writing in the Cold War, used a hypothetical future where communism was gaining steam.

EDIT: Didn't notice the OP had given up writing this. This is still my advice to those interested in political fiction.