Basically, there are two organizations that are against each other. I want a character from one organization to defect to the other, but have no idea how to make that happen. My initial idea was to have her infiltrate the other side, but this person is second in command to the leader of her organization and someone said it wouldn't make sense for someone so valuable to be a spy. They suggested that she just be a spy, but I don't want her to just be some random, because I wanted her to be sophisticated and one of the best fighters and well respected, to the point where others are jealous of her. I wanted her and the leader to have a father daughter relationship (though it's revealed later that he doesn't care much for her. He was supposed to view her as one of his most powerful weapons.) She was supposed to be the first one he recruited, so I wanted her to be kind of a big deal. I guess the idea was her being an assasin with a high status, but I guess that won't work. I just think making her a random spy wouldn't have the same effect. But I'm not sure what else to do. Taking what I said into account, I wanted her to defect at some point. Any ideas on how I could do that. I love stories but suck at coming up with anything. Any idea would be nice.
Have her betrayed from within her own organization? Have her realize that her personal values align better with the other organization? Have her taken prisoner and while imprisoned begins to sympathize with the other side?
@Prettyinpnk Welcome to the site! Maybe the organization is lying about something, and she starts out believing it before learning the truth?
I don't know if you've seen Avatar, but Zuko was a prince to a nation and he defected after a series of events (his sister being a b****, his father being an a******) and realized that what his nation was doing was wrong. Vegeta, essentially the highest ranking Sayajins and rightful prince, defects after he realizes that him and the Z-fighters have a common and more pressing enemy. Spike from Buffy turns good because he temporarily becomes physically incapable of being bad and while in said predicament and eventually falls in love with the heroine. So there's three big ones right there for ya: Betrayal, common enemy, and love.
It really depends on how you put the story together. A classic approach would be that they become jaded and tired with their own organisation. The other side is just as bad of course, but they've been too close to too much bad stuff where they are to feel like this can be allowed to stand. However; my preferred approach would be quite different. If it was me writing them I'd make this character be a thrill seeker; someone who loves secrets and lies and deceit. That's what got them into the spy game. They get a real kick out of it and they feel so superior because of what they do. They are arrogant and cavalier and believe that they can do anything. Everything about this is just to stroke their ego, to make them feel like the puppet master. And then what is more exciting than being a double agent? Not only would that give them even more knowledge of what is going on, but also the opportunity to pull even more strings. They go from being important in one agency to important in two; more people beholden to them. I love this kind of character because they are dark and weird and take a kind of semi-sexual pleasure from lying to people. They are such terrible people and very unreliable too. They'll play both agencies against each other, wanting to sit on top of the ashes and show both their handlers and their colleagues who is really the best here. They will love that they are betraying their own agency, seeing that as evidence of just how awesome they are.
You can have the character find out about how her boss really feels about her, I wouldn't do it where he tells her but she could have heard something (been suspicious of him for another reason, bugged his office without being detected? she is close to him, so she'd probably know how right?) and then decided that she wanted to request going undercover at the other organization. I hope it helped a little~
Thank you so much for all of your suggestions! I especially like the last one. Guess I'll have to decide which one I like the best. If you don't mind, I'd like to share another idea and see if you like it. So, I wanted the story to have five main characters. Have the assassin be one of them and then betray them, but that might not work. So, maybe I'd have the fifth member be someone else at first? I was thinking of them being killed by the assassin to show how ruthless she is, and to show the relatively young main characters what they're dealing with. But the story isn't supposed to get that serious until the end of the second book, and I don't think the other characters would forgive the assassin when she defects. What do you think?
A crisis of conscience is usually the best method, as others have mentioned. In theory, this would mimic the reader's own feelings in the classic good guys vs. bad guys framework. So if you MC is one of the good ones the reader will expect them to see the light at some point and choose the right side. It works the other way too... you can have a bad MC become "corrupted" and flip from good to bad if you're focusing more on the villainy. Personal gain can work too if one side is more advantageous or profitable for the character regardless of their good/bad alignment. It's a bit more cynical and harder to sell to the reader but can certainly be done. I wouldn't worry too much about this. "Just a spy" isn't really a thing. Spies require a much broader skill set to do their jobs correctly. In short, they tend to be very sophisticated because they have to be excellent actors. They have to be persuasive, charismatic, adaptable, unflappable, clever, and (perhaps most importantly) politically/ideologically reliable so they aren't tempted to flip sides when they assume a role counter to their beliefs. As an example, you wouldn't want an American spy in Russia to embrace communism after they embed themselves in it or vice versa, so spies are carefully screened for any character flaws that might lead them down an undesirable road. But in your case, with a character whom you're actively looking to flip, their political/ideological believes will have to be decisively unreliable, so that's where you're probably best served doing most of the character's development. Lots of potential in there.
You'd be surprised what people will forgive in a well written story. You have to make them believe that the person in question wants and deserves a second chance though.
Aside from what's been said here, one of my favorite methods for doing this is to make the antagonist inherently unhappy in their current position. There's nothing wrong with their position, perhaps they don't even question their morals, but there is still something missing in their life. They may often act down or miserable or unsympathetic, but some of their true feelings can sometimes shine through, almost attempting to reach for what they really want in their life, but then quickly regain their composure, having little hope for ever truly achieving what they really want. Then later, the protagonists can show them that they do have the inner strength to get what they want, or something. Not only does it make a sympathetic and deep character, but it also acts as foreshadowing.
