Feeling Rather Like Writing Politics Today But Only Fictional Politics

Yesterday night I came home from work with two desires, to write and to sleep. The desire to sleep won out and I didn't wake up and start work on my novel until 8:15 p.m. Even that was in fits and starts as I spent more time chatting with people than I did actually writing. I did participate in one word war where I wrote a little under 400 words in 15 minutes (way above my usual pace) but in all, only 1949 words yesterday. Which I guess isn't bad for 2.5 hours of writing (actually pretty good) but I was hoping for a few more.

16,942 / 50,000 (33.9%)

On the train on the way home from work yesterday, I solved my political party problem. I came up with a left to right spectrum of five parties and coalitions. Then, yesterday night during my writing time I actually had to come up with how many seats each had before the election that's about to take place in my novel. One of the main characters (though he doesn't get his own POV) is Matthew Starwood who's a Socialist Party candidate for Parliament.

The scenario of the alternate history United States as it stands right now in the novel is:

The ruling coalition is made up of the Union Party (yes that is a play on the Ulster Unionists in Northern Ireland) a centrist (how they get elected) but pro-England pary and the Federalist Party who's the descendents of the original Federalist Party but very closely resemble the moderates in the modern Republican Party in this reality. The two parties together control 197 seats.

The far right Traditionalist Party (basically akin to the National Front) has 31 seats at the outset of the story. They have just left the coalition over a split on the war in Transjordan so the ruling coalition no longer has the above 200 seats they need to govern (hence the new elections taking place).

The opposition party of record is the Liberal Coalition. The central Liberal Party was formed out of the ashes of the Democratic-Republicans (who were disgraced after being forced to surrender to England in 1815 and disbanded). They are in coalition with smaller parties like the Greens and the Aboriginal Rights Party for 133 seats. The Liberal Party is 125 seats but smaller parties must have it in their platform that they will align with the Liberal Coalition if they get members elected. This party's central mission is to oppose the Enemies of the Commonwealth Act (very similar but more far reaching than the Patriot Act in real life) and to oppose the war in Transjordan.

The Socialist Party is outside of the Liberal Coalition due to the fact that they have 34 seats of their own election. They have announced prior to the election that they will vote with the Liberal Coalition should they win enough seats combined to make up a majority in the next Parliament. They are pretty much what their name implies.

There are, if I did the math correct, 197 in the ruling coalition, 167 in the opposition coalition, and 36 outside the coalitions (the Traditionalists plus five independents who don't want to align with an ideology.

With public opinion heavily divided about the Enemies of the Commonwealth Act and the war in Transjordan, a potential left coalition stands to gain more than the necessary 16 seats to become the ruling coalition. The Detroit Central consituency, where the book takes place is one of the swing seats where a Socialist, that being Matthew Starwood, is in a tight race with the Union Party candidate (who has no name yet). Starwood is a member of the John Harper Society (despite the others being die-hard capitalists by-and-large) and Liam goes to work for him through a combination of admiration for his standing in the Society and pressure from Mia.

Yeah, I'd say I was quite productive on the political climate of the novel yesterday evening. ;)

I also followed through with my pledge to define characters more. Matthew Starwood is basically Bernie Sanders but leading a double life where he plays the part of a John Harper Society member by being a lot less disheveled and colder in demeanor. Though the Society knows what he's really like and he never will achieve leadership status the Harperites are throwing as much support behind him as they can without arousing suspicion of why business leaders would be supporting a Socialist.

One surprise did arise as I was writing yesterday. It turns out that Mia is developing quite a crush on the professorly (he's actually a professor of anthropology) Matthew Starwood. This will probably create tension between Liam and Mia further down the road.

I'm about to develop Mia today as a seductress without really trying (she's cute, cute, cute, if I didn't mention it before). Yeah, you'd think I'd have given the protagonist's love interest more of a personality (beside being the other half of Liam's thinking and not a little bit bossy and "I told you so") before I hit the 20,000 mark but it's NaNoWriMo so I'm not splitting hairs.

I just have to be careful not to get away from the central John Harper Society plot as this election plot is taking far more of my interest. :)

And finally, here are the contests:

2004 NaNoWriMo: 19,532 words
2005 NaNoWriMo: 16,942 words

reliantfc3: 25,028 words
incendiarymind: 16,942 words