FUNDAMENTALS OF SETTING: DEMAND DUOS
Part V of Our Setting Series
I’ve been talking about Demands in the singular, but the truth is that much like in our real world, your Setting might have more than one Demand coursing through it — in fact the presence of more than one Demand tends to be the sign sine qua non of a deeply-considered Setting.
Though let’s be supremely clear: many of our stories don’t need more than one Demand — but if the work can sustain it (and you got the space and the energy to make it happen), two Demands will bring depth and complexity to one’s Setting that’s hard to beat.
Yes, two Demands are swell — but even better are two Demands that are contradictory and / or in conflict.
Like almost everything in fiction, Settings work best when they have something to differentiate them — when they have something to oppose them — like, say, another Demand. Demands Duo are common feature of good storytelling — once you’re aware of them you’ll see them everywhere.
Some classic examples: Settings that afflict their Protagonist with that most familiar of antagonistic Demand Duos: Make Money and Be Devoted to Family — Demands that are rarely easily reconciled. Then there’s the Adolescent staple: Follow Your Dreams and Be Practical and Conform to the Rationalizing Hammer of Capital. Or the capitalist hustle Demand Duo: Work Hard and Honest in a Criminal System or Commit Crime because of a Dishonest Criminal System. How about the Demand Duo from Star Wars that’s almost a default in YA literature: Be Loyal to Family and Fight Evil Empire.
You probably have your own Demand Duo that’s either deeply familiar or intrigues the shit out of you. In my own fiction it’s Be Dominican and Don’t Be Dominican, which, if you grew up like I did, will be a all-too familiar paradox.
Be authentic / protect yourself.
One could go on.
Remember: When you’re working with a Demand Duo there will often be a dominant Demand and a recessive Demand. That’s for the better, something to aim for. After all, if your antagonistic Demands are too equally matched you’ll end up with something that will be too schematic, more allegory than actual story. Don’t worry about the weaker Demand being too weak. Even if the reader doesn’t pick up both of your Demands they’ll still respond to the realness that the Demands combined bring to the proceedings.
Remember as well: whether we’re talking about one Demand or two, Settings are rarely in the position to communicate their Demands directly — the reader either discerns the Demand through implicature or because the Protagonist reflects on the Demand (aka info dumps us) or best of all through the Protagonist’s relationship with other characters.
When you’re designing your Settings’ Demands you should be simultaneously on the look-out for secondary characters who will help dramatize the Demands. Fortunately for most of us these Character-Demand pairings tend to happen organically, at the unconscious level.
Some examples of the Demand relationship: in Star Wars Uncle Owen represents the Be Loyal to Family Demand and depending on the edition you’re watching Biggs and Obi Wan and Lea embody the Fight Evil Empire Demand.
In The Lord of the Rings, the Shire Setting has a brute Demand: Be a Decent Respectable parochial Hobbit — a Demand that gets communicated by all the Hobbits gossiping in The Ivy Bush Inn. The Shire also has a second subtle Demand: Be Aware that the Shire is part of an apocalyptic multi-racial conflict zone called Middle-Earth that is communicated through Frodo’s relationship with his uncle Bilbo and Gandalf and to a lesser part through his relationship with elf-curious Samwise Gamgee.
Conscious or unconscious, once you’ve got one of those relationships in the mix, you have to work double-hard to to make these characters compelling enough to prevent them from being too obviously instrumental.
We’ve been talking about Demand Duos but that begs the question: can a Setting have three, four Demands?
Sure but I don’t work at that level so I don’t have a ton to say on this front. If a third Demand does slip into my fiction that’s only because the work makes it happen at an unconscious level. Two Demands, unequal, in opposition to one another are what I’m aiming for. Anything extra has to come of their own accord as I don’t usually work towards their realization. Two Demands, unequal, in opposition to one another are difficult enough to finesse.
Happily, neither you nor I, nor our Settings, are likely to need more.
And because all techniques benefit from repetition I close by repeating: Demands deepen our Settings by giving them the social dimension that we human beings are super alert to and super addicted to.
It’s just a basic human law that shit gets real for people when shit get social. Same with readers: shit get real for readers when Settings get social—when Settings have Demands—ideally two Demands, unequal, in opposition to one another.
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Part I of Our Setting Series here
Part II of Our Setting Series here