Much Ado About Nothing

Not everyone likes to write about the mystery, back-stabbing qualities, and intrigue of a Court system. But if you're writing fantasy, you're probably going to hit on it at some point in your career. Personally, I've always rather liked twisty, knotty little problems, and am thus willing to offer my great expertise in Court and Court intrigue. Mostly because I've been dying to write about writing for a few weeks now... or maybe years.... I am opinionated.1. If the Court is unhappy, why the hell are they unhappy? I've seen often (*cough*Mercedes Lackey*cough*) Courts that are just unhappy for no apparent reason. People brood and sulk, etc. But while a certain level of mean-spirit is going to be prevalent, unless there are other circumstances, it's not going to be much worse than an American high school. Yes, there will be rumours and they will affect people, and this will be considered a pain by some characters, but there still shouldn't be any soul-crushing hatred and fear of Court life. If there is, show me why. Also, if your ruler is an asshole, no one is going to hang around with him if they can help it, and the Court is going to be much smaller-- also, if your ruler is an asshole, he's not going to want a large Court because he's going to like different people and want different people around him. Just keep it in mind.2. Servants are both your friend and your enemy. First thing you've got to know is, just servants or servants and slaves or slaves? Depending on your time period, you might need to have slaves somewhere, as painful as you might find it. Suck it up in the favor of historical accuracy or use a secondary world in which there are no slaves-- probably because of either religion or because they freed themselves already. Second thing is, servants are everywhere, but they are not omniscient. They have a stake in their masters' lives, but they aren't going to be everywhere all the time because they are going to want to sleep, eat, and drink on occasion-- and just for the record, not every kitchen maid is a slut and she will not always be in the barn with some guy. Just so you know. I.E. Servants are characters too, not just deux ex machina. If you need them to be somewhere at a certain time, give them a reason. I'm willing to accept quite a lot, just give me plausible believability here.3. Most or all of your Court marriages are going to be political. They are contracts and you should view them as such. Few people are going to be in love, so if your female/male character is in love with another female/male, marriage and the production of heirs is nothing more than a slight hurdle. Side note: if your king or queen is in love with someone of the same sex, for the love of all that's holy, he still needs to get married. But anyway, as long as there's some method of birth control and has been for a while, it probably won't matter if both of a married couple have lovers. There might be a societal restraint of some sort against this, usually for the women. You can invent a way around this or leave it in place, whatever, but be thinking about it. It doesn't have to be a great problem and not everyone has to be unhappy. If they need to be, go for it, but otherwise, you're good.4. If you want intrigue, you need to know what it is and what the consequences are. Reputation was very important in the time when there were actual Courts, so rumour can be deadly. For an example of this, look at Shakespeare's-- it's all about rumours! It used to be believed in some places that unless someone was well-respected or renowned, he would not have an existence after death-- or anything after death, for that matter. You earned renown in battle. The reason that I'm saying this is simple: reputation is important, so don't underestimate what your intrigue is doing to your characters. They can be ruined for life just by rumour.5. To make a Court and to have Court intrigue, you HAVE to know precisely what is taboo in your society. You need to know all of the intricacies, the little faux pas that occur, and you need to know the consequences of this. How much dissent is even the smallest thing going to cause? What are the consequences of the largest? If you don't know these little things, you aren't going to have very much intrigue because it's not going to be believable and no one is going to believe anything about your Court-- or they will, but just because they aren't thinking. You need to know a great deal about your society to make rumours plausible, because you have to know what shoes to wear to a function, what words have negative connotations (and not all words will have the same negative connotations as those in our world, though they could). Pay attention to your world and know what you're doing, because Courts, rumours, and intrigues are the most profound parts of your world, the most telling to your culture, and while you don't need to say everything, the reader has to have a feeling that you know what is going on.