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An interesting theme that appeared out of nowhere in War of Nytefall: Lost is the concept of promises and keeping them. While I wrote the first draft, I began to notice how often characters declared that they were promised something. Part of this stemmed from me not having a clear idea of what certain heroes and villains wanted. Those came about as I progressed and it seemed to always come down to a favor/promise being aggressively called in.
Since these promises became so integral to the central plot, I can’t go into specifics. There was a trick with these and that was having some of the characters who weren’t holding their side of the deals not be malicious. It was more that they either forgot or didn’t realize they made the promise in the first place. On the other side of the scenarios were those who refused to bend on what they wanted even if it was against the wishes of the person they made a deal with. This turned everything into a chaotic mess, which fed the overall tone of the book. I didn’t want things to be totally off the wall, but I required things to fall into a mess before it resolved. Broken promises ended up being a great source of conflict and confusion.
Many questions came about because of this focus:
- Is there ever a good reason to break a promise?
- What about people who make promises just to make people happy?
- Do you keep to a promise if it turns dark?
- What if two people make two conflicting promises about their future?
I’d love to say I figured out some answers to these questions, but I came to realize that it differs from person to person. Not only the characters, but the author. In some situations, I see a promise as worth breaking because it could hurt people. Others might see it as needing to be fulfilled since it isn’t a sure thing that it will result in damage. Part of this stems from knowing the full extent of the promise too. Some change throughout the story because one side wants to alter the parameters, which comes off as unfair and manipulative. There’s one promise that simply falls apart because those involved have gradually gone in different directions. It would be unfair to someone if they had to sacrifice to go through with the promise.
What do you think about promises between characters? Do you think they should always be upheld?
Legends of Windemere 
In my ideal world, people would either keep promises, or have an extremely good reason why they didn’t. However, this isn’t how things really work. Since people in real life make promises and don’t keep them, with or without good reason, forget they’ve made them, etc, it’s only natural things like that should happen in books. Although, if the author cares enough to mention the promise being made, I would hope the promise-making is important to the story in some way, whether it be for character development or because it’s important to the plot itself.
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Good point that fiction should mimic reality in this way. People forget or break promises on purpose all the time. They aren’t always villains who do it too.
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Exactly!
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It depends on my characters. At the moment I’ve got one ex-villain who promised a lady he would find her on the other side. Now that’s all well and good, but the guy’s lost his memory and doesn’t even know his name, so he isn’t technically breaking a promise, but…she doesn’t know that. Argh……lol
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Amnesia can always pose a problem with this type of thing. That does make it possible to forget and not make the character come off as openly mean.
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Characters can be role models, so, as Tori said, they need to either keep their promises, or have a good reason not to. 😎
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Yup. Though, I do think they need to be flawed as well. Sometimes, I see people claiming that role models need to be the ideal, but that ends up removing the realism. So, you get criticized for something else. Although, broken promises seem to get passes more often than other mistakes.
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Good role models don’t need to be perfect, but they do need to recognise their flaws and try to fix or control them 😎
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True.
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I think the promise is only as good as the storyline need supports it. In other words, if it is a better story to break the promise, break it.
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Good point. Story must decide the promise’s fate. 😀
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Yup.
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Some good comments were given already. As others have said, it really depends on the character and the nature of the promise. You can promise someone that he or she will make it to a destination safely, but circumstances may align that you’re unable to keep that promise.
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Forgot about the circumstances situation. Good example.
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It’s funny; I’ve been trying lately to teach the wee one the importance of keeping one’s promises. Turns out kids don’t really care whether they keep them or not, so I guess there’s a question of maturity there as well.
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Promises definitely require a certain amount of maturity. I’m still trying to get my son to understand that ‘sorry’ doesn’t undo a broken promise. Feels like a long battle.
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Ah, yes, the infamous sorry maneuver… Kids love that one, don’t they?
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That they do. I know a few adults that depend on it as well.
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Tell me about it…
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I think the author has to be in the driver’s seat here. Use the promise as a source of tension. Either it’s extremely difficult to keep, and provides tension to the MC, or it’s being unfulfilled places a burden upon the MC who is depending upon it.
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Interesting. Does it change if it’s more of a subplot? I don’t think it will, but I am curious if that changes the tension requirement.
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I think we should grab at tension where we can. It doesn’t all have to be world threatening, but promises are easy to massage into a bit of tension.
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So, we can add a bunch of smaller sources of tension to build into the big one. It can affect character psychology too.
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To a degree. You have to decide what’s worthy, but that gnawing about whether someone will come through can be helpful. One character might not think twice about it. It might be debilitating to another.
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I think back at the people who broke promises when I was young and I think of the feeling I had when they did it. But it wasn’t the broken promise that I remember, it was their cold reaction of not caring. For me, that is how a villain is born.
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That does make the difference between hero and villain here. Bad guys don’t care if they break promises. Good guys show remorse even if it was an accident.
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Interesting idea to have so much turn on social contracts (promises) instead of an external enemy!
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Thanks.
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