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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/9389
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/9389
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

If you want examples of _successful_ diplomacy, try CJ Cherryh's _Foreigner_ series, which I think is up to 15 books so far. The main character, Bren, is a diplomat between humans and the non-human species who are native to the planet where the humans crash-landed. Positively fascinating. Hard going at times, but I was _never_ bored.

And diplomacy is _not_ inherently boring if the stakes are sufficiently high. If the failure of diplomacy is war, genocide, invasion, name your armageddon, then jeez, the reader is going pay attention.

Also, don't make everyone invested in the outcome.

- What if your diplomat is a "cowboy" who's overly impressed with himself? Or she's a stickler for the rulebook no matter what? (You can find both of those in _Star Trek_, I think.)
- It's been quipped about a certain political stalemate in our own time that one party "never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity." What if one of your diplomats is an idiot, or an obstructionist, or a religious nutcase? (Martin Sheen's president in the movie of _The Dead Zone._) 
- What if your diplomat is a sentient AI come to test your species before annihilating it? (_Battlestar Galatica_, the Ron Moore version, the miniseries.)
- What if your diplomat doesn't speak the language, or the translator disappears? (Also Trek, "Loud as a Whisper.")

Original score: 17