A lot happens in this book. The Fasallon Empire falls. Along with the political structure, trade alliances break down. There are shortages and civil unrest. The Fasallon version of Bread and Circuses (Fish and Festivals). Roads are built to facilitate trade in an economy that was formerly based solely around the ocean. A new political structure is established to replace the old. New alliances are formed. So, probably not a good idea to just skip over this.

However, a lot of stuff happening does not make a story. To make a story, you need a central conflict. And I've been a little hung up on that. What I've come up with so far feels a little odd. Which of course, doesn't mean it can't work. But I'd love a little feedback from this group.

Background:

My MC, Vatar, is a blacksmith by trade. He also has considerable magical powers, but he prefers not to use most of them if he can help it. (Don't threaten his family, though. )
He's got a complex background. He was raised among the Dardani, plains-dwelling semi-nomadic herdsmen. But his mother is Caerean and his real father is Fasallon. And his wife is Valson.

Veleus is Vatar's biological father. Through the first two books he has been consistently supportive of Vatar. But now we come to the third book.

Veleus was high up in the old power structure. He's one of those trying to hold things together as the Fasallon Empire disintegrates and something new takes its place. And he knows that they need Vatar and his unique talents to do this. Now, some things, like building the roads across the plains, Vatar is perfectly willing to help out with. Others, like taking a position similar to his father's, he wants no part of.

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Also, if you could put him in a sort of lose-lose situation, like if Vatar does what Veleus wants, then something important to Vatar is lost/destroyed/killed, and if Vatar doesn't do what Veleus wants, then something else, maybe less important to Vatar personally but important to society as a whole, is lost/destroyed/killed, then that could be big enough to encompass a whole book.

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Hmm. That sounds a little like what happens in another context in book four. You've made me wonder if I can use this to foreshadow the bigger decision that Vatar will face in that book. That could be interesting. But probably a subplot.

Thinking hat still on.

Edited because I obviously copied the wrong thing.

Seven ways social beings interact, each with potential for antagonism and conflict, internal and/or external;

• Codetermination
• Cooperation
• Coordination
• Contention
• Competition
• Confrontation
• Conflagration

Vatar's preference to not use his magic abilities seems to me at the core of an unstated internal conflict (contention that might rise to competition, confrontation, and perhaps conflagration, and that might inform antagonistic forces that drive his turns through change, epiphany, discovery, reversal; countered with but parallel to Veleus' motives and agendas, an external conflict, that also holds potential antagonism forces.

And lest I forget, conflict and antagonism correlate closely with theme, moral, and message. Vatar as a reluctant messiah? Confronted with serving the Greater Good or individual needs and values: self or duty, honor, obligation? Veleus' broader vision of a restored larger social equilibrium or Vatar's narrower or different vision?

Veleus and Vatar's relationship seems poised for a potent conflict oriented around those or similar themes and motifs.

Conflict as a broader meaning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict

Conflict as a narrative meaning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_(narrative) though I don't agree that there's necessarily a versus mentality in conflict, mostly because antagonism can be favorable and internal as well as external and with perfectly logical internal resistances to a desired change posing opposition. I.e., fear of success (re: power, fame, notoriety, wealth and their attendant compromises and sacrifices of self-identity) causing resistances to change?

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What if you wrote the book from Veleus' point of view rather than Vatar's. That way you can explore the Fassalon power structure more and show some additional change in Veleus since, at least in the first book, he is character the reader will identify with.

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He's a good guy in the second book, too.

That's an interesting possibility. Part of me wants to keep all four books centered on Vatar. But if I ask the question "Who has the most to lose?", the answer is not Vatar. And Veleus has other children who are also affected by the changes. Vatar, after all, is self-sufficient at this point. And he always has the option to return to the Dardani, or even the Valson. Veleus and his other kids don't.

Lots of good ideas.

Edit: It seems then that a central conflict might be Vatar's desire for a private life opposed by Veleus' need for Vatar's abilities in the public stakes realm. In order to avoid a top heavy cerebral story, though, Veleus' coercive co-opting of Vatar's abilities might draw Vatar into the public life he prefers to avoid. Say, an invented or convenient disaster that draws Vatar out through his compassionate nature, and a couple more setback/letdowns of like situations that coerce Vatar into an undesirable public life. Then his anagnorisis might be that he's been used by Veleus; his reversal could be that a public life is not as bad as he'd thought. He's seduced by the power that corrupts, then his peripety might be that he's truly not equipped for public life and sets out to nobly sacrifice his public life through a self-sabotage that goes horribly wrong.

You said don't mess with Vatar's family. To me, that is your conflict. Whatever the events going on around him, make his family get drawn in somehow. Either his son gets caught up in the events and brings it home (like the Patriot, with Mel "how that heck does an Australian play an American Colonialist AND William Wallace?" Gibson) Or perhaps someone wants Vatar's help and kidnaps his family for to ensure he gets it, etc... In other words, you could have a reluctant hero story. He wants to stay home. The world destroys his home. So he destroys his world (or, at least the aspect which threatens him...)

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You said don't mess with Vatar's family. To me, that is your conflict. Whatever the events going on around him, make his family get drawn in somehow. Either his son gets caught up in the events and brings it home (like the Patriot, with Mel "how that heck does an Australian play an American Colonialist AND William Wallace?" Gibson) Or perhaps someone wants Vatar's help and kidnaps his family for to ensure he gets it, etc... In other words, you could have a reluctant hero story. He wants to stay home. The world destroys his home. So he destroys his world (or, at least the aspect which threatens him...)

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Of course a father/son conflict is enough to carry a story. I believe a guy named Sophocles proved this some years ago.

Is that what you want to write though? What do your readers expect? Unless this conflict has been in your mind all along, it might require you to go back and touch books one and two to establish continuity. Is it worth it, or even possible?