But what is the major conflict of a book? Is it the one that reaches its peak at the climax? If so, I'm in a major bind.

My climax is a final confrontation between a father and son who have vastly different ideas of right and wrong. What the father reveres as the best thing in the world, the son sees as corrupt and is actively working to destroy. But I'm finding that I need to start the story when the father is a child in order for the reader to understand why he loves this thing so much. Thus, no son, no major conflict.

I do have conflict: a war, for one thing, and marital problems among other characters. The father confronts the essential "evil" that his son exemplifies throughout the beginning and comes to hate and fight it.

Maybe I'm not understanding the concept of major conflict, or else my story is too convoluted to work. Do any of you have any suggestions for me? I'm just about going crazy thinking about this, because I really love this story and don't want to let it go without a fight.

OSC talks about something he calls the MICE quotient -- a mnemonic for "Milieu, Idea, Character, Events." He proposes that most or all stories have one central structure that falls into one of these categories.

Milieu: A person goes to a strange place, journeys through it, and comes back. The "conflict" (and it's not a real accurate word in this case) comes from the constant revealing of wonders, and is resolved when the person gets home and the wonders are over.

Idea: Something strange comes up and we wonder about it. Who killed JR? What is the meaning of this monolith that appeared out of nowhere? The idea "conflict" (again not the ideal word) starts when the idea is introduced, and is resolved when we have all the answers we need to feel satisfied. Mystery novels are almost always Idea stories, first and foremost.

Character: A person's situation is intolerable some way, and must be addressed. (This can also be considered a subset of Events, says I, because something wrong with a character's situation is in a sense the same thing as something being wrong with the world in general, at least metaphorically.) This sounds like what your story is to me, from your brief description. The intolerable thing is this pitched opposition between father and son: The tension between them is unacceptable to both, but they can't very well cut each other out of their lives. I think that's why so many good character stories involve family. Anyway, the "conflict" for this starts when the situation becomes unbearable, and resolves when the character either changes the situation or resigns him/herself to it. More below on how I think this applies to your character.

Events: Something is wrong in the world (the Ring of Power must be destroyed, the Earth is going to be invaded by Buggers, a man is put on trial for a crime he didn't commit) and the characters must fix it. The story is resolved when the wrong thing either is vanquished (the Ring of Power is destroyed) or prevails (Sauron regains the Ring of Power and comes to rule Middle Earth).

Oh, a little clarification regarding both Events and Character stories: the story starts when the character gets involved in the central problem -- not necessarily when the problem starts. So if the problem is that mutant crabs have taken over the world but our character who is going to lead humanity to victory over the crabs is born 100 years later, the story starts when she first gets involved with organizing human resistance: Not when the crabs invade, and not when she's born. (Not that you can't sneak scenes about one or the other in if necessary.)

Of course stories can and ideally do incorporate more than one of these. For instance, you might have an events story about the Ring of Power that is also a character story about a human being in love with an elf maid. Generally speaking, there must be one conflict (or "story arc" or "central issues" or whatever you'd like to call it) that spans the whole story: the story begins when the conflict is introduced and ends when the conflict is resolved; the others are either simultaneous with the main conflict or are sub-sections: i.e. they can be introduced later or resolved earlier. Of course, you can get away with a little bit of introduction and a little bit of wrap-up if appropriate -- e.g. Frodo's birthday party and the scouring of the Shire.

If necessary, you can also use "bridging conflict," where you introduce a problem at the beginning that is resolved before we're too far into the book, but keeps our interest at least until the main conflict is fully introduced. This has some limitations, but has been used effectively over and over.

I would also suggest (and this is my opinion) that the reason stories have middles is that a satisfying end is not possible without the middle. For instance, in a character story, very often the resolution of the issue comes about only because of what the character has done along the way. Maybe they've become more strong-willed or more accepting, or less accepting, or have new skills to rely on, etc. If the ending could have happened right at the beginning, the reader is (says I) left with the question, "Why did I have to read all that stuff in the middle, then?"

OK, so to your story: It seems to me that as you point out, it might be a problem that your conflict doesn't emerge until the father and son are properly opposed, so that if it begins with the father growing up, readers may not care about the story enough to get to the good part. So, two possible solutions:

1. Intercut scenes from the father's childhood with scenes from the story's "present," and start with the conflict coming up soon. For instance, you could tell the story from the son's perspective, but throughout the story the son is finding out (perhaps pursuing) information about his dad's childhood from, say, his grandmother, the dad's childhood friends and neighbors, etc. Or you could do the whole thing from the father's point of view, such that the intercut scenes are flashbacks.

Of course there are other options under this general heading. What would happen then is that the intercut scenes serve to enrich the conflict rather than postponing it. It could also, depending on the details of your story, form an "idea" arc. Why does the father feel this inexplicable way? So the end of the story would then come by means of the resolution of two conflicts: Understanding the mystery of the father's motivations, and some sort of resolution of the issue between father and son.

2. You could also use bridging conflict, for instance the father's obsession with a girl who he'll later grow up to marry (or not) or a character in the town where he grows up who is menacing to him, etc. You can then safely resolve this after the son and father conflict is introduced, with the result that the reader has been brought to the main conflict by a bridging conflict and that (with luck) you've kept the reader's interest throughout.

Hope some of this is helpful.

Luc

On the other hand, if the father is the main character and not the son, then you still need to start things out where the two are in conflict-- but you should also include backstory, as time goes on, from the father's past that explains why he thinks the way he does.

Either way, it is very important to begin the book at the start of the conflict, or at least close to it. If you begin the book long before the son is even born, there is a good chance that no one will really believe he is supposed to be an important part of the story.

Octavia Butler's [U]Wild Seed[/U] is a very good example of a story in which one character has lived a very long time before the story starts, and the story does not start until the opposing character becomes involved. OSC uses it as an example in [U]How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy[/U], pointing out that a very important piece of the older character's backstory isn't even mentioned until the last few pages of the book. If Butler were to put that piece of backstory at the beginning of the book, then the story would have been all about the older character, and the younger one would not have come in until much later; and when she did, she would have seemed like a quaint plot device and nothing more.

My own book has followed a similar evolution, as the metaplot actually begins with the meeting of the main character's parents. I felt that their story was too important to ignore, so I decided at one point to try starting the story with them. I wrote several chapters, and they were good chapters; but it just didn't feel right. I knew that if I kept them as the beginning of the book, the readers would never come to identify nearly as much with the main character as they should-- that in fact, the main character would become overshadowed by the struggle between her parents. I still have those chapters I wrote saved on my computer, for reference material; but when I tried beginning the book from the main character's point of view just when she was beginning to be drawn into things, everything seemed to fit. I have gone from there and my book is flourishing.

Of course, there are exceptions to this rule. OSC's [U]Hart's Hope[/U] is one of them. The story begins hundreds of years before the protagonist is even born, and establishes the struggle that the protagonist is eventually created to solve. I believe that this works for [U]Hart's Hope[/U] because the protagonist is, in fact, mentioned by the narrator on the first page; and everything that is written between that page and the page on which he is born works to bring the story to that point. The reader is keenly aware that the protagonist is created for a single purpose, and once he has fufilled that purpose, he is cosmically useless. Of course, the outcome is heart-wrenching; but deep down, you expect it and it is satisfying.

I call this character the protagonist and not the main character for a reason. He's the one who the audience comes to care about, and the one everyone is hoping will succeed. But he is not the main character. The main character is who the story is about, and his is the story that begins in ernest at the beginning of the book. This is why the book works the way it is laid out, and it would not have worked at all if the it hadn't been constructed just this way.

If you want the focus of the reader's sympathies and attention to be primarily on the son, I suggest reading [U]Wild Seed[/U] for ideas of how to do it without making the father seem any less significant. If you want the focus of the reader's sympathies and attention to be primarily on the father, I suggest reading [U]Hart's Hope[/U] to find out how to do it well. However-- and I can't stress this enough-- if the reason for conflict between the father and son doesn't actually start early in the father's life, and if it isn't of utmost importance to the story, then starting the book there will not work.

That's my $2. Inflation, you know.

Shasta, I may have a different viewpoint than you on at least one issue: I feel as though it's entirely workable (and sometimes desirable) to have more than one main character in a story. A great example is Barbara Kingsolver's _The Poisonwood Bible_. The value of this approach is to be able to see something through two contradictory viewpoints at once, so while I certainly agree that either the father's or the son's viewpoint can be primary, I could also imagine a really good story written where both are given roughly equal weight.

Personally, I think that diving into the big contention point right away isn't the answer for all stories. In my book, for example, I've written some 30,000 words so far (which shows up as just over 100 pages double-spaced on my word processor), and the main antagonist hasn't even been directly introduced yet. I don't plan to introduce him for quite a while. And yet, in my opinion at least, my story is working. Why? Let's take a look.

I may not have introduced the "Big Bad" yet, but here's something of a rough timeline of what other things in the way of conflict /have/ been introduced (I've written 10 chapters so far, but here's just the first three):

Chapter 1- The main character, Selene, is not happy with her life. She is disliked by many because she displays bizarre behavior at times, and though she accepts this as part of herself, she doesn't know why she is this way.

Chapter 2- Selene is drawn into a fight against a school bully that goes horribly wrong. Her bizarre behavior takes over, and she nearly kills the bully in the fight.

Chapter 3- Selene meets the people who will soon help her discover where her bizarre behavior is coming from. They are more than willing to be her friends, which makes her feel defensive, as if something is wrong.

I'll leave it at that for now, because it is clear already that there /is/ conflict going on already in the book. I have, in fact, already begun to introduce the main conflict; but slowly. Selene's bizarre behavior is due to the fact that she is, in fact, something of a freak of nature-- part of a race of creatures that was created long ago, but different from them in a way that has been prophecied to come with great power. The "Big Bad" is the person who will be most interested in obtaining Selene so that he can use that great power to his advantage. However, introducing him so early in the book would be rediculous. The story itsself isn't ready for him yet. But everything is there, already in place; all that needs to happen now is for it to be discovered piece by piece.

Okay... I hope that made some sense.

Second: Luc, I agree. However, to give two characters roughly equal weight in a book, I still believe that it is important to give them roughly equal "stage time"... beginning the book long prior to the birth of one of two main characters would likely downplay that character's importance disasterously.

Another tool you can use is the prologue. Prologues can start any time and be from any POV, including omniscient. Their relationship to the main story need not be instantly apparent. They may or may not involve the main conflict, or they can center around a completely different conflict, or no conflict at all.

Even without conflict, prologues can open lots of questions in the reader's mind. They can hint that the world is filled with danger, and that the reader is about to experience an exciting story. Then the first conflict can begin in Chapter One.

Doc, I think I would disagree with you on the introduction of conflict in Ender's Game. My feeling is that the primary conflict is the issue of the Buggers. It's overshadowed by the problems with Peter at the beginning, but Peter only makes Ender's life miserable: The Buggers would end it.

I also would have to disagree about prologues. Here I'm just parroting OSC again, but it's a point I kind of agree with: You can virtually always skip the prologue of a good story and not miss anything too important. (I think I hear loud and immediate dissention from some writers, but possibly not from readers who have tried it.) This apparently is his practice, and I don't blame him. A prologue seems to be a device for inserting a bunch of backstory the writer is having trouble getting into the narrative in a natural way, but this should be a red flag: Starting with a big chunk of information that does not further the story.

Admittedly, insofar as a prologue is a more or less accepted convention in speculative fiction I think there's more tolerance for it than there would be for any other undigested lump of backstory at the beginning of a piece, but again, why start your story with an undigested lump of backstory? Wouldn't you snag more readers by starting with the good stuff?

Not that it's impossible to write a prologue that actually gets the story in gear, but it seems to be very unusual, and wouldn't be the case if the prologue were the father's earlier life, because again it wouldn't be getting to the initial conflict yet. A prologue doesn't even seem to be a particularly good place to use bridging conflict.

Sometimes it is called a Preface or Prelude, but by any name the Prologue is a valid tool of the modern novelist. It has become especially important in the modern thriller or techno-thriller. Prologues are sometimes used by Chriton, Clancy, Cussler, and King to name a few.

Prologues can give the reader information that no POV character has. They can also give the reader common information that all the charcters have without needing to stop the action so a character can say: "Everyone knows that . . ." They can also give the reader a sense of danger and suspense before he/she meets the characters, or before the characters encounter their Chapter 1 plot complication.

A prologue can help get the action moving fast. A prologue doesn't have to be an undigested lump of backstory. It can be a predigested lump of backstory.

Well, I guess I disagree about the Buggers and Nazis, but I certainly see your point.

I know many big names use Prologue; I'm pretty sure OSC has done so as well. Generally, though, they're a drag for me, and especially since they're so popular, they seem a dangerous way to start off a story. You get the "why should I care?" question in big letters: It doesn't matter what the danger is if you don't care about what happens to the characters yet, and it's hard to do that in a Prologue. Nonetheless, like anything else it seems like a specific technique that exacts a price, and if what you get from using the technique is worth the price ...

There may be many conflicts in any story, and there usually are; but there is only one Major Conflict.

Ender's Game starts with the conflicts of Stilson and Peter, and later on includes conflicts dealing with the teachers, and with Bonzo, and a variety of other things. But the Major Conflict, the very only one, is the war with the buggers. And it is mentioned within the first few pages.

In my opinion, the Major Conflict should be mentioned or at least hinted at as early in a story as possible. This way, the readers get a feel for the true scope of the book, whether it is concious or unconcious. But most stories do start with another, more immediate conflict. These conflicts rarely seem to have much (if anything) to do with the rest of the story at first, but always get tied into the metaplot somehow; often much later on. They may or may not be tied directly into the Major Conflict, but they almost always have some major impact on the (or one of several) main character that affects how they react to the Major Conflict later on. Just think of how Ender's fight with Stilson and his relationship with his brother Peter affect his decisions through the rest of the book.

when i determine what the central conflicts are to a story, i try to think of what the story would be like if they were replaced. what would the story be like with no buggers, but with other situations that lead to Ender coming to grips with his identity? what would the story be like if there was no Ender, but still mankind trying to overcome the buggers? to me, only the former leaves a story similar to the book.

TTFN & lol

I think you can find a happy medium here. You can begin your book with one conflict, have a bigger conflict for the book's climax, and get the major conflict out at the beginning. You can do this by hinting at the major conflict, as OSC did in your aptly suggested example Ender's Game.

Suppose you open with the father dealing with his war & family conflicts, but make it clear that something is unresolved. Even as these early conflicts come to a close, "something" in the moral fabric of your world is out of balance. It's especially good if you can introduce the "something" in the book's first few pages.

This "something" could be a very convenient tool for you later, as the son discovers his own motivations.

As to what the "something" should be, I have no suggestion of my own, but here's a great bit of advice from OSC: "Do the twist." A prophesy or curse would give you a cliche' moral imbalance, so you ought to twist your story until you come up with something fresh and new.

(in case you're still following this thread).

Last night I re-read OSC's How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. He does mention his disdain for the prologue, but this is specifically in reference to Event stories (E of the MICE quotient).

OSC does not mention a problem with the prologue in the context of Milieu, Idea, or Character stories. This might be because he finds prologues acceptable in MIC stories, but I think it more likely that prologues appear in E stories far more often than MIC stories.

Oh, my comment was from some things he said at Literary Boot Camp in Greensboro in 2001. I may have misunderstood or misrepresented him, though. I think what he said was that he always skipped reading prologues and had never regretted it to date, but like I say I may have misunderstood or even be just misemphasizing. And of course, it might not be helpful even if I've got it exactly accurate ...

The title of that book? Speaker for the Dead.

Unless I am mistaken and there is an actual prologue.

In any case, there are good prologues and bad prologues. The main difference is that a good prologue is interesting even to a person that already knows all the information explicitly conveyed. This is not as hard to accomplish as the prevalence of bad prologue would seem to indicate (my personal favorite is when the writer lables a perfectly normal narrative chapter a prologue, which doesn't make the prologue bad, it just makes it "not a real prologue, eh?").

I am fond of "artificial transmitted document" and "unconventional POV" prologues. I despise "uh, hi i'm a newbie author and there's some stuff i thought you should know about my backstory before you start reading" prologues. Partly because if the author doesn't know how to present background information in an interesting manner, it means either that the background itself is deadly boring and incoherent or (inclusive or, probably meaning and) the author is unable to present even information important to the narrative in an interesting manner. Which means that at every point in the story where an event of narrative importance occurs, you are likely to be treated to an out of character exposition lump rather than an interesting story.

That's my prologue. I'm not saying that I'm going to change- it's the prologue that sets the scene for the entire series as opposed to just the first book. I liked the way George R.R. Martin did it, and even Jordan did a similar one, but you gave me something to think about.

And I'm wondering if it takes a certain profound arrogance to admit that you might not try to fix it....

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Pagan, I just stumbled across something else for this thread. It turns out that one of my all-time favorite books starts with a Prologue!

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I think when he mentioned the opinion, he said something about having fallen prey to the prologue thing himself before. But like I say, I may be reporting inaccurately.

Maybe a more meaningful point for me to take up is the trade-offs thing: that you can really do anything you want in a story, if you think the cost is worth it. For instance, we can write a prologue (static new writer backfill prologue, simulated newspaper article prologue, apology from narrator prologue, what have you), but there is inevitably some cost to this, and it's up to us to decide whether the cost is justified. If nothing else, for instance, the point after the prologue and before Chapter 1 begins is a very easy time (in many cases) to put the book down and not buy it. Why give them that chance if you can avoid it? Unless the prologue is riveting itself. So I'll back off a little from my previous position and say that I think that prologues are usually not the best way to lead off, but that in theory there must be situations where they really help.

As to not introducing the conflict until 100 pages in, that sounds scary and problematic. Maybe the reader at 80 pages will reflect and say "You know, this is interesting, but when you come right down to it, it's just a bunch of episodic stuff. There's no main issue going on in this book so far." Or more likely, just have a general sense of not feeling satisfyingly engaged and put down the book.

Is it possible to foreshadow the conflict, say, 10 pages in? Then maybe revisit it every once in a while to reinforce it, and reassure the reader that it's coming up? Might not help, but figured I'd throw it out there.

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How the heck do you write a hundred pages without a major conflict?

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Clean living and moderation.

____

Truthfully, I have several interpersonal conflicts, and I think these conflicts are compelling enough to keep the reader reading, but the reader doesn't see how they play into the major conflict until 100 or so pages in. The only analogy I can see is the Usual Suspects: nobody knew the name Kaiser Soze until a third through the movie, but I don't think too many people were bored with the first hour.

I'm not gauranteeing that it's going to work, but I believe that it'll make the0 main plot that much more thrilling if the write exposition with grace, care, and at a certain length.

On a more historical note, do you remember the first 50 pages of Les Miserables? They were all about how wonderful the Priest was, and the entire purpose of that extravagance was to set-up and explain how the Priest can be the sort of man who lets Jean Valjean go.

There's a balance to be had between the world and what's happening in the world.
Nobody wants to read a book about a perfect world in which nothing happens, while, conversly, nobody wants to read a book in which they don't care for the world even if every chapter is an action-packed thrill ride. (in film terms, think Blue Crush v. XXX - try not to vomit)

So how long does it take you to strike that balance? A few pages, a few chapters? Obviously you'll develop the world and the plot as you progress, but for that 'hook' both should be at least somewhat stimulating within the first 30 pages of a 300 page novel.

Now I'm more than 400 pages into it, and the heroes have been through many, many conflicts. But the main bad guy has only recently learned that the good guys are a threat to his plans, so in a way the major conflict is just getting started.

If you did the latter, it just means that I wasn't doing my job as a writer to string you along. I am a firm believer that every phrase in every sentence should be compelling, if not, you are just wasting the reader's time.

The POV is excellent, the story as it emerges is engaging--as are the characters, which are also vividly drawn without seeming over the top. The exposition of background is very much natural (you don't even notice that her train of thought is expository, because it is so natural).

I had a bit of a problem with the science (not with the abilities shown in the prologue, those are clearly "magical" in the context of the story). Particularly the description of how "The Swimmer" function makes her runno behave. A program of that nature, in order to penetrate a firewall (I assume that's the basic nature of the "walls" you speak of in the story) has not only to send information into the firewalled area, it then has to be able to send information back out. You have a certain amount of the runno replicating itself inside the wall, but you fail to mention how she remains contact with it so as to be able to rebuild it on the other side. I know that's more of an ommission than an error, but it is a fairly significant ommission (no I don't want tips on how to do that sort of thing, I just mean that the story will be better).

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A program of that nature, in order to penetrate a firewall (I assume that's the basic nature of the "walls" you speak of in the story) has not only to send information into the firewalled area, it then hasto be able to send information back out.

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I haven't thought of that, but what you say makes perfect sense. I'll sketch out some ideas that will make it work and still keep the integrity of the story.

I did a little bit of SQL programming at my last job, but other than that, my computer knowledge is slim. I did read a great book with case studies about current issues in Network Security and the ethical and psychological of hackers and of Security Professionals, and that's where I'm drawing the tech side of the story from.

Shadow:

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Focus more on telling the story rather than trying to make each sentence compelling, although the two may coincide.

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I'm not sure the two can be so easily separated that it's merely a coincidence when they meet. A compelling sentence is not only artful, it furthers the story. I have issues with to many writers (Atwood, Toni Morrison, and Janet Fitch come to mind) who substitute poetic prose for furthering the plot. It seems intellectually dishonest, self-conscious, and a waste of the reader's time. They skirt around the issue with abstract metaphors as opposed to digging with cutting and inventive prose. I wanted to shoot Atwood after reading the first 100 pages of the Handmaid's Tale.

Joseph Heller, John Irving, Octavia Butler and Barbara Kingsolver know how write the story in a compelling manner, where both the phrases and the plot are insightful. I thought that OSC did that with Hart's Hope, but not so much with many of his other books.

As to the genre, it's tech-fantasy. For the most part, I don't like reading science fiction, and I enjoy a good fantasy saga. L.E. Modesitt's Recluse saga was so hot and cold that I have a hard time judging. I do know that I think the "Towers of Sunset" was the most impressively told work in the series: the characters were interesting, the prose was rich and inventive, and the over-arching plot was compelling.