Depiction Part 2: Conflict And Resolution

Depiction Part 2:
Conflict And Resolution
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Think about this and we'll get back to it below

In Depiction Part 1,
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-1-depicting-power-in.html
we defined depiction at some length.  Here's a short excerpt to remember this working definition.

--------quote-------
It's the brain trick that lets us look at a scrambled page full of LINES and "see" a map, and understand it as a depiction of a territory (real or imagined).

Writers depict both concrete and abstract elements in mere words.  Readers agree to accept the emphasis the writer's selection of certain attributes and omission of other attributes to "depict" a character, situation, philosophy, threat, conflict, or the stakes in a transaction.

If the writer writes, "It was a dark and stormy night ..." the reader may KNOW there were some street lamps or car headlights (or carriage lanterns) but at the same time understand that the main character's emotional "place" is inside the primal threat-zone that dark and stormy nights were for cavemen.

The character is aware of the light, but seeing only the dark. 
---------end quote----------

So a depiction is NOT a photograph.  It is not a complete analysis.  A depiction deliberately leaves elements out in order to exaggerate the role of other elements in determining the materialization of results.

A depiction is a work of Art.  We've discussed fiction as Art and the methods the writer uses to create that Art -- the how, and the why of the writer's job has been covered in many long posts here, especially in the various series on Worldbuilding

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/index-to-theme-worldbuilding.html

...and how to blend the Worldbuilding skills into various individual craft skills (such as theme, characterization, etc). 

Once you've built your multidimensional alter-reality, you must then depict it for your reader.

To depict the World you have built, you must select certain attributes to mention outright and others to leave as implied.  That process produces a depiction of an alter-reality that depicts our own -- a First Derivative, mathematicians would call it.

So in Part 1 of this series we looked at how to depict Relationships. 

Romance is a process, Love is a Relationship.  There are all kinds of Relationship, "Buddy," "Adversary" "Mortal Enemy" "Brother-Rival" etc etc. 

And in every relationship we work with in fiction you will find the seeds of Conflict.

Conflict is the Essence of Story, but it generates Plot  (where Story is the character's change due to impact of Events, and Plot is the sequence of Events caused by a character's actions or inactions).

Books on story craft or writing will all use different words to refer to a moving-part of a story-construct, but all the vastly commercial kinds of fiction have the same moving-parts -- Setting, Character, Conflict, Theme -- and all the English language ones have 4 types of word-usages: Exposition, Narrative, Dialogue, Description. 

A writer's "Voice" is established by the proportions of those word-usages employed to convey the structural components.  That proportion establishes pacing, which is a part of the genre signature. 

We've delved deeply into the details of how to do each of these individual things, and how to pair them, blending two into one seamless whole.

Many beginning writers launch their first story attempts already able to synthesize these skills into a sellable page and chapter.

But very few of those confident in their story-telling skills have thought through or mastered the Art of Depiction.

Teaching writing workshops, I get manuscript after manuscript of very interesting, intriguing, wildly commercial stories with great premises, delightful imagination, and strong romantic intrigue -- but they are unsellable because they start with a massive Expository Lump, a huge pre-history of the entire world the writer has meticulously built or a long personal history of the characters and their ancestry.

It is easy to point to page 25 or 55 and say, "This scene is page 1 of this work."

But the author will not know how we (the professional writers at the table) all arrived at that same conclusion.  And it is spooky how much unanimity a group of professionals have when analyzing the same manuscript for a beginner.  The beginner often thinks it's a conspiracy -- even when the professionals haven't spoken to each other about this manuscript.

Most professional writers don't know how they learned to do that analysis, and just shrug it off as "experience."

I remember learning this technique, and hope I can explain it.

It isn't enough to point to an interior page and say, "This is page 1."

The author of the piece will fight that, tooth and nail, because you see the reader MUST KNOW all this other stuff before that point or the reader just won't understand.

And that's true, absolutely true. 

The professionals at the table will all suggest different solutions to the problem.  They all agree on the problem -- but never, ever, on how to solve it.

How you solve that problem changes the nature of the story, the plot, the target audience, and most of all the characters themselves, very often it changes the theme, and requires the Worldbuilding to undergo major revision.

The beginning writer must learn what to do with that initial expository lump before that lump is formed into words, before those words at set down -- in fact, before the World for this story is Built.

I am using the term DEPICTION to represent that arcane process of solving that problem of the Expository Lump that has to be conveyed before the story starts.  I've never seen this process described exactly this way in books on writing craft.

I wasn't taught it as such.  All my teachers (professional writers and editors) could do was point at where the story really starts and say, "cut all this other stuff, start here."

And my response was always a (very silent) "NO NO NO!!!"

So I invented this method of "Depiction" -- and many years later, I see what appears to me to be many other writers using this method.  The end result, regardless of the process of arriving at it, has to be that uniform STARTING PLACE that all pros agree is where the story starts.

Expository Lumps are often strewn throughout a novel.  This method of Depiction will solve those problems, too. 

Here are some previous post on Expository Lumps

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/08/source-of-expository-lump.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/sexy-information-feed.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/02/dissing-formula-novel.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-much-is-too-much-world-buliding.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/crumbling-business-model-of-writers.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/08/source-of-expository-lump-part-2.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/08/astrology-just-for-writers-part-10.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/11/astrology-just-for-writers-part-11.html

Assuming you've been reading this Tuesday blog series since 2008, and have thought about those posts, here is the advanced lesson in depicting Conflict and depicting Resolution that will solve the problem of the 25 pages of throat clearing before page 1 of the story.

This method often does away with those "Introduction" or "Prelude" additions that editors resort to when they can't get the author to depict.  Understanding depiction and how to do it is not in the job-description of editors.  Those who can teach this come to editing via another path. 

Like everything else in Art and Story-craft, it's a learn-by-doing kind of thing, so we'll work with the "Real World" around us to extract elements that could be used in depicting a conflict and a resolution.

PAGE 1 of any piece of fiction starts with defining the Conflict.

That's actually what pros teaching writing workshops look for to spot that page 26 opening scene error.

The story starts where the Conflict kicks off the plot.

Depicting Conflict is the missing skill for such writing students.

The opening of any novel is where the This vs. That or Her vs. Him is first depicted.

Now remember -- a Depiction is not the whole, entire, complete, multiplex Situation.

Depiction is done by leaving important, vital, crucial elements out of the picture, then presenting elements of that picture that merely hint or suggest the presence of those crucial elements.

This artistic skill leverages the reader's simple, human tendency to make assumptions.

You give them this; they assume that.

It is the human brain's short-cut mechanism at work there.  It is the mechanism that causes us to be prejudiced and intolerant, and it is responsible for our ability to appreciate Art in all its forms and media.

So after you've defined the Conflict, you depict that conflict on Page 1.

Remember, an "outline" contains only the moving parts of the plot, Beginning, Middle, End Events. 

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/06/finding-story-opening-part-1-action-vs.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/07/theme-plot-integration-part-11-correct.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/09/verisimilitude-vs-reality-part-2-master.html

Depiction as I'm using it here is the Art of creating Verisimilitude -- the illusion of reality.

It works the same way that caricature works -- the eye sees a few sparse lines and fills in the rest.  A caricature is not a photograph but a representation of certain, carefully selected features of the subject.

So when Depicting a Conflict for your opening, you carefully select Features of that Conflict to incorporate into your opening Dialogue, Description, Exposition (yes you are allowed to use some exposition, just not in lumps) and Narrative. 

Your Conflict, on Page 1, is distributed among those 4 language elements, and that single conflict must be present in all instances of those 4 language elements -- usually throughout the entire novel, no matter the point of view.  Conflict pervades the work -- that's what makes it a story.

How do you select what Features of your Conflict to include on Page 1 and which other features to explore in depth later?

To select the elements of Conflict on Page 1, you look at the last page (that you haven't written yet.)

That's where the outline comes in. 

The outline you scribbled down when you had this Idea flood into your conscious mind should have little except the 3 major points, Beginning, Middle, End.  The rest is commentary.

Example: 
1. Pandora sees a Box
2. Pandora Opens the Box
3. Pandora gets shut up inside that Box. 

The Conflict is Pandora Vs. The Box.  The Middle (the worst thing that could happen) is Pandora Opens The Box.  That doesn't resolve the conflict, it escalates it as a good Middle must.  The End resolves the conflict by blending Pandora and the Box into one, removing her "issues" from the world.

Of course the Situation just sits there begging for a sequel.  That's good plotting.

At this stage of Depicting a Conflict and its Resolution, the beginning writer will likely discover that the Last Page doesn't match the First Page she has in mind.

That is the conflict that is Resolved at the ending as envisioned is not the same conflict that begins on Page 1.

Many writers will handle this problem by ignoring it -- or pointing to Masterwork novels where many conflicts are braided into a complex mulch-layered plot to justify their choices.  Most beginning writers want to be that sort of Masterwork writer.  Depiction is the art form that must be mastered to create such a Masterwork.

It isn't that you must already be a Big Name writer to get away with bait-and-switch plotting.  It's that you must have the skills that make Names Big.  Some of those skills are writing skills.  Some aren't.  Writing skills can be learned.

So, take this rich, multidimensional, braided plot and multiple viewpoint story you have in mind, and choose a few, sparse elements of The Conflict to depict on Page 1.

Then craft the last page out of a specific Resolution to that Conflict.  Yes, you may have to revised that ending a few times as you write, but having a target depicted lets you revise that depiction as you go.  This is the skill that lets professionals hit deadlines, to predict when signing a contract how long it will take to write that novel. 

It's not that you always stick to an outline -- it is that you have an outline to revise as required. 

Given the immense World you have Built in your mind, how do you sort out which of the conflicts that seethe within that world to depict on Page 1.

You look to your THEME.  The Theme is the philosophical statement about life, the universe, and everything that this work of fiction makes.  It is the moral of the story, or the proposition to be debated. 

That statement about The Universe and its underlying Reality dictates how your Conflict will be resolved.  That statement defines the ENDING EVENT of the story.

For example, if you are writing a Romance, your philosophical statement, your Major Theme, is "Happily Ever After Is Attainable In Reality" -- or maybe "Only Happily For Now can be Attained, and that's enough."  or maybe "HFN is not enough."

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/writers-eye-finds-symmetry.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/beauty-and-beast-constructing-hea.html

If your theme is HEA is Real, then your Page 1 must depict the ABSENCE OF HEA -- people wanting something, misery for lack of whatever, a big problem that is major because of the absence of a partner (example: unwed pregnancy).

The Ending is then HEA Realized (wedding in the offing, commitment, birth, whatever solves the problem).

The Middle would then be the point in the focus couple's life where the partnership is just not working out - that internal and/or external forces drive them apart (deployed to Iraq, denied Military permission to marry).  Or maybe what drives them apart for the Middle Event is some kind of Political Campaign or issue.

Love And Politics always equals EXPLOSIVE ACTION.  In fact, Love and Politics is sometimes more explosive than Religion and Politics.

Perhaps your Couple is divided by their stances on hot-button-political issues of today, even though they live in a Galaxy Far Far Away.

By using today's Headlines, but depicting those headlines rather than just copying them into your story, you can lift today's social conflicts out into the galaxy, place them between human and non-human, and have a whopping series of novels that sells big.

How do you do that?  How do you "depict" a political conflict torn from today's headlines?

Remember, depiction is the art of lifting up certain elements and suppressing others.  It's not distortion, but point of view.

Each person sees the world around them from a unique point of view - their own.

Humans tend to regard what they see as the whole reality that is there -- but what they see is a selected depiction. 

We have a brain mechanism that selects reality for us, so we can free up brain space for handling more critical life-or-death decisions.  And that brain mechanism is the source of both our Art Appreciation and our deadly-to-each-other prejudices. 

So you, the author, must replicate the effect that point-of-view has on the Character's convictions.

Take, for example, our real-world political situation.  In order to avoid having to fill up our brains with thousands of data points, in the USA we "reduce" our reality to two political positions.  In other countries, there are many political parties with similarities to each other and some differences their constituents consider critical.  Voters there have to think about many more abstract concerns than those in the USA.

In Europe, for example, "Far Right" means Nazi.  In the USA, the "Far Right" means anti-Nazi.  But because of the Internet, many voters in the USA have adopted the European definition of "Far Right" and now point the finger at the Right in the USA as being Nazi oriented.  Those targeted by that finger object.  Conflict reigns.

Consider the Conflict breaking apart your Soul Mate Couple that has its origin in that kind of linguistic mislabeling.  They fall in love. 

The Conflict becomes clear. Opening Scene: they are walking to an ice cream shop after seeing a wonderful movie they both enjoyed, but it had a woman in it who went for an abortion for well-depicted reasons. 

The guy admits he always votes Republican, and that movie explains exactly why the Republicans have the correct approach -- because abortion shouldn't be legal. 

She, however, always votes Democrat because, after all, she's a woman, and "how dare you" is her bristling response -- nobody is going to tell her how to manage her own biology.

Why do I mention this?  Because International Sales and Translations are where the professional writer actually, finally, turns a profit.  It's vital to keep the world market in mind when crafting a depiction.  Abortion is a good example because the yes/no argument is very different in the rest of the world.  This intimate argument by a couple where marriage is a looming issue uncovers a Foreign Policy Issue between them which could break that couple up.

Should a man be allowed to force a woman to have his baby? 

If he's to be disallowed, who does the disallowing?  Government? Religion? Neighborhood busy-bodies? Doctors?

THEME: how do I get you to do what I want even if you don't want to?

MASTER THEME: There Are No Objective Criteria Of Right And Wrong Use Of Force (if I can get away with it, then I can do it). Or put another way Pride vs. Humility makes a great Conflict:




Today, in the USA, it's merely a case of seeing "people" (on TV mostly) doing things you don't want to let them do, and getting "The Government" to force them to behave the way you want.

Government is The Power that the people use to force other people to behave properly.

A long-long time ago, there was a comic strip everyone read because it was syndicated in all the newspapers, There Ought To Be A Law.

It DEPICTED (and from it you can learn the Art of Depicting) activities that nobody had the power to stop, so they'd throw up their hands and declaim, "There Ought To Be A Law" against that activity.

http://miamiarchives.blogspot.com/2012/09/there-oughta-be-law-comic-strip-1952.html

http://www.toonopedia.com/bealaw.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Hatlo

There Ought To Be A Law and They'll Do It Every Time (two syndicated comics) depicts a world where people can't use government to control other people's behavior, but they want to because something has to be done.

The urge to control other, misbehaving, people is universal among humans and a source of Conflict you can tap repeatedly.  Life and morality can be "depicted" as either a fight for control of others or the results of people being "out of control."

How many times do news stories about an urgent emergency requiring an Act of Congress contain the phrase "the situation is out of control."  And not one reporter challenges that by asking, "when was the situation in control?" or "who controlled the situation before this" or "was the old controller of the situation doing a good enough job?" 

Why does this situation need "controlling" from outside the situation? 

Watch The News -- watch it carefully and keep asking questions like that to find ways to depict your story's conflict and a satisfying resolution.

So here's half the conflict between the serious couple coming out of the movie Theater:

He says, "You can't be serious! You vote Democrat? YOU??? I don't believe it."

She says, "Republicans are superstitious idiots."

He says, "I am not!"

She says, "Then how could you possibly believe all those lies?"

He says, "What lies?  It's the Democrats who lie rather than take responsibility.  It's the Democrats who think government has to solve every problem with more and more money!" 

She says, "I do not think that!!!  How can you say that?"

Note that each of them is accepting the depiction of their own party as the truth about the other's party.

That is, the Democrats (whom she trusts as a primary source) depict the Republicans as superstitious idiots, so she repeats that depiction without treating it as a "depiction" (i.e. as a statement that leaves something out in order to emphasize something else.)

Anyone who identifies as Republican must be a superstitious idiot.  Anyone who identifies as Democrat must be a person who won't own up to responsibility for the results of their own actions -- "unintended consequences" means "I'm not guilty."

Neither one is penetrating that depiction of the opposite party.

Go watch some TV news and analyze for that tendency -- especially political ads.

So let's list some points He could point to as Democratic dogma.

a) Government Is The Solution
b) It's an Emergency therefore the usual rules are set aside and we can do "whatever it takes" (therefore to get rid of onerous rules, one has to create an emergency.)
c) Got a Problem? Give us a lot more money and we will fix it for you
d) It's just one rotten apple who broke the law. The system is sound.
e) It's proven science so the government must impose it on everyone
f) Only government can protect you from actions of your neighbor
g) If it should be done; then therefore government must do it because nothing else is powerful enough to accomplish it.
h) The Experts know, so we have to believe them and act as if they are correct
i) Income Inequality is a travesty that government must prevent
j) We must educate all children in identical values because otherwise we won't be able to control the resulting adults and then we'd have anarchy.

Now think about those (each could be the thematic foundation of a long series of long novels). 

Would any Democrat accept that phrasing as a statement of their own beliefs?

Would any Republican accept the opposite statements as their own beliefs?

We routinely use the brain short-cut mentioned above to avoid having to learn a lot of facts and then think with them -- and instead, we extract a couple visible facts and imagine what fills in the blanks.

That "fill in the blanks" process is "prejudice" -- it's the basis of "racism" (all Blacks are lazy bastards), "ageism" (all people over 60 are technical illiterates), and of War (all Germans are Krauts; all Japanese are Japs, all Muslims are Islamists).

Study the political fracas in TV Ad Blitzes to look for the "depiction" of your reality then compare that depiction with the underlying reality as you see it.

When you can see the pattern of how the Advertising "lifts" elements from the pea-soupy reality of the opposition (CONFLICT) party and presents to you a mere depiction OF THE CONFLICTING ELEMENTS, then turn to the huge World you have Built in your mind, and do that exact same thing to present your fictional world to your very real readers. 

That will generate your Page 1, your middle, and your Last Page conflict resolution.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
https://flipboard.com/profile/jacquelinelhmqg

Finding the Story Opening, Part 1, Action vs. Character

On Twitter I found a screenwriter to follow - new to twitter, veteran screenwriter:

This tweet was retweeted by @JustinWHedges
-----------------
@fieldink 12:35pm via Web
Action or Char to open ur scpt? No 1 answer. Depends on genre. Either character drives the action or action drives the character #writers
---------------

Ooops!  A long time ago someone asked me to do a blog entry on OPENINGS and I forgot until I saw that tweet.

Here's the twitter bio of @fieldink that made me follow him:

Screenwriter, Teacher, Lecturer, Author of Screenplay, The Screenwriter's Workbook, on faculty at USC's Prof Writing Program, Hall of Frame Inductee

He is on the sydfield.com website -- that's why he could explain "opening" in such a succinct way.  You have to admire that, but I wonder how many of you understand what he's talking about well enough to go, "Aha!" and then just change the way you find how to open your stories?

I've written about crafting the opening of an Action Romance in this blog entry:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/01/constructing-opening-of-action-romance.html

But we need to examine this "find the opening scene" process more carefully because it is mostly done subconsciously.  It's just that it usually takes years and lots of failures before the new writer trains the subconscious to formulate the opening correctly.

Take for example my novels MOLT BROTHER and its direct sequel CITY OF A MILLION LEGENDS.  Here are the links to refresh memory:

https://www.amazon.com/Molt-Brother-Lifewave-Book-1-ebook/dp/B004AYCTBA/

https://www.amazon.com/City-Million-Legends-First-Lifewave-ebook/dp/B007KPLRUU/

Paper, ebook and audiobook versions of both books are available, but Amazon isn't linking them very well for City of a Million Legends.

The idea for those novels came to me (while waking up) as a SCENE, and at the time I thought it was the opening scene.

It's a powerful scene -- but what appeared in the final published book was very different.

What was the scene?  The one where Arshel is in molt and Zref is standing outside the closed space ship cabin door where she is in anguished distress understanding what she's going through, what he should do, and what he should not do -- and then doing what he should not do because he must do it.

That's no opening scene, and it's not an ending scene either.  To me there were layers of emotional and alien-emotional conflict criss-crossing the scene, and reams of esoteric karmic drama driving Zref's decision, but it was all there in one flash of a visual scene -- the door or air-lock portal, Zref's hand raised to the door, and a telepathic vibrancy shimmering in the air. 

Notice the opening of MOLT BROTHER is a scene between Arshel and her parents -- and the parents never appear again.

Or do they?

Aren't her parents "there" inherently in every event that happens because of how the parents handle this scene where she declares herself bonded to a human -- and a male at that!  The parents aren't entirely clear on which is worse, his gender or his species! 

Scarred by that moment, trapped with no way to go home, no way out, no way back, Arshel plunges forward into life with Dennis Lakely and sticks it out longer than any of us would, until that moment when she's utterly bereft, trapped in that space ship cabin and all alone.

The second chapter opens on Zref and his bonded companion trying to lay plans for their future together, hustling tourists for cash to go to college together offworld. 

Because of things that Dennis Lakely's parents do, Zref is left without that bond. 

The reason he opens that door into Arshel's life is the same as the reason Arshel got trapped in that plight -- no way back, no way around, no way but forward.

The walls of the trap are largely emotional, but that emotion closes in from all sides because of (unrevealed until the second book) karmic connections, decisions and actions and results of long-ago lifetimes. 

But when I "had the idea" all those emotions were tangled up and layered.  Though the moment was vivid in my mind, and the drama apparent, it wasn't the story opening.

CITY OF A MILLION LEGENDS is the story I wanted to tell, and though it opens with a Kren baby hatching, it's real beginning is in that moment when Zref opens the door to Arshel's life and makes vows he isn't allowed to make. 

If you've read the book, you understand how much "worldbuilding" went into creating that moment of choice for Zref. 

How do you do that?  How do you untangle a vivid, single-scene IDEA into a linear story-line that allows you to explain worldbuilding, whole cultures, interstellar civilization, interstellar archeology, without much exposition? 

Many new writers would just start with Zref's hand on the door, then fill in 20 or more pages explaining (in exposition - years ago, this happened, then that tragedy, then he made this choice, and now he's committed to this course of action, but he wants to open this door because).  It would be so boring!  Yet it's high drama in the extreme.

That little tweet from an expert screenwriter tells you exactly how it's done.

If it's one genre - start with character. Romance, for example, is emotionally plotted but the emotion is driven by character.

If it's another genre - start with action.  Science Fiction and most Fantasy is action driven plot, so you have to leap into the ACTION with an opening scene where people do things, and then later you find out who they are and why they did this crazy things.

But what genre is MOLT BROTHER?

On the back cover of the Berkeley mass market paperback of MOLT BROTHER there's a quote from C. J. Cherryh (whose Foreigner universe novels I rave about!) 

"Jacqueline Lichtenberg has taken a new and interesting direction with this book, partly technological, partly alien cultures, in a very intriguing interrelation." 

I had forgotten that quote was there. 

It's quite clear -- this is one of the earliest Mixed Genre novels, more mixed than my later award winner, Dushau. 

There's also a quote from Andre Norton on Molt Brother:

"Imaginative and outstanding.  It captures the reader and won't let go."

THAT is what openings are supposed to do! 

But how do you do that?  What do you do with "an idea" that turns it into a "captures and won't let go" novel?

Ever seen a movie run backwards?  Ever done a rewind on a recorder - harder to understand with a DVR that skips frames on backwards, but visualize it.

That's what you do.

You take your "idea" separate it into "layers" (his story; her story) and run it backwards in your head until you get to the "right" moment.

How do you identify or recognize the "right" moment that is a "beginning" moment?

Aha, that's easy and I've talked about it here before in posts on structure and theme.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/01/shifting-pov.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/plot-vs-story.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-learn-to-use-theme-as-art.html

The general formula for beginning a story is to find the moment in time when the two elements, forces, or characters who will "conflict" to generate the plot first come together.

Last week we mentioned Marion Zimmer Bradely's novel CATCH TRAP -- which opens with the first memory of one of the main characters -- the circus tent being burned.  But that's not happening in current time.  Nevertheless it works, because the novel not only starts with an emotion-laden action denoting the setting (tent-circus), but one of the themes, (an industry changing as a result of the impact of technology - a science fiction theme guaranteed to captivate any SF reader). 

That moment then unravels into the life story of the artistic vocation of this character as a circus performer.

Her first novel, SWORD OF ALDONES (later rewritten and retitled, but I love the first version best) starts with a thought, "We were outstripping the night."  I think that's the best opening line of any novel I've ever read -- ever!!! 

By comparing the opening line of each of Bradley's novels to the end-line, you can learn everything there is to know about structure. 

Sometimes an idea comes to you from the ending, or any random place -- sometimes the idea appears as a scene which does not and can not belong in the novel at all! 

Every character's life consists of a variety of intertwined conflicts that don't all run to resolution during their lifetime.  Any set of characters probably deals with a set of conflicts that are maybe the factorial of the number of characters in the set -- multiply a lot to get the number. 

As you know from my posts on Astrology just for writers, every life has cyclical affairs running like the planets -- a very complicated clock.  Every character has a conflict denoted by such a planetary cycle.

The highest drama events are denoted by Pluto -- Sexuality rather than love, car wrecks, being wounded in war, a transition Event that establishes a New Normal. 

Pluto, however, does not denote "sudden" events (that's Uranus).  You can always see a Pluto event coming -- but you never (almost never-ever) do!  You can see it in retrospect, but never in prospect.

An example would be drunk driving.  Watching a character who chronically drives drunk, you can easily expect they will get into a wreck at some point.  The character, though, even if they've wrecked a car or two, can never - ever - see that they are going to be an amputee or paralyzed or on trial for manslaughter and become a three-month wonder to the media.

Heart attacks are another kind of Pluto-event -- any onlooker can see this character's eating and exercising habits are leading to no good, but the character is shocked-surprised-offended by the event of a heart attack -- "Why me?" 

So, if your story is about a person whose chronic habits are going to produce a dramatic, life-changing Event -- you have to decide if your story lies before or after the Event.

Is this a story about misbehavior (such as bullying?) that eventually produces a comeuppance (such as losing a job and ending up in jail framed for embezzlement?).

Is this story designed to deliver a whopping sense of justification to the reader?

Or is this a story about rehabilitation, having learned a hard lesson by the Event, now a life is being rebuilt, and maybe teaching others who are making that mistake to pull back from it?  Such as a drug addict or alcoholic teaching 12-step? 

Once you know what the story is about -- by analyzing what kind of pay-load the story delivers at "the end" (how you want the reader to feel about herself and the characters at the end) -- then you can "frame" the story by nailing the beginning.

Remember the structural beats of a novel -- usually 4-act rather than the powerful 3-act structure of a screenplay. 

The usual length novel (75,000 to 100,000 words) is divided by climaxes into 4 parts or "acts." 

A) Beginning
B) 1/4 point
C) Middle
D) 3/4 point
END and/or denoument.

The quarter-points have their own specific formulas.  "Pacing" is just another term for putting the quarter point Events at the quarter-point page-number. 

When checking a book for reviewability, (as an editor checks a manuscript for publishability) the first thing I look at is the Beginning, Middle, and End by page-count. 

If the Events delineated at those points are connected in a developmental Arc that makes sense, I'll read the book.  If not, not.  If I get hooked on the Beginning and when I get to the middle, the Event on that page is not a "Middle" Event -- I might check the End event, page a little to find what goes in the Middle and if it's not anywhere near where it should be, I won't bother finishing.

Most writers think of that as a flaw.  It isn't because a book that has its pacing "off" by too much will not deliver to the readers the emotional payload they paid good money for. 

This is why finding the right beginning Event is so crucial.  Once the Beginning is determined, the Middle and End are absolutely known.  You can't fudge it.  It is what it is.  Readers who read a lot of books (the very people most likely to pay for your book) are used to finding what they pay for right where it should be. 

You wouldn't sell them a dress with the seams only basted, would you?

So don't sell them a novel with the Events in the wrong places.

You avoid that by choosing the opening point.

But the thing is, when you start writing a story, you really don't actually know the ending!  Or if you do, you probably don't know the Middle or Beginning precisely.

Just because the end-product has to be paced "just-so" does not mean the process of producing the first draft will be that clean or orderly.

Nevertheless, outlining --- writing down the beginning, quarter, middle, 3/4, end Events -- is necessary.  You have to take a guess, and try for it.

Sometimes characters insist on finding their own karmic solutions - however temporary - and you just have to go along for the ride.

In that case, you change the outline to match and test it to make sure the Events conform to reader's expectations (with surprises, of course).  If you don't keep that outline updated, you very likely will have to rewrite and you may need to junk everything you've written and start over.

To avoid putting more hours in than you can get money out, you keep the outline updated, and make sure the Events fall at the right story-points. 

Events are on the plot line, emotional peaks and valleys delineate the story going on inside the character, the internal conflict. 

You want to get the story and the plot to END in the same Event, as discussed last week.

Where the peaks and valleys occur (by page count) and where the plot Events happen (by page count) depends, as @fieldink said, depends on genre. 

If you're heading for a happy ending (an up ending) then the Middle is a DISASTER (a valley, a Pluto-driven Event) such as a maiming car wreck, so the End becomes asking the physical therapist to marry and getting a yes. 

That car-wreck scenario tells you that your opening scene is in a bar or at a party where the character who will wreck the car first gets hooked on booze or drugs or whatever behavior will impair judgement.  Most likely the Opening would involve an association with an inappropriate character -- maybe someone who then gets killed doing whatever they introduced the main character to. 

It doesn't have to be booze or drugs -- it might be the first encounter with car racing, and just plain enjoying speed and winning until the adrenalin of it becomes the drug. 

If it's a Romance, of course you start with character, displaying in show-don't-tell the character trait that makes that character the perfect mate for the Physical Therapist who enters later.

Or your character might be headed for a car-wreck that ends him up in court where he meets the Lawyer (prosecutor?) he falls in love with -- and eventually proposes to. 

You find the opening of your story by plucking apart the threads of the character's life until you can see one whole cycle of Ups and Downs leading to the ending that delivers the punch the genre readers are looking for. 

In my case, it's always the Relationships (not always sexual!).  I always look for a character whose life is malfunctioning in some regard (sometimes several regards).  My personal life-philosophy shows me how the real world functions on Relationships, and how human psychological health (and thus sane life-choices) depends on functional Relationships.

My mission as a writer is to bring that character's life up to a functional level that feels, at least to the character, as Happy. 

One very common mistake beginning writers make is to start their story too late -- when the character is already Happy, or when the character already knows that they are miserable.

The Happily Ever After ending works best  when the story starts with the character unaware of the real problem deep inside.  The story opens with the character making a decision and/or taking an action (accepting a date; accepting a particular college entry letter; quitting a job; getting fired and getting drunk over it), so that everything else that happens during the novel is a direct consequence of that opening action.

I call that plot technique "the because-line" -- because the main character did this, that happens, to which the main character responds by doing that, which causes this to happen, to which the main character responds etc, right to The End.

That's why, given impeccable story-logic, any beginning contains within it a very specific ending. 

After you've chosen the beginning, you don't get to choose just any old ending that you think would be neat.  The ending is determined by the beginning.

Or the beginning is determined by the ending you've chosen.

Beginning and Ending make the Middle obvious and irrevocable. 

There are many genres, and all kinds of Literary forms that don't use this structure.  If you don't like it, don't try to write it. 

Here's what to do.

Take a pile of your 10 most beloved novels, the ones you've read so often you can chant the lines in the shower.  Spread out ten sheets of paper, take a pen and at the top of each sheet write the TITLE and opening Event (in your own words; describe that Event that kicks off the story and plot). 

Look at the page number of the end of the last chapter or epilog, divide by two, and look at that page plus or minus 5 pages, and write down one sentence describing what happens at that point in the novel.

Look at the end Event - not the epilog, but the climax Event, and write that down. 

Study the set of sheets -- you may need to rephrase a few times to bring the elements buried in symbolism up to consciousness. 

If you can see a consistent beginning/middle/end pattern, that's the sort of book you should set out to write because it's what you most love to read.

It could be that your favorite literature doesn't have this structure.  Some very fine classics don't, but they are much harder to learn and to duplicate. 

There is a type called "stream of consciousness" - and many new writers think that means they can just write down what they are thinking and it'll be a story.  It doesn't work that way.  There is a very real, very precise skeletal structure behind these apparently formless writings.

The more formless a piece seems to be, the more heavily it relies on that internal structure for its effectiveness -- like poetry!  And its correspondingly hard to duplicate.

One way to learn "stream of consciousness" structure is to practice and internalize the Beginning/Middle/End structure.

The "formless" fictional genres are usually composed of several different structures intertwined, and the only way I know of to learn to do that is to master each of the structures separately -- learn to chew gum and walk by first walking, then chewing gum, then combining.

So again, you always find the Beginning by looking at the Ending -- and the Ending, as @fieldink said depends on the genre.

The best place to learn modern genre structure is in the screenwriting books by Blake Snyder, SAVE THE CAT! series.  These are now out in e-book, too, which is handy.

Here is Blake Snyder's Amazon page with all the formats of all the books, including 2016 releases
https://www.amazon.com/Blake-Snyder/e/B00LWI2JXA/

Here's the Book Description from STRIKES BACK:

Blake Snyder, author of Save the Cat!® and Save the Cat!® Goes to the Movies, is back with the book countless readers and students have clamored for. Inspired by questions from his workshops, lectures, and emails, Blake listened and provides new tips, tactics, and techniques to solve your writing problems and create stories that resonate:
The 7 warning signs you might have a great idea or not
2 sure-fire templates for can t-miss loglines
The difference between structure and formula
The Transformation Machine that allows you to track your hero s growth step-by-step
The 5 questions to keep your story s spine straight
The 5-Point Finale to finish any story
The Save the Cat!® Greenlight Checklist that gets to the heart of every development issue
The right way to hear notes, deal with problematic producers, and dive into the rewrite with the right attitude
Why and when an agent will appear
How to discover the potential for greatness in any story
How to avoid panic, doubt, and self-recrimination... and what it takes to succeed and dare to achieve your dreams
Get ready to face trouble like a pro... and strike back!

All of this is just another way of explaining what everyone who is selling fiction knows.  You just have to find the one explanation that hits you right.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com