This is not so much a request for advice, but a general wondering if others suffer with a slight trepidation when it comes to introducing your characters' first big conflict. I'm only four chapters into my novel (very short chapters, about 1,000 words each) but I feel like I'm fast approaching that time. Knowing this, however, doesn't make throwing the proverbial spanner in the works any less daunting. Out of interest, how many of you know how your characters are going to get out of the problem beforehand, and how many of you blag it on the fly?
Blag it on the fly?! I had to look that up. I'm definitely using that for one of my characters! Honestly I'm totally crappy at pacing stuff like this out. Something comes to mind and I write it in but there's no set time for it to appear. I know it has to be early on in the story, if only to save myself from the boredom of the set-up. Vague ideas. But in a way my mc never really gets out of a problem, he just falls in deeper. It's like he avoids a beartrap by stepping in a snare. That sort of thing.
Sure, this is how it works, but they still have to avoid that beartrap in the first place. I know that when I write this first big conflict, I will be making up their escape as I write. I just need to grow some balls and make it happen. Oh, and the title of this thread was supposed to be Conflictophobia. I'm more annoyed by the fact that I messed it up than is healthy.
I know how they're going to get out of it but often the details change as I write. If I need to make them do something stupid, unrealistic or out-of-character to get the result I envisaged, I change the situation or the result.
That was odd. I just 'liked' your post and was asked to confirm it with the message 'Are you sure you want to like this post?' Never had that happen before... very strange. Anyway, BoT, I quite like the idea that I don't know how they're going to escape, as it forces me to think on my feet.
