Get to the conflict as soon as possible

When it comes to screenplays, You want to follow what I call the three pages rule, which is the rule of getting to the meat of the conflict by the second or third page. You don't want to keep Your Audience waiting forever for You to "get to the point.". Like, the idea of two friends are arguing only for one of Them to decide that Their not the other's friend anymore. That leading the protagonist Who just lost His Friend to pursue gaming (for example) to quote "win without Him". This backfiring on the protagonist later. Now, at the beginning or middle of the second page You should have the have the protagonist lose His Friend, and by the middle or end of the third page You should be into the protagonist pursuing His Video Game Dream. But set up this up on the first/introduction page that He or she wanted to pursue video games, but with His Friend. This being part of what backfires on Him Later.

 

I kind of do that as well, because I write young- and new adult fiction. I do that because in times of Tiktok and Instagram, attention spans have really changed over the years. But sometimes I take more time to get to the point so that the reader has to put a little effort in to deserve the plot but interestingly, these are the less liked stories by my readers.

Anyways good advice especially for fiction that is meant for a younger audience!

 

I'm not a screen writer so I don't really know the rules there, so I don't know how to translate those rules into what the audience experiences on the screen.

I remember hearing that each page of a screenplay is about 1 minute of the movie. So page 3 is about the 3 minute mark roughly. Based on that I can't think of too many movies where 3 minutes in "the meat of the conflict" has been established, and I'm talking high paced big budget appeal to wide audience action movies.

At the 3 minute mark MAYBE you've established who the main characters are or MAYBE you've established some of the themes or MAYBE you've set up the tone. But it is unlikely all of that is established in 3 minutes, let alone enough information to have the 'meat' of the conflict underway.

I would say a much more common trend in film is by the 3 minute mark, some clear motivation and/or conflict is fully established. Like in one movie on my phone at the 3 minute mark the protagonist establishes his personal desire, it's not until the 10 minute mark that we start to see how the official conflict gets in the way of that personal desire. On another movie on my phone by the 3 minute mark we are introduced to the bad guy doing bad things. But it's not until the 10 minute mark that the protagonist is even aware of the bad guy, and not until the 40 minute mark that the bad guy and the protagonist get into direct conflict with each other.

In my humble amateur opinion I would say by page 3 you need to establish SOMETHING substantial with at least one of your main characters (or antagonist) and you need to establish some kind of conflict (but I don't think it has to be the main conflict).

Or to dumb it down to a level even I could understand, I would say you need A HOOK by the 3 minute mark, but I don't necessarily think it needs to be the main hook just yet (it's fine if it is, but many many stories work with the main hook coming later).

My 2 cents

 

There is a lot that has to be accomplished by a first chapter. The tone of the story and the setting need to be established. The protagonist and antagonist should be introduced (or at least the antagonist foreshadowed). And yes, there has to be some world-changing incident for the main character to propel the story forward.

 

No, no rule, just the best way to engage the reader

 

Everything I have read advises to "get to the story" - it doesn't mean to rush things - I can't remember who said it, some famous writer, about starting the story in the middle

That's why I said "at least foreshadowed" - so I think we agree on this one.

I disagree with you here. The main character has to have a goal, which flows from the inciting incident. By world-changing, I mean their world.

Here's three separate articles on how to write a first chapter that more or less backs up what I was saying.

How to Write the First Chapter of Your Novel

7 Key Elements To Include In Your First Chapter

Writing the First Chapter of a Novel

 

I think saying that it's the *best* way is far too bold an assertion.

 

Just going by things I have read. How would you change it?

 

I definitely agree with you that the setting and tone should be established in the first chapter. Unless the author is intentionally attempting an artsy bait and switch, in which case he would be well aware of the fact that he's performing an atypical subversion anyway.

 

If I remember correctly, @Cody A rachel is writing screenplays for 21-minute episodes of a show, rather than a feature-length movie. I could be wrong though, I don't want to speak for him.

 

Off the top of my head, just to give some examples, in Asimov's Robot series, in both Robots & Empire and Robots & Earth, the protagonist spends much of the book trying to find what the conflict actually is. The inciting incident doesn't happen until well into the story. Likewise with God-Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert - the inciting incident almost waits until the end of the book.

To suggest that one way is the best way is to ignore the masses of excellent fiction out there that do something else.

 

The way I try to use the 'rules' (guidelines) is to familiaraize myself with some, then check how they're used in books (or movies, what-have-you) I'm familiar with. I try to think of several that used the rule, or that did something interesting with it, or that flat our broke it. Which ones worked, which ones didn't and why? And there are in-betweens of course, it isn't always just 'It worked' or 'It didn't. I agree with the school of thought that says don't think of them as rules but as tools. If you write you want to develop a nice toolbox with a good selection and learn how they're used. Also as I said, learn how writers have played around with them. Then you have multiple options.

One of the things I learned in mechanical drawing class (I was going to be an architect like my dad) is that the word rule actually doesn't mean "An arbitrary law that must be obeyed", but rather a guideline. That's why a ruler is a tool that lets you draw a straight line. You do it very lightly, so it's easy to erase, because you don't necessarily want the finished drawing to look mechanical. If you're going for a more freehand look you lay down very light guidelines, sketch in your freehand lines the way you want, and then erase the guidelines. And that's how I use the rules of writing.

But once you've learned the rules well enough you don't need guidelines anymore, you can just visualize them. Which means you can work intuitively at that point. But you should first train your intuition, or it has no idea what to do.

 

I think the only rule one should adhere to blindly is to write something that makes the reader (or viewer) go: "Alright, let's see what's next."

 

I agree with those, above, who are taking a contrary view of this. This advice may be good advice for a certain type of fairly generic action-based fiction. It's certainly not something that applies across the board or that every writer should try to follow. I'm glad every writer doesn't do this because we'd be stuck with cookie-cutter fiction if everyone slavishly followed these"rules."

My general view (based, I think, on something Neil Gaiman said, if I recall correctly): there is no universal 'one true way' (or best way) to write.

I don't mind taking in advice, considering it, figuring out whether it applies to what I'm trying to do or not, etc. But I don't have a lot of time for prescriptive advice--you HAVE to do x,y, or z. Bollocks.

 

^Agreed. I just got some very good advice from @ps102 that I moved to the inciting incident too fast in my latest version of the Beastseekers, and that there needs to be more time to see the characters interacting and learn about them before that happens. Absolutely true! It can take several chapters to accomplish that. One story it made me think about was Treasure Island, which began in the 'normal world' of the inn where Jim worked for his parents. The situation is a lot like the first Star Wars, where Luke was stuck on a boring farm working for his uncle but wants to get out into the excitement of the space battles happening right over his head. In that movie adventure entered his life in the form of two droids bought from scrappers that led the Storm Troopers to his uncles farm and led him to the Death Star to rescue the princess.

But Treasure Island had a somewhat different way of bringing the adventure into the normal world. More like The Hobbit, where Bilbo was just hanging out pleasantly in his home when one by one dwarves (strange outlandish beings who failed to observe what he considered proper protocol) kept arriving until his house was filled with them, and they insisted he must join them in their quite un-homey quest. But in Treasure Island it isn't dwarves it's pirates. Pirate action on the high sea was the equivalent of Luke's dreaming about high adventure in space firing blasters and dueling with light-sabers. And lo and behold, strange ratty pirates start showing up one by one. Each new arrival is dirtier, more drunk, and more dangerous than the last, until the danger became too much for the boring little inn and demolished it, launching Jim on his adventure. I could check, but it was six or seven chapters I think before the real inciting incident occurred. Maybe ten? That's an older book though, it moved at a slower pace.

 

Lots of good advice. Thanks

 

Get to the conflict choppah as soon as possible

The rules according to Arnold.