All right, I'm writing a sci-fi manga, pretty much like Star Wars, but with a realistic setting - no weird religions here, no light sabers, no Force. I'm through with writing the prologue and first chapter, so to say, in which I set up the mood of the novel and I introduce the characters and main event. There is a spy sent to a planet to set up a nuclear bomb and destroy it. The spy can't go through with it and repents, but the explosion occurs anyway. Now I'm at the point in which the war starts...and I have no ideas on how to write it. Should I go about it having the main character, the spy, fall into a coma and wake up a year after with the war already started? Or should I take things slowly and show how the war actually starts? I'd like to put in an intermediate chapter in which I show how the war starts, but I'm short on ideas on how to do it. I thought I would put in like a presidential speech or something, but then, I can't waste an entire chapter on it. So apart from the President's speech, what it is I can add up? Any tips?
This is one of those "Go with your gut" things. Just do it. If you realize you started it wrong, you can revise later. Or if you're still not sure, post a bit of it here and we can tell you if we think it's a good opening.
Go with your gut is the best advice, butI would suggest a time jump if you were looking for another option. Make it so that the MC is in the thick of the story when the war is taking place and have MC refer back to begining of war, or have other characters refer back to the war. That is my 2 cents but most importantly go with your gut
These are really author decisions, as the others have pointed out. You've already considered a range of options, which is really all you could hope for from brainstorming wite other people. One thing I would ploint out is that the bomb may have triggered the declaration of war, but the conditions of war must have already have existed. beforehand. What are the social/political/religious/economic pressures that are at the heart of the conflict? How long has it been building? What is each side hoping to gain from waging the war? Is the spy from one of the two sides of the conflict, or from a third party who wants to benefit from the open warfare?
I agree with the others, this is something you need to feel is right. That being said... "Make it so that the MC is in the thick of the story when the war is taking place and have MC refer back to begining of war, or have other characters refer back to the war." I would do this. Have a brief, not very descriptive beginning with the whole bomb setting, him backing down and running away, but it goes off anyways. Possibly for unknown reasons. You jump to when the war has already started and he's fighting for his government again, he doesn't remember anything before the war. What this allows you to do is something I've always wanted to do, a cool style I saw done, though not very well in the book trigger. At the beginning of each chapter, you add a little bit to his past. In the first chapter the reader just gets one sentence. Each chapter you repeat what you said before and add a sentence. So at the end of the book, his past (the whole thing about the bomb that he doesn't remember) is revealed. Now he would have to be learning about this along the way too, it would need to be nicely synced. But if done right, it'd be really cool. Sorry if I got over excited lol. Good luck! Nate
