Life is beautiful

Who knew a movie would make me feel better about my novel?

I've been stewing. Ever since Kristin Nelson wrote in her blog about the importance of determining the inciting incident, the one that is supposed to occur in the first 30-50 pages and that sets the whole story up, I have been stewing. I don't have one. At least not in the first part of the book. But I thought my novel worked anyway. But how am I supposed to write a query when I can't define that inciting incident?

Then the other day I was watching Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful with hubby. You know, the movie about how a Jewish father convinces his son that the concentration camp is a game with a real tank as a prize? That's what the movie is about, right? And it suddenly occurred to me that they don't get sent to the concentration camp until 2/3 of the way through the movie. Well over half of the movie is setup! And very entertaining and necessary setup it is too, or we'd never believe the last part of the movie.

I felt so much better. If you asked me what my book was about, I would have to talk about something that happens at least 2/3 of the way in. It took that long to set it up. I tried to make the setup as entertaining as possible, but it seemed to me to be necessary to understand and believe the decision that the protagonist comes to. And now I have a precedent to point to.

Which doesn't help me much in figuring out how to write the query, but at least I feel better.

Can anyone think of any other examples? Has anybody sold a book with a similar structure? How did you query it?

I get your points. The first part of my story is not just back story, and many of the threads introduced play directly into what happens later. While it's essential to establish both the world and character, there are a couple of murders, love interests, a traitor working his way up the ladder, international conflict... None of these are gratuitous, they are integral parts of the plot.

It's possible that I'm missing what the book is "about". Thematically, it's about truth and power, so when the protagonist renounces power in favour of truth at a critical point in the history of his country and in his own personal life, things get very complicated. Before that, I spend a long time establishing the attitudes toward truth and power of the protagonist, the antagonist, and their world in general, through incidents that have a direct bearing on the central conflict. I don't really see any other way to do it.

Well, there is one possibility. I could get to the "point" early on, and use flashbacks or something. I tried writing it that way from the get-go, but seeing as this is a story that spans decades (centuries if you count the prologue) and three countries told from multiple viewpoints, adding chronological complications too was just too much.

I think it works the way I've structured it. My concern is that if I write a query based on the "inciting incident", an agent reading a partial might get annoyed at not finding it. Maybe I'm fussing about nothing, but Life is Beautiful made me feel a little better. I know the first part of the movie is important thematically, but it is what happens in the last part of the movie that is the "high concept" part, what makes it unique. Benigni just made sure that getting to it was very entertaining, as he established the character of his protagonist, the son and the society so that we could believe in the last part. In this sense, the structure is very, very similar to what I have done. Maybe I should find a way to explain that in the query.

CaroGirl said:

From what I've seen and read, queries don't need to follow the book's chronological order. Query Shark even says so.

If that's the case, you can begin your query with the "inciting incident", even though it, in fact, occurs much later in the story. As long as your query is interesting and the first 2 chapters have strong writing with sympathetic characters, I'm not that it matters all that much. Get readers interested; keep readers interested.

All the best, J!

Click to expand...

You've read the first few chapters, Caro. The reaction of beta readers so far (I've only given out the first few chapters) has been that they want to keep reading. And those, with the exception of the first chapter aka prologue, are the quietest chapters in the book.

On a societal level, the potential for the conflict is established in the first chapter. Centuries later, the protagonist and antagonist choose different values that put them on a collision course. The first, highly intelligent, is a lover of knowledge and wisdom. The second, also highly intelligent and charming to boot, is a lover of power, and chooses treachery. Because of their gifts, they both rise to the top where a collision is inevitable. Then the protagonist has a major crisis of faith, rejects the underlying values of his society, loses his position, is himself seen as a traitor and must still defeat the real traitor. They first butt heads directly about halfway through, the crisis of faith comes after that and then all hell breaks loose. There are plenty of things happening in the setup, almost all of which play into the events at the end.

Choosing different values doesn't sound like much of an inspiring inciting incident, does it? Maybe I should ask my beta readers what they think kicks everything off.

I keep seeing the L word in this thread. The book is fantasy, I'm afraid. Although I would be tickled pink if somebody thought it worth of the term "literary". My favourite books are genre that tilt toward literary, or literary with an obvious love of story-telling.

I didn't expect that from you. I've got to get that second draft finished before I can harass anybody for that.