How big is too big?

Liosse de Velishaf · Oct 12, 2008

How big of a conflict is too big?

I had started a story a long time ago that was fairly small in scope. As the story progressed, the scope got larger. The conflict started out in just one province (in my fantasy world), then expanded to encompass an entire country. Being an obsessive conworlder, I tried to dig into the history, to provide the story with a more powerful background and setting. This unearthed an even deeper conflict that ended up spanning the entire region, the northern half of a continent. A long story short, the most basic conflict ended up involving the entire planet (which is even more than you would think). So yeah, a little bit unwieldy.

Luckily, I managed--surprisingly within already recorded world-building notes--to confine the specific story I was working on to a fairly small region extending a only a bit around the border of the secondary country-wide setting. But the fact remains that the story is set against a fairly large backdrop. I'm wondering how much of the wider conflict I can safely include, without cluttering up the story with unecessary or overly-complex details. The trouble is compounded by the fact that many of the larger motivations behind the story's conflict exist in the outside background. Particularly, one side of the conflict is driven by reasons entirely out of the scope of the main storyline, as seen through the eyes of my third person limited protagonist(s). I'm not sure how to make that clear, while still keeping the story in a reasonably small and compact setting. So, any thoughts?

Aristophanes · Oct 12, 2008

write several short stories set in the same world. but with different characters, or side characters, and at different times and places.

geardrops · Oct 12, 2008

I have run into a similar problem with current WIP. The action/plot deals with a fairly limited scenario of a specific strike in a specific industry in one city; but there's a larger sociopolitical backdrop that affects the story and is the driving force behind this incident.

The status of this project is: rough draft written, outlined, being re-written (because Lordy it needs it).

I'm keeping the story and action to this current problem of the strike. But each character has their own issue with the strike. Some see it as a symptom of a bigger problem, the treatment of the common people. Others see it as a revelation of weakness in the government, and fret about bordering nations preying upon said vulnerabilities. Others have different personal stakes in it.

By revealing each character's viewpoint of the situation, I hope to give a sense of the broader problems of the world without cluttering the reader's experience with unnecessary events.

Does that help?

SPMiller · Oct 12, 2008

How big is too big?

Lol. What a thread title.

I've read some truly epic plots with entire galaxies at stake, and I've read some small stories about insignificant interpersonal relationships between two people.

It's common in fantasy for the conflict to telescope from small (orphan farm boy, lol) to huge (entire world threatened by evil that broke free of containment).

L M Ashton · Oct 13, 2008

Depending on how much story you're talking about, it sounds to me like you've got options. One would be to write one story encompassing it all, which could end up being massively huge and unwieldy. Another option would be to write several to many novels all set in the same universe and centering around the main plot points. They could be a series, one taking off where another ends, or they could all be interconnected standalones. Personally, my preference is for interconnected standalones.

Darzian · Oct 13, 2008

L M Ashton said:
One would be to write one story encompassing it all, which could end up being massively huge and unwieldy.

Sounds like The Wheel of Time

L M Ashton · Oct 13, 2008

Well....

NicoleMD · Oct 13, 2008

If you want to keep your scope tight, you might do so and just stick a couple medium sized obstacles in your characters' way that involve broader world based issues. That way they're significant enough to care about, but not so much that they require resolution from your characters or plot-wise. Also, you can keep your baddies local, but make them have obvious ties to more global baddies.

Your scope can also broaden as the story progresses, raising the stakes. If your region is somehow strategically valuable to global interests, you could bring the big baddies to your characters and have a show down there. Anyway, just some ideas.

Nicole

Danthia · Oct 13, 2008

Depth is good if you can keep it to the confines of the specific story. It'll provide richness and layers to make your world and problem feel real. As long as you stay focused on the character problem (which it sounds like you are) you should be able to keep the scope small enough for readers to handle and still hint at a broader event or problem.

Let the protag be your guide

They'll be able to tell you what's important to their story and what is just backstory, because that's essentially what all that world building is. Beta readers will also be helpful here, because they'll tell you where they want more history and facts, and you can elaborate where needed.

Mr Flibble · Oct 13, 2008

It can never be too big.

Oh wait, are we talking about writing?

sorry, couldn't resist.

Ok serious answer - just because there is huge conflict in the world doesn't mean you have to show it all. A book about WWII for instance will stay pretty much with what happens to and around the MC, it's unlikely to show everything that happened in that war ( or it'd be boring not to mention sodding massive) Just show what is relevant to your characters and story. If you really need to put in the 'big picture stuff' be subtle.

ZeroFlowne · Oct 13, 2008

You don't have to cover the whole conflict if you don't want to. There was an episode of Justice League Unlimited where all the major heroes fought some ridiculously powerful something-or-other. We didn't see any of this fight, and instead followed Booster Gold (who is certainly not Green Lantern). Through him we saw the impact of the "big fight", and we saw Booster's own adventures at the same time. This might be a good approach for you to take if you don't want to go big, but still have a big conflict.

Nivarion · Oct 13, 2008

this is a good set up. just because the conflict is big doesn't mean its unweildly.

just because it started with something small, doesn't mean that it has to stay small, and it also doesn't mean its unbelievable.

in example.
Austria Hungary was opressing the bulgarians, and trying to rule them. which is small.
An assassian kills the Arch Duke still small.
Austria-Hungary declares war on the Bulgarians, still small.
Germany is allies with Austria, so it also declares war on the Slavs.
Russia is allies with the slavs so it declares war on the Germans and Austirans getting bigger now.
France and Brittain are allied with Russia.
Otoman empire joins the axis
The US joins the allies.
within a few years it was a world wide affair.
got to go will post more latter

Sarpedon · Oct 13, 2008

It was Serbia, not Bulgaria. And its the Central powers, not the axis powers.

Bulgaria became allied with the Central Powers.
The Central powers never declared war on all slavs.

Nivarion · Oct 13, 2008

okay it was Serbia and the central powers, im good at history but not great.

any way i was at school and the bell rang so i had to go.

but any way as i was saying, just because the whole thing is a world wide affair, have a central location of action, single someone out as the "Bad guys" even though they aren't.

but too big is just a state of mind.

i have people who tell me that some books a read like any of the books from the Belgariad are too big. until i show the the eye of the world, then they claim that is too big, but don't think the pawn of prophecy was too big any more. then i show them a triple of the heritage of Shannara, and now that's too big and the Eye of the world is just fine.

its all in your head if you say too big.

Liosse de Velishaf · Oct 13, 2008

More responses that I expected. So, to make some notes:

Well, not an entire galaxy for this, thank (insertpreferreddietynamehere). Just one "little" planet. The original story is about trilogy size(yes, I know... don't plan for trilogies). There are already several other stories set in the world, all interconnected over a large world and long history, but each is a standalone story. Several are standalone books. No PERN here.

The particular story I'm dealing with now is right near the end of the conflict, and while the area involved isn't exactly strategic, the story contains a very large turning point in the overall conflict. Still, I'm thinking I can keep it down to a proper scope. I wouldn't call the baddies "local", but those involved in the story are confined to the single continent where my protags' home nation is located. I have a rough draft of the first section for the original story that stays entirely within that single nation, even to the end. As far as I am aware, the second section of the story stays mainly in that nation as well, though the protags unfortunately get split up into multiple groups. Won't know much about the third section until I get more conworlding and worldbuilding done.

While I'm sure there are people on this forum who might be interested in the details, I won't bore the others. The world itself is expanding through a seperate conworlding project, whose history stretches back hundreds of thousands of years and covers some very complex events across the majority of the planet and beyond(no, not into space). This particular story is about one event, and set near the beginning of it at that. It basically follows a group of characters, two in particular, in a limited third-person pov. The time span of this story itself is fairly short, which gives me some hope of containment. This sounds a bit scary, but Wheel of Time is small compared to the overall here. Luckily, no particular section is nearly that long here. :hooray:

Gynn · Oct 13, 2008

Liosse de Velishaf said:
How big of a conflict is too big?

I had started a story a long time ago that was fairly small in scope. As the story progressed, the scope got larger. The conflict started out in just one province (in my fantasy world), then expanded to encompass an entire country. Being an obsessive conworlder, I tried to dig into the history, to provide the story with a more powerful background and setting. This unearthed an even deeper conflict that ended up spanning the entire region, the northern half of a continent. A long story short, the most basic conflict ended up involving the entire planet (which is even more than you would think). So yeah, a little bit unwieldy.

Luckily, I managed--surprisingly within already recorded world-building notes--to confine the specific story I was working on to a fairly small region extending a only a bit around the border of the secondary country-wide setting. But the fact remains that the story is set against a fairly large backdrop. I'm wondering how much of the wider conflict I can safely include, without cluttering up the story with unecessary or overly-complex details. The trouble is compounded by the fact that many of the larger motivations behind the story's conflict exist in the outside background. Particularly, one side of the conflict is driven by reasons entirely out of the scope of the main storyline, as seen through the eyes of my third person limited protagonist(s). I'm not sure how to make that clear, while still keeping the story in a reasonably small and compact setting. So, any thoughts?

I think I have the same issue.

What I'm trying to do is avoid name-dropping and telling: Trugdors from the province of Harthra led an army to Clornn, led by the Dragon King Jidma, and began the War of the Flaming Chariots, which lasted for 5866 years before the Fuddites...

I know that I lose interest when I come across paragraphs filled with info, especially when it isn't the main focus of the story.

What I'm doing is, every so often, tossing in a scene involving characters from the larger conflict (that my protag isn't aware of), letting the reader know what's going on, but not dominating the story.

I hope that this makes sense; I'm kind of frazzled lol

Nivarion · Oct 13, 2008

i have the same thing going on as well. my story started with the warlord of Ariam, a small and vastly militant nation built to protect something between two large nations. who was defeated and caused its fall.

then i realized that with a warlord as great as this one, the other general had to be good. so i added his story.

then i realize that they didn't sacrifice so many so many soldiers for nothing, so i then had to find a reason for the war.

then i added the villain
then i had to ad a quest to fix the fall of Ariam
this brought in other MC's
then Ariam is protecting the fountain of youth
then the MC's are immortal.
well now the story isn't moving, so i have to do something que aliens
now it spans time and space

the story line is a billion years and the setting is a galaxy.

i still don't think its too big, because each book will stand by its self.

MagicMan · Oct 13, 2008

To relate a large conflict and stay within the scope, I introduce in a separate chapter with unique characters involved in the large conflict. These characters comment on my limited scope conflict immediately (to tie them in), specifically as to how my conflict involves the larger scale. It may also introduce actions taken on the larger level that impact my conflict.

Smiles
Bob

Short and sweet chapter, usually a page or at most two. The characters sometimes are just descriptions, not even named.

cdoctor13 · Oct 14, 2008

In a conflict, unless you are a general or a political leader, you never get the whole story. The further down the chain off command you go, the less you know about what is going down. If your character is leading a small band of men to take out an enemy base, he probably wont be aware of the Battle of Super Huge Fortress or the army's movement across The Great Big Icy Mountain Range.

Liosse de Velishaf · Oct 14, 2008

It sounds like my current plan should work...

Sarpedon · Oct 14, 2008

I would resist galaxy size conflicts. I mean, how are you going to actually write something like that? What would be the difference between your characters getting into a space ship and flying between star systems and getting in a boat and going between countries? How many planets could they visit? How many planets can you adequately describe? Are you going with the tired old Sci-fi cliches; Desert Planet. Jungle Planet. French Riviera Planet?

MagicMan · Oct 14, 2008

Sarpedon said:
I would resist galaxy size conflicts. I mean, how are you going to actually write something like that? What would be the difference between your characters getting into a space ship and flying between star systems and getting in a boat and going between countries? How many planets could they visit? How many planets can you adequately describe? Are you going with the tired old Sci-fi cliches; Desert Planet. Jungle Planet. French Riviera Planet?

From the micro world of the amoeba to the cosmic reaches; the imagination can reach beyond, within or satirize old clichés. That's what makes writing fun.

Smiles
Bob

Elonna · Oct 14, 2008

JMO, maybe write it the way you see it now...forget the scope. If it truly is too big then you will know by the end of the story and you can tighten in as needed.

Liosse de Velishaf · Oct 14, 2008

Sarpedon said:
I would resist galaxy size conflicts. I mean, how are you going to actually write something like that? What would be the difference between your characters getting into a space ship and flying between star systems and getting in a boat and going between countries? How many planets could they visit? How many planets can you adequately describe? Are you going with the tired old Sci-fi cliches; Desert Planet. Jungle Planet. French Riviera Planet?

I totally agree(I'm assuming this was directed at Nivarion). I think the flaw in the logic was the sixth change. Why does a stalled story need aliens?

Elonna, good point. I have a first draft where the scope is reasonably small. I'll have to wait and see what happens.

Darzian · Oct 14, 2008

Why, I'm having the exact opposite problem!

My conflict (though it involves all of existence) is too small! I'm in the process of thinking up sub plots for the MC's sidekicks.

How big is too big?

Liosse de Velishaf

Aristophanes

geardrops

Good thing I like my day job

SPMiller

Prodigiously Hanged

L M Ashton

crazy spec fic writer

Darzian

To-to-to-ron-to

L M Ashton

crazy spec fic writer

NicoleMD

Onomatopotamus

Danthia

Mr Flibble

They've been very bad, Mr Flibble

ZeroFlowne

Nivarion

Brony level >9000

Sarpedon

Nivarion

Brony level >9000

Liosse de Velishaf

Gynn

Wandering worlds

Nivarion

Brony level >9000

MagicMan

cdoctor13

Liosse de Velishaf

Sarpedon

MagicMan

Elonna

I'm a dork

Liosse de Velishaf

Darzian

To-to-to-ron-to