Your novel's primary conflict

When I sit down to write an edit letter for a client, the first thing I ask myself is: What is this book's primary conflict?

Simply put, a book's primary conflict (also sometimes called the central conflict) is the problem or question that's raised toward the beginning of the book and resolved at the Resolution.

Examples:

Incognolio by Michael Sussman. Problem: The nonsense word incognolio is stuck in the Author's head and won't leave. Question: Will the Author discover what incognolio is and finish his book?

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. Problem: Olamina's community is in constant danger. Question: Will Olamina survive and find or create a safer, more stable community?

Labyrinth (1986 film) by Jim Henson. Problem: The Goblin King has stolen Sarah's baby brother, Toby. Question: Will Sarah solve the Labyrinth in time and get Toby back, or will Toby be turned into a goblin?

My understanding of a book's primary conflict affects the way I construct a reading of the manuscript as a whole and often provides information crucial to a) understanding why certain elements aren't yet gelling, b) proposing solutions, and c) recognizing opportunities to make the book even more impactful. How does it do this, and what kind of information do I glean from it?

Your first 50 pages

Having looked at a lot of authors' pages back in March (and having had the incredibly good fortune of getting to work with several of those people since then), I began to notice some patterns in what grabs me and where manuscripts fall down. So far I've talked about the first 5 pages, the Darkest Moment, the word count, chapters (length, breaks, headings, etc.), and the novel's overall structure. Today I'm tackling your novel's first 50 pages, what I referred to in the structure post as Act I.

What should your first 50 pages accomplish? They should hook readers and set up expectations for the journey we're going to be on: the novel's tone and pacing, the setting (world-building), who the story is about, what this story is going to be about thematically, and what the primary external conflict involves.

Your novel's structure

My current thinking about structure - which I use both for my own novels and for working with clients' books - is influenced primarily by the three-act structure as explained to me by my friend Diane Gilman, who wrote screenplays for many years, and by Viki King's description of the nine plot points in her book How to Write a Movie in 21 Days. Influenced being the operative word; what I offer here is not a straight mash-up of those two approaches. I'm not convinced that my philosophy is complete yet, but it's a start, and I think it's worth sharing at this point.

Act I: The Beginning
This is The Beginning of your story, starting on on page 1. It introduces the novel's setting, tone, characters, and theme(s) and includes two inciting incidents: the one that happens within the first five or six pages, and the one that heralds the end of Act I, around page 50.

Yes, that's right: Act I is only 50 pages long. If that.