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I've been musing about the structure of my current novel and the one after it and ended up with this question in the title of the thread.
Pretend** novel:
Set in a coal-mining community in 1971, we follow three miners about to leave for work. A has an argument with his wife. B's hippie teenaged son smarts off to him. C is confronted by a loan shark whom he owes big. Shark says if he can't get money from C, he'll go to his younger brother, D, and beat him up.
They go down into the mine. There's an accident, an explosion and cave in. A, B, and C are alive but trapped. The novel moves back and forth between the increasingly oxygen deprived depths and the surface, where Mrs A, B Jr., and D feel regret and worry, the mine company secretly balances cost of rescue with value of human life, attempts are made to rescue, but they fail. Back and forth, mine and surface. (Underground, it's a bit like 12 Angry Men but in the dark.)
The climactic moment down below is when A, B and C realize they're going to die. Above, it's...well, whatever, at the climax, then denouement, the end. I'm tired of plotting this* so imagine a topside climax of some sort.
My question is, since the really big action set piece is the mine collapse, and lots of pages will be spent there, is this structure a violation of the principle of rising action?
I've gotten curious about the theory of this and thought I'd throw it open to discussion.
* Though I admit, whenever I provide an example like this, it sounds more and more interesting as a real writing project. SNI time! lol.
** "Pretend" means made up. I made it up for this post. Insult it, steal it, I don't care. Got a million more ideas where this one came from
Pretend** novel:
Set in a coal-mining community in 1971, we follow three miners about to leave for work. A has an argument with his wife. B's hippie teenaged son smarts off to him. C is confronted by a loan shark whom he owes big. Shark says if he can't get money from C, he'll go to his younger brother, D, and beat him up.
They go down into the mine. There's an accident, an explosion and cave in. A, B, and C are alive but trapped. The novel moves back and forth between the increasingly oxygen deprived depths and the surface, where Mrs A, B Jr., and D feel regret and worry, the mine company secretly balances cost of rescue with value of human life, attempts are made to rescue, but they fail. Back and forth, mine and surface. (Underground, it's a bit like 12 Angry Men but in the dark.)
The climactic moment down below is when A, B and C realize they're going to die. Above, it's...well, whatever, at the climax, then denouement, the end. I'm tired of plotting this* so imagine a topside climax of some sort.
My question is, since the really big action set piece is the mine collapse, and lots of pages will be spent there, is this structure a violation of the principle of rising action?
I've gotten curious about the theory of this and thought I'd throw it open to discussion.
* Though I admit, whenever I provide an example like this, it sounds more and more interesting as a real writing project. SNI time! lol.
** "Pretend" means made up. I made it up for this post. Insult it, steal it, I don't care. Got a million more ideas where this one came from
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Can a novel be about both? Because a suspenseful event brings relationship problems into sharper relief, yes?
