The Peaceful Solution

[FifthView]

I keep trying to picture how to make the negotiation itself a satisfying climactic scene.

I keep coming up with something like Poirot collecting all concerned parties together and revealing everything he knows in a piecemeal fashion with an eye for the effect his presentation causes, with elements added from:

• The Capulets and Montagues discovering their children had been in love and had committed suicide from grief
• Muad'Dib's "negotiation" with the Emperor
• Any number of courtroom drama scenes, in which revealed secrets have powerful effects.

I'm thinking the reader would go into the scene knowing many things the characters wouldn't, but there'd still need to be an element of mystery: How will it turn out? I'd wonder if maybe I should hint, going in, at multiple potential resolutions, some less pleasant (even if non-violent) than others. Also, whether the ultimate resolution should be none of those, or not quite.

 

[X Equestris]

I keep trying to picture how to make the negotiation itself a satisfying climactic scene.

I keep coming up with something like Poirot collecting all concerned parties together and revealing everything he knows in a piecemeal fashion with an eye for the effect his presentation causes, with elements added from:

• The Capulets and Montagues discovering their children had been in love and had committed suicide from grief
• Muad'Dib's "negotiation" with the Emperor
• Any number of courtroom drama scenes, in which revealed secrets have powerful effects.

I'm thinking the reader would go into the scene knowing many things the characters wouldn't, but there'd still need to be an element of mystery: How will it turn out? I'd wonder if maybe I should hint, going in, at multiple potential resolutions, some less pleasant (even if non-violent) than others. Also, whether the ultimate resolution should be none of those, or not quite.

So far as making the negotiations themselves a satisfying climax is concerned, I think this short story which won one of Fantasy Faction's monthly contests accomplished that wonderfully. The whole story is basically negotiation:

Monthly Short Story Winner: Politics, Scheming, and Intrigue | Fantasy-Faction

Talking about peaceful resolutions in general, I think you have to be very careful when building characters, theme, tone, and the conflict itself to make sure that a nonviolent resolution fits. If it doesn't, such an ending can come across as unrealistic or childish/sappy. It can be quite the balancing act.

 

[FifthView]

I loved that.

I'm not sure that would make a satisfying climax for a novel, but maybe it'd work if what precedes it left some doubt about how that negotiation might go. (Let's say both parties are prepared to unleash devastation if the negotiation goes bad, on a single-word command during negotiations, hah. Edit: or any number of unanswered questions.)

I'd realized that earlier in the thread, I'd been picturing the various interactions of parties—manipulations, secret alliances or at least promises, realizations of consequences (of war and potential peace), character arcs coming to completion, etc.—coming to a head as a climax just before the negotiations. They walk into the negotiations after all these prior, tension-filled encounters, revelations, and conclusions. But then I realized the negotiation scene following these would basically become a kind of denouement.

It could be done either way if peace is the desired conclusion to the plot. But then I reread the opening post to this thread, and I started wondering what would be necessary to make the negotiation itself climactic.

Now I suppose a chapter of these individual tête-à-têtes as climax could still technically be a case of the "negotiation as climax" if they involve members of both parties and/or a pivotal third party; the negotiation is just a series of meetings before the formal process. The scene where all parties come together (the major decisions already having been made, or mostly made) would serve as a kind of denouement after those.

I'm also wondering whether a separate thread discussing the characteristics of a climax, or what's necessary for a satisfying climax, could be good, heh. Weird, but I don't remember a discussion of climactic scenes/chapters.

So far as making the negotiations themselves a satisfying climax is concerned, I think this short story which won one of Fantasy Faction's monthly contests accomplished that wonderfully. The whole story is basically negotiation:

Monthly Short Story Winner: Politics, Scheming, and Intrigue | Fantasy-Faction

Talking about peaceful resolutions in general, I think you have to be very careful when building characters, theme, tone, and the conflict itself to make sure that a nonviolent resolution fits. If it doesn't, such an ending can come across as unrealistic or childish/sappy. It can be quite the balancing act.

 

[Mythopoet]

[*]Muad'Dib's "negotiation" with the Emperor

I would argue that this is not in any way, shape or form a "peaceful solution". It happens after a gigantic battle between the Fremen and the Emperor's forces and also gets interrupted by hand to hand combat.

 

[FifthView]

I would argue that this is not in any way, shape or form a "peaceful solution". It happens after a gigantic battle between the Fremen and the Emperor's forces and also gets interrupted by hand to hand combat.

I think that'd be a good debate. Negotiations for peace often follow hostilities, and the negotiations may be a process for deciding whether hostilities will continue or a peaceful solution may be found. The Emperor and Feyd-Rautha were all for continuing the hostilities. (Perhaps that other guy, what's-his-name, who was poised to assassinate Paul might be considered another; but I don't know the precise point when he changed his mind.) The Spacing Guild and Irulan came to a different conclusion.

I put "negotiation" in quotes because, when one side has such an overwhelming advantage and can force the peace, I'm a little unsure whether it can properly be called a negotiation. However, the military solution was not conclusive and had not decided things. Paul had to threaten destruction of the spice and basically switch the minds of the Spacing Guild, while Irulan found another way out to solidify the peace.

In any case, I introduced those three things as having elements I might add to the Poirot-esque scene. I do think there are useful elements in the final confrontation between Muad'Dib and the Emperor that can be applied to make a successful negotiation-as-climax, whether we call that particular scene a true negotiation or not.