The main body of AGAINST THE WAR consists entirely of chapters. Each chapter numerically follows the previous chapter chronologically. There is no going back timewise unless through the mind of a character and then the going back is always told in pluperfect voice. (For example: “He had decided the previous evening to go ahead with his plan.”) This novel has, in total, 331 chapters.
Chapters in AGAINST THE WAR are arranged into “series.” A series is a group of sequential chapters following a particular character. Since there are four main characters (Tom Steward, Matt Brandt, Jim Morris, and Bill O’Rourke), there are four main groups of series, each group comprising a sub-plot of the novel. Some series, however, are shared by two or more characters. In the first series of the novel, for example, all four of the main characters are present. Also, there is a fifth sub-plot focused on a secondary character, Mary Kass Brandt.
Viewed diagrammatically,– as a vertical rising and falling action above a horizontal line representing chronological time, — the four main sub-plots of the novel appear as shapes like Bell curves, all reaching their highest point at the numerical midpoint of the novel, Chapter 167. This chapter also takes place half way through the chronological timeline of the novel, two years and three months from the start of the novel and two years and three months from its end.
I (the author) have done depictions of this dynamic with the sub-plots in different colors, and this depiction looks like a rainbow arcing above the center of the timeline of the novel. Because, though the sub-plots, as said, all center at the center of the novel, they do not begin and end at the same time. For example, the main action of the Steward sub-plot begins in the first chapter and ends in the last chapter, the Brandt subplot starts several chapters later and ends several chapter sooner. Similarly, the Morris and O’Rourke subplots have successively shorter time spans and lower arcs on the diagram.
The reason all of the sub-plots peak at the center chapter of the novel is because this central chapter, Chapter 167, describes the Apollo 11 moon landing (as experienced by Jim Morris). The moon landing is the symbolic and thematic center of the novel because it unifies the American nation in the pride and patriotism of this technological achievement.
In contrast to the four sub-plots just referred to, the Mary sub-plot does not rise and fall, but rather it continues to rise until the end of the novel. For Mary, there is no falling. Mary is the heroine of this novel who carries forth the best spirit of the Vietnam war generation through her integrity, intellectual depth, physical work ethic, and generous regard for everyone around her.
In addition to having the structure of the sub-plots described, AGAINST THE WAR has another all-encompassing structure, a “thematic matrix.” The business of the thematic matrix is, in the manner of a court proceeding, to “present the case” of what this era was, — physically, sociologically, and as evidence presented to the reader,. As said in the novel’s Statement of Purpose, the object of this presentation is “to permit a fair judgment of the ways this generation’s response to the war and building of the counterculture should be emulated or corrected by future generations.”
In this respect, the action of the novel functions as a skeleton to support the evidence presented, and there is an ongoing calculation , –on the part of the author, — as to how to make this skeleton as strong as possible so as to hold as thorough as possible a body of evidence.