The queen's problem is usually solved by 2 functions of <10 lines each:

public static boolean isSolution(final int[] board)
{
    for (int i = 0; i < board.length; i++) {
        for (int j = i + 1; j < board.length; j++) {
            if (board[i] == board[j]) return false;     // same column "|"
            if (board[i]-board[j] == i-j) return false; // diagonal "\"
            if (board[i]-board[j] == j-i) return false; // diagonal "/"
        }
    }
    return true;
}

public static void solve(int depth, int[] board)
{
    if (depth == board.length && isSolution(board)) {
        outputSolution(board);
    }
    if (depth < board.length) {  // try all positions of the next row
        for (int i = 0; i < board.length; i++) {
            board[depth] = i;
            solve(depth + 1, board);
        }
    }
}

public static void outputSolution(final int[] board)
{
    System.out.println("--- Solution ---");
    for (int i = 0; i < board.length; i++) {
        for (int j = 0; j < board[i]; j++) {
            System.out.print(" ");
        }
        System.out.println("Q");
    }
}

public static void main(String[] args)
{
    int n = 8;
    solve(0, new int[n]);
}