Hi folks. New member here with my first question I'm an unpublished writer who's outlining a first novel. In preparation, I've been reading a lot about story structure. It seems to be common advice to open with your protagonist in his ordinary world, then use an inciting incident (roughly 12% in) as the event that leads him out of this ordinary world. But in the case of my story, I want to open with my character already 'on the run.' I plan to refer to his ordinary world and inciting incident as a flashback later in the story, probably at the 12% mark. I'd like to know if anyone has seen this sort of setup used successfully before, as I just can't see writing the story in any other way. Cheers
It might help if you explain what type of book it is. Portal Fantasy? So are you wanting it to be non-linear or will you have a brief flashback detailing how the protagonist left their 'ordinary World'?
It's a Sci-fi, suspense, romance. My plans are to have a flashback that details the protagonists ordinary world and inciting incident. Opening the story at the point I've chosen is being done for narrative reasons.
Sounds like you're telling your story in medias res. Which is a prevalent enough storytelling structure that it has its own name. Though it also could be that your story's inciting incident is not the event that sends him on the run, but is something that happens when he's already on the run. Which would mean him being on the run is his ordinary world before the story starts.
Thanks for mentioning in medias res. I remember coming across that term now. I guess that's what I'm doing, and yes, there is indeed something that happens while on the run, but I haven't really considered it as the inciting incident until now. It just made sense in the character's trajectory that what made him have to run from his home would be the inciting incident. Food for thought
I think it's a good idea to start in medias res. Too many people start by showing the character's normal world and making it boring before anything exciting happens. That's a good way to lose all your readers right off the bat. You need to grab their interest right away.
The story that comes to mind is a movie, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" Yes, it's been done before and was successful.
I personally haven't read any book where this was done well. It always come out awkward and unnecessary. Is it really important to tell people how you came to the new world? The best way I can think of doing it is naturally over the length of the entire book. Small doses, rather than an expo dump in middle of the novel. That would just break immersion. The only decent explanation I've found is when the person was simple reincarnated in the other world and remembered their memories. The rest that use gods or "summoning the hero" trope are kinda cheesy. Destiny's crucible used aliens as the reason, which was the worst imo.
I think it's important to begin a novel by setting the scene. I'd start with the protagonist in a relatively slow scene where there's time to look around and take note of the interesting features of the setting. Without this, the reader may experience 'white room syndrome' where they can't imagine the scene. In an exciting scene where the protagonist is literally being chased, a detailed description of the surroundings would be most out of place. To know that he's on the run would be enough. Why he's on the run could be dealt with by backstory at a later time without confusing the reader.
My novel I'm currently working on starts off with a dead body at a murder scene. The scene, itself, is used several times throughout the story, so it doesn't get missed by the reader. No all stories should start out slow. It depends on the genre, the tense, and how the author wants to present the story.
A dead body at a murder scene is not a high adrenalin action scene. It's a slow scene. In such a scene you can describe the surroundings in detail, and how the protagonist comes to be there, without it seeming odd.
I don't know, Aled. There's a lot going on in that first scene, like internal conflict. Does that count?
You can do a bit of both. It doesn't need be entirely conflict or description. Let me see if I can link to that recent post about Conan... Here I did two brief posts immediately after Le Panda Du Mal's excerpt. In the second one I broke down the way Robert E Howard had combined action with a peppering of details about the setting and what was happening there (what the people were doing). I think it's an excellent approach. And of course it can work with any kind of conflict including internal.
Thanks - The opening isn't a particularly exciting scene (lots of time to develop the setting.) The protagonist has fled his home because of a tragic incident and a death - which he's afraid he will be implicated in. The story opens with him on the road, but the new world begins at about the 25% mark when he gets caught up in the events of a small town he stops in. I plan to use backstory to explain why he fled.
I wrote a short story not to long ago and was pretty happy with it. However, letting it digest I realized how much better it would be if I started the story with the inciting incident. So I scratched the majority of the story and started it with the real story. It was a vast improvement. I would be careful about reading into too many how-to-write books. Some of them might have great advice, but I feel like the actual examples (the real books with stories) are far better teachers. And don't be afraid to flip things up or do things out of the box. Good writing has very little of anything to do with following instructions or an outline for a basic novel. A lot of this we need to figure out on our own and as we go. Don't be afraid of your instincts if they are telling you to do something that goes against your how-to book.
