Basically this is the official name for skipping a lot of exposition and such and getting into things. I realized a long time ago, after receiving some critiques, that my novel starts In Medias Res. It starts with the middle of my main character's story and internal conflict, but it does start at the beginning of the external conflict. Most people like it. I totally want to run with this concept, so what are some tips that you have for effectively writing In Medias Res, so it doesn't annoy my audience?
I like doing this myself, and find a good way of going about things, sometimes, is to make a bullet-point list of the exposition I want the reader to know in a scene, and slowly drip feed it bit-by-bit into the action or setting itself. For instance, during the first scene of the sci-fi book I'm currently writing, I have two people walking along the outside of an outpost. They're looking for a broken repair robot, but I saw that I had written down in my bullet list "Reader must learn - outpost is jointly Russian and Chinese." So, when I had the pair find the broken robot next to an airlock, I took advantage of the scene and setting. I wrote that it was slumped against the airlock underneath a pair of flags printed on the side of the airlock - that of the Chinese and Russians. I find it's a great "show not tell" method.
