I've started with the main character just sitting in a swamp and moping about the events that happened right after the universe broke. But it was a little bit weak, and it skips a wonderful fight scene. What are some tips to starting in the universe, establish that exact moment before everything suddenly changes? I know, fanfiction is a waste of time, but this is the fifth time or so that I've started over and I want to get it right so I can move on to a different project.
What universe? The fan fiction bit confused me a little. Start your narration in the swamp and have your character explain what happened. Or use flashbacks. But I don't think I understand your question.
I'll still need a start. I also find that I have to be less precious about writing stuff non-linearly because then I'll have to completely scrap those scenes and re-write them later. They don't flow right if I try to simply massage them into place.
Nothing wrong with scrapping a scene and re-writing. It's only wrong if you need to dump one and you are reluctant to. I didn't mean you had to write non-linearly. Rather start the story however and keep going with the story. Don't worry the beginning isn't right. The first chapter is often the hardest to write. It seems like you are stuck trying to get the first chapter just right. But you must have a story in mind you want to write, so write it. You can change the first chapter after the story reveals more about just what should be in that opening.
You need something that encapsulates/captures the essence of the "change", something that brings home the event to your character.
Actually, neither of the characters at that point realize what is going on. One of them will experience a "wrongness" about it later when he has a chance to think about it. There are only two other people who know that things have gone off the rails. This story starts with a typical "real" person sucked into media, but her only "Sue Power" is that the forces of what are supposed to happen go completely haywire in her presence. I don't know if it's a true deconstruction of these types of stories because the real person gets shoved into a typical oracle position after a few chapters while the canon characters have to fix what went wrong. The most recent rewrite only got up to 4 chunks, but the one before that has 46 and some random future scenes. (Anywhere from 400 to the typical 700 to maybe a few going more than that.) The original uploaded version has a word-count of 21,390 and that wasn't too far in.
That isn't a Mary Sue, those are characters which are obvious stand-ins for authors. There's a substantial difference between wishing you'd have a life more like your character's and creating a character that's You 2, and it doesn't sound as if you've stepped over that line.
