In my story, I'm trying to set up an entire fantasy universe. I know that I don't need to explain everything about the world and should be explored organically through the eyes of the protagonist but my protagonist is not alien to this world and knows how the world functions already. Hence, I started my story a few chapters before the protagonist is introduced. I've read that you should have the so called, "story-worthy problem" in your opening chapter, which I do, but only kind of. The story opens up with Yunan and some of his people crossing the border into the lands where the protagonist lives. They live in completely separate societies and they have an ancient beef with each other that Yunan and his people remembers more clearly than the protagonist's. Anyway, through Yunan's eyes, we learn about how the world functions as he lives in secret in the same city that the protagonist lives. Their paths will intertwine eventually and kind of lead of the story off Yunan to the real protagonist of the story. What are you thoughts about this set up? Should introduce the protagonist from the start or can it wait if the secondary character is interesting enough and is part of the so called "storty-worthy problem" him being from a rivaling tribe (of sorts).
Have you ever read the first Sherlock Holmes story A Study in Scarlet? The plot is all about the murders and Holmes's investigation, but the narrative is about Watson learning more and more about how Holmes's life works. Maybe Yumas could be the POV character for the entire book, even after meeting the MC who'll be driving the action? My own (Urban) Fantasy WIP starts with a Decoy Protagonist / First-Person Peripheral Narrator whose Main Character best friend doesn't show up until the end of Chapter 2
Interesting. Glad to hear others employ this method as well. It feels right to do it this way so I'm probably sticking to it, but it's always interesting to hear the communities opinions.
I don't think you have to reveal the "story-worthy problem." Have you thought of doing a Prologue? As long as it's interesting and keeps the readers attention (gotta love media/Hollywood limiting everyone's attention spans) you should be fine.
I think that as long as you make it interesting you should be fine. Just be careful with the info dump, lots of readers get bored pretty quickly if nothing is happening for a few pages. As long as you keep the story moving forward I don't think you'll have a problem =) Good luck!
I'm working through the very same issue with my own fantasy series. It was originally based in the 'Forgotten Realms' setting, tied into the 'Bhaalspawn Crisis' and featured characters already established in that universe. With the setting and a lot the characters already known to the reader, I could just launch into the story. Now, I have to introduce a very different world along with telling the story. This is the approach I'm taking. My MC has a 'best friend' who travels with her. While I do switch POV's, the best friend serves as the anchor POV for the reader. Your use of Yuan is a more interesting POV, in my opinion, because of the natural conflict with the MC. Godspeed!
My impression is that you can use suspense to your advantage here. Not to write your story for you, but here's a scenario. This Yunan fellow and his vengeful tribe could be violent or scheming something horrible, and the protagonist doesn't know, and probably isn't even equipped to deal with it. We explore their day in alternating scenes or chapters, with Yunan's crew coming close to carrying out their wicked scheme, and the victims have a lot to lose, and the protagonist is in no position to deal with it. Now we're squirming (in a good way) pleading the protagonist to draw his sword and do something before it's too late! But catastrophe strikes, and we get insight into the lead when things get messy. I felt the built-in tension to your premise and decided to lean into it with suspense of impending war or other vicious acts. Hope this helps!
That was actually an almost 100% accurate summarization of the plot with Yunan... I'm pretty amazed! The only difference is that Yunan dedication to bring vengeance to the protagonist people waver after a time and finds more things to relate to with the protagonist rather than his own people, for various reasons...
The crucial thing is that you're beginning should foreshadow the rest of the book. And it's a plus if the conflict introduced in the beginning ties in to the main conflict as a whole. As long as you do that, and as long as the beginning is interesting, your readers should be hooked
In terms of fantasy story opening look at animes. They are world renowned for building up fantasy worlds in their animations. Look at Pokemon or digimon where you take many characters and sort of build a universe within the story.
