Questions about starting in the middle

Hello all,

I'm currently in my third draft of a horror novel, and I'm looking at having the first chapter be something from the middle/middle-end of the book. I like the way it grabs the readers' attention and gives them a small dose of what's to come. There is one chapter in particular that I like, and I think it fits because it's the last chapter of Part 1. This leads me to two questions:

1) Just in terms of labeling, is there a name for what I want to do? Would you call it a prologue? I wouldn't think so, but I found some examples in movies (Pulp Fiction, for one) where they list the first scene a prologue even though it happens in the middle of the story.

2) More importantly, though I love how the book reads when starting this way, I do not like how it currently feels like I'm missing a chapter when you get to that point in the story. Wondering what a good technique is either just before or just after that point in the story to remind the reader of the opening chapter? Something with big, blinking lights and arrows that says "THE OPENING CHAPTER GOES HERE." Is it as simple as just continuing the action? For example, if I end the opening chapter on firing my gun, do I maybe end the previous chapter with getting my gun out, then start the following chapter (the first chapter in Part 2) with the bullets flying and hitting or missing their targets? Do I do some sort of small recap at the beginning of the chapter? I feel like there needs to be some sort of tie back to the opening?

 

I've seen something similar, but it wouldn't be an entire chapter, just one of the most exciting parts of the story put in before the beginning of the book (and later in its proper place). It's called a preface. You can see an example here on Bill Johnson's site A Story is a Promise: Bringing the Dead To Life. It's about Twilight, but don't hold that against it. He's not praising the story itself, just the way the preface pulls the reader in through what he calls the Question, Answer, Question process. And I only post it here to demonstrate what a preface is.

If you want to put an entire chapter at the beginning, I suppose you'd need to use some flashbacks or something to explain what led up to it. I don't know of a name for that, it's just presenting the story out of order so the reader has to put it together. It can make a story intriguing if done well.

 

Thanks for the replies.

When I said chapter, it's really just an action scene, just a hair over 2,000 words.

Doing it from a different perspective is an interesting thought. If I'm thinking of this correctly, the same scene would be in there twice, which kind of works because the scene itself involves one person being trapped and the second (the main character) trying to rescue him. The entire book is from the main character's point of view, but it might be cool to have the book open in the middle, from the viewpoint of the person that is captured.

 

I don't think there's anything wrong with that approach, as long as the reader isn't suddenly confused by the shift in time and circumstances. By that, I mean that if it's really necessary to understand a character's motivations in that chapter, and the only way to get that understanding is to know what's happened beforehand, then you risk losing much of the impact of that chapter.

I'm trying to think of examples of that approach in literature, and the only one that comes to mind right away is The Godfather. The book starts just after World War II, but somewhere in the middle, it shifts to the turn of the 20th century as it fills in the back story of Vito Corleone. It works there because we're already invested in the story, and we really don't need that subsequent information to appreciate it.

Come to think of it, Puzo uses the device a few times in the book. For example, he tells of Don Vito learning about the death of his son Santino, and then backtracks to tell the story of that murder.

 

An old movie called Sunset Boulevard begins with the protag dead, floating face down in the swimming pool of a once magnificent mansion in Hollywood, now in crumbling ruin. The character's voice is narrating, and the rest of the movie is to show how he arrived at that condition (and how the mansion did, as well as the life and career of the once-famous silent movie star who lives in it, her life crumbling as much as the house and grounds are). So it essentially starts at the end and then goes back to the beginning to show how we arrived there.

Some of the seasons of Breaking Bad did the same. Hah, just realized in fact, one began by showing a ripped-up and half-burnt teddy bear floating in the pool of Walt's house, and the rest of the season shows how this happened. It might have been done in imitation of Sunset Boulevard (never realized that before).

But that's starting with a striking image at the end (which incidentally all create that question/answer/question cycle) and then go back to the beginning. Im sure it's been done with scenes form the middle or random points in the plot line. Heck, memento started at the end and went backwards (as I understand, never seen it).

So, you don't necessarily need to present all the info necessary to understanding—the whole point might be to hook the attention and make them want to know what led up to this moment.

 

I want to add though, each of these were just brief snippets placed at the beginning to grab attention, and a preface is usually a single paragraph or possibly 2 as far as I know, placed before chapter 1.

That doesn't mean you can't do what you're wanting to do. I'm sure it's been done many times, just can't think of any examples right now. But it's really a form of extended flashback, or mixing up the order of the telling to increase tension or because the information needs to be presented in that order or for some similar reason.

 

This is a common - and in my opinion fun and exciting - technique used in TV screenplays, and I have seen it employed in novels with some success as well. Dan Brown, for example.

It's called a Flashforward.

It's not quite the same as In Media Res, but it leverages one shared feature, which is to start a story in the middle of the action.

I've used it in most of my buddy cop comedy/murdermysteries. The opening chapter is confusing and action rich, and the hope is to hook the reader on how they got into that mess. Chapter 2 would be titled something like: "22 hours earlier..."

Examples that inspired me were the TV shows "The Good Guys," and "Republic of Doyle."

 

This is exactly where I was headed. My concern/issue is once I reach that point in the story, how do you refer back to it as a reminder? Just for example, suppose your opening chapter is 20; what do you do at the end of Chapter 19 or beginning of Chapter 21? I've been playing around with some of the ideas above and am still uncertain on how I want to proceed.

 

I finally settled on making the opening chapter very short.

Later in the novel, I just did the same actions again, but either from another character's perspective, or paraphrasing the same action and dialogue with different wording.

No idea if this is the best way to do it, but so far I'm satisfied with the results.