Starting too Late

I think the most important sentence is the first sentence on the first page and supporting that becomes the most important paragraph. And the most important paragraph supported becomes the most important chapter. Whatever it takes to get the most important stuff upfront to draw in the reader is what I believe a writer should do. If it means moving a chapter out of the middle to the beginning, then do that and I have done that more than once. From my readring perspective, I don't like to see backstory in one narrative block in the first chapter, but rather I like it bled in during subsequent chapters.

I started a book at an exciting place and took it to a workshop with Connie Willis and Walter Jon Williams. They both told me to back up and start the story 10 minutes earlier so the reader would care about the MC when exciting things started to happen. That was one chapter, not five, but I did start the story too late.

Yes, I got feedback about that from my writing group, when I showed them the first couple of chapters of the mystery novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo.

Not as dramatic as your experience, but I moved a key scene from the middle of the first chapter (where it was presented as backstory) to make it the opening scene of the book. In effect, I'd started the book too late. Trying to avoid that "starting too early" problem, in the mistaken belief that the opening scene has to start with dramatic action or violence.

This particular scene, between the main character and her friend/love interest, takes place 6 weeks before what I'd originally seen as the start of the book.

But this scene is actually what gets the plot rolling. It's not a dramatic action scene (why I'd worried about beginning with it). On the face of it, it's kind of cozy. But there is clear, if subtle, interpersonal conflict, it immediately establishes the character of the protogonist--and the reader sees exactly what establishes the core conflict of the book (a mystery) precisely when it gets innocently set in motion.

I was surprised at how much better it worked, to have this as the opening scene.

dawinsor said:

I started a book at an exciting place and took it to a workshop with Connie Willis and Walter Jon Williams. They both told me to back up and start the story 10 minutes earlier so the reader would care about the MC when exciting things started to happen. That was one chapter, not five, but I did start the story too late.

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Yes! My experience, too! Your post wasn't up when I began my response, which I just posted, right after yours.

Fascinating that we both seemed to have fallen into the same kind of error. Yes, you do have to engage the reader right away. But starting in the middle of some "exciting" piece of action (and mine wasn't all that exciting, anyhow!) may not always be the best way to do it.

Thank heaven for workshops and critique groups!

Cyia said:

I've seen posts here about starting a novel too early with what equates to a mass of unneeded back story, but have you ever started a novel too late?

This seems to be happening with my current WIP. I thought I had a beginning, and now that beginning is chapter 6 . The first five chapters aren't backstory, they've turned out to be necessary elements of the protag's story.

Who knew?

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Is it possible that your story DOES start at chapter 6, but chapter 1-6 are just necessary information, which you can integrate into the rest of the story or use flashbacks, or whatever?

That said... yeah, it's possible to start too late. Sometimes writers take the "in media res" advice too eager and the story starts in the middle of something big without anchoring the readers to anything emotionally or intellectually. You plunge the readers right in without giving them any rhyme and reason to care.

That's why I have said that, often, it's better to start the story right before the point of no return, but not beyond the point of no return. Start with the MC steps away from the door, but no inside the room with the door shut already.

You won't know one way or another until after you've typed "The End."

Starting too late:

The End.

Well, not really . . .

caw

I was going to say this sort of thing--starting too early or too late--never seems to happen to me, because, well, I just know where to start a story whenever I start it. I can't say that everyone here would agree that where I start a story is the best place to do it, but it's suited me so far. *shrug*

But then I realized something. With my two older novels, long after they were written, I added prologues that take place years before the main stories. So in effect, I did start those stories a bit too late. IMO the prologues really add to them.

I can't think of a time when I started too late or early in the current story, however. I can think of times when I hurried the writing and completely skipped lots of things I should have included in the plot, but those were in the middle, never the very beginning or end.

If you're not sure, start as early as possible. It's easier to cut than to add.

And, like UJ said, you'll be sure once you reach the end. The end and the beginning are two parts of the same whole.

I've done it. In my last project, I had to back it up about a chapter and take the time to introduce the characters and wade into the story instead of jumping in at the middle of the action scene.

Linda Adams said:

I've done it. In my last project, I had to back it up about a chapter and take the time to introduce the characters and wade into the story instead of jumping in at the middle of the action scene.

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I'd rethink this if I were you. Your first chapter can literally start just about anywhere you want it too, with little introduction. That's what the rest of the book is for...to develop your characters.

I hate when a book takes 30 or 40 pages to get started. That annoys the crap out of me, actually. I've stopped reading a few books because it hadn't taken off in the first pages.

The reader wants to be ENGAGED in the first chapter. Your first chapter should be catered towards raising a lot of questions, but very few answers.

When younger, I took that notion of starting at a dramatic point very seriously. One of the best first chapters I'd written to that point involved, amongst other things, an assassination attempt on a political figure. Right to the heart of the matter, and sure to set up a strong novel--or so I thought. The novel waded around after that powerful start, never really regaining its dramatic feet.

It took me ten years to realise my beginning was actually an ending. I'd started so late, I had no proper story left to tell.

Even now I find beginnings tricky, although I am more relaxed about them. There may be the perfect place to begin any particular story, but I doubt anyone finds it first go.