Lady Ice and Danthia had it right - I meant cold open in the context that the story starts off with a quick change ins scene that's prologue-like in its intention, but is a chapter in and of itself.
Ah. I think I understand what you're saying.
I'd think of this as a 'flash' opening. You got Big Exciting WhizzBang Stuff in Chapter One (or in the Prologue -- whatever you call it.)
Then the Big Exciting Action is dropped.
. . . And you pick up in the next chapter with somebody leaning over a microscope or teaching class at the University. You leave the gunfight or the charge of fire demons or the little spaceship trying to outrun the big one,
and settle down to introduce the MC and the background and what the story is about.
This is very TV-and-Movie plotting. It works well with the visual medium and tight time constraints. In books, it tends to live in the thriller/adventure/suspense field. In these genres, the whizzbang opening serves the useful function of promising more whizzbang to follow, a la James Bond.
One thing to think about, maybe, in fitting a 'flash' opening onto the front of the story is this:
All whizzbang action is not equal. What's
important about the whizzbang is how it will be used in the plot structure. It's not so much the detail of what's going on, as whether you are setting up an intellectual problem or building an emotional cliffhanger.
You will intrigue readers if your Exciting Opening sets them an interesting puzzle to unravel over the rest of the book.
The pirate ship went down in 1678 -- we've just seen the stormy death of it -- and now we slip over to treasure hunters in a library in Madrid. The farmer looks up and sees a mysterious green light above him. He runs screaming down the field and falls, frothing at the mouth. -- Next scene is the farmer on the dissection table, colored green, and the forensic pathologist leaning over him.
All well and good.
These are all 'puzzle plots' and the flash at the beginning leads us into a fairly cool and intellectual story.
In this case, we need little transition between 'action prologue' and the rest of the story because the flash opening is isolated, neatly rounded out, and emotionally complete. At the end of the 'flash' presentation, we are left only with the puzzle.
But let's say we end that the flash opening with the plane about to crash or the young woman trying to outrun her pursuers in the deserted underground garage or our poor CSI waking up in a glass coffin buried several feet underground and his air running out.
These are not puzzle plots.
These are emotional cliffhangers.
This sort of flash opening probably has to be approached with some care.
What you might do, in thinking of this from a writerly point of view, is pull out fifty or sixty movie examples of whizzbang openings. Star Wars. Indiana Jones. Or CSI.
Which ones set up intellectual problems? Which ones are emotional cliffhangers?
See how these two types of openings are treated differently? What you're studying here is the transition from the flash opening to the more staid 'second chapter'.
OK. Let's say that we very clearly have an emotional cliffhanger as the opening action.
How does the initial action sequence
end?
How does the viewer
feel when that action sequence is completed?
How does the author seque from that emotional high to the next scene?
How long does the author take to resolve the emotional issue set forth in that opening?
How much of the story is 'about' that particular emotional issue?
How does the author, in Chapter Two and Three, promise the reader that this emotional problem
will get solved?
Anyhow -- that's some random thought on juggling a piece of unrelated, intense action onto the front of the story.
