Is It Okay To Introduce The MC Via A McGyver?

It's all in the writing. I don't know what exactly a "field hack" is, but let's assume it's unlikely and even a little bit contrived. Your job is to write the scene in such a way that what transpires seems plausible to the reader. CS Lewis wrote several volumes about children who find a magical world at the back of a wardrobe. This could have gone terribly wrong from a technical standpoint, but he manages to pull it off. You see what I'm getting at here?

Errant Lobe said:

Hi, everyone. I have a question with which I need some help.
In my work in progress, I open my first chapter by showing the initiating event. Next, I introduced the MC which scene ended with him to evade death completing a Field Hack.

Is it correct to do this? Or is this unwisely making a promise of Indiana Jones-like proportions?

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I don't see anything wrong with this in general. It's just whether you can pull it off.

One difficult thing about doing what you're describing is that introducing the character with something like that makes it a little harder to establish this as a preexisting skill or device they had on them (i.e., a Chekhov's Skill/Gun). Without doing that, you have to rely more on the audience being willing to believe that the character just happens to be this awesome. If the character is a suave super-spy or genius hacker, that could work, but not everyone wants to read stories about such characters.

Quinn_Inuit said:

One difficult thing about doing what you're describing is that introducing the character with something like that makes it a little harder to establish this as a preexisting skill or device they had on them (i.e., a Chekhov's Skill/Gun). Without doing that, you have to rely more on the audience being willing to believe that the character just happens to be this awesome. If the character is a suave super-spy or genius hacker, that could work, but not everyone wants to read stories about such characters.

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I don't agree with this at all. Introducing a character this way is pretty standard, and having the character do something like this early makes this event the preexisting skill that he'll use later in the story. It's always better to show a skill in the present and through action, than to tell about it in backstory.

I see no reason at all why this would make the character a ~suave super-spy or genius hacker? He could as easily be a nerd still living in his parent's basement. As for not everyone wanting to read stories about such characters, that's not an argument at all. I don't care what kind of characters you use, many won't want to read about them, but suave spies and genius hackers are remarkably popular characters, so most much like reading about them.

Why are you doing this? To save your MC from certain doom (otherwise known as the Saving Throw) or to establish him as a smart cookie?

Both have their uses, but if the Saving Throw involves him doing things that the average person would never be able to do/to think of, the reader may then wonder why, three chapters later, he's flummoxed when he locks his keys in the car.

Twick said:

Why are you doing this?

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This was my question as well.

My assumption is that you are using the opening as an opportunity to drop the reader into the MC's current dangerous life/job and skillset, as a way of introduction.

To follow-up on Quinn_Inuit and Jamesaritchie's points above, is your MC a suave super-spy/genius hacker or a nerd still living in his parent's basement?

Jim

Jamesaritchie said:

I don't agree with this at all. Introducing a character this way is pretty standard, and having the character do something like this early makes this event the preexisting skill that he'll use later in the story. It's always better to show a skill in the present and through action, than to tell about it in backstory.

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I think you may misunderstand me. Imagine starting chapter one and finding Professor Courage and his doughty sidekick Big George trapped in an airplane with a dead pilot and one engine shot off by the Commie-Nazis. "Don't worry!" says the Professor, and sure enough, he knows how to fly a Gooney Bird with only one engine. They land, deliver the artifact to the Countessa, and then the FBI shows up to arrest them all! End chapter.

That's an exciting opening, of course, but what's the chance the character is going to have the precise skill necessary to survive in this circumstance? That's what I was getting at. There's a fine line between allowing a character to open up a novel in a manner that shows off their skills and having a character who appears (to readers) to develop new skills as the plot demands.

It can work, of course, but I think you need to do it carefully and manage reader expectations. For instance, a reader is going to have an easier believing that someone is a master cat-burglar if you open the book in media res during one of their carefully planned heists than if you open the book with them walking down a street and suddenly needing to use their cat burglar skills to escape a police checkpoint. In the former, the reader is going to expect the skill level of an average cat burglar, in the latter, the skill level of an average pedestrian.

Jamesaritchie said:

I see no reason at all why this would make the character a ~suave super-spy or genius hacker? He could as easily be a nerd still living in his parent's basement. As for not everyone wanting to read stories about such characters, that's not an argument at all. I don't care what kind of characters you use, many won't want to read about them, but suave spies and genius hackers are remarkably popular characters, so most much like reading about them.

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That was my polite way of saying that they're often Mary Sue/Gary Stu-types. That doesn't make them unpopular, of course.

Errant Lobe said:

Much like you say, JimRac; the goal is to establish skillset, initiating event and cultural setting all at the same time.
He is a new adult from a leading family who is about to return home to learn that he has lost everything, leaving him with a dessicated core and an old soul's level of cynicism in one bold stroke.

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I see. It'll all be in how you bring it off, I suppose. That type of opening scene can be awesome, funny, or Gary Stu-ish.

I know "returning home to find it's destroyed" scenes are a serious business, but after reading the first Samurai Cat book, I just can't read/watch them without thinking of Mongols in Spitfires, Al Capone, aliens, and dinosaur Nazis attacking a bunch of samurai. It's probably just me.