Don't Tell People What You're Going to Tell Them; Begin in the Middle

I'm about to write a sentence to thank you for the interesting-looking link I'm about to read.

Thank you for the interesting-looking link I'm about to read.

Has that ever been applied to writing though? Seems odd advice to me.

It's a good article and a belief that took me 23 years to figure out. In my experience, all my lead-ins, excessive or not, have really garnered most of my rejections. Although you do not have to start mid-action (it really does help), you can start mid-conflict with a scene or dialogue. Start with a problem or baffling question right from the get, and it's not necessary to fill the reader in on why or what's happening. Less is better--hook--intrigue-confuse, confound--whatever it takes to draw the reader in.

Anytime one of my partials comes back the the comment, "I just couldn't get into it," I know I've failed.

There are some stories that do require some type of setup but, again, make it brief and get on with it. I don't need to impress you with my fabulous prose, the weather, the geography/location, character background etc,. I have to impel you to click or flip to the next page. Once I've got you, I'll fill in by sprinkling a little bit of info here and there, but I won't apologize by explanation or any back-story. The reader is a lot smarter than you think and they can do a great job of filling in the blanks. And even if they do get it wrong, it's a moment of discovery or a WTH moment.

Keep 'em guessing.

It's a lovely article, and fits the way I most like to read. But it may be a touch unrealistic, as far as reader expectations in certain genres. Different types of books - and different readers - appear to demand different levels of introduction.

True, it's not this solution fits all types.

tri

Doesn't work for everyone. When I followed that advice, I ended up with story structure problems because I started way too late.

When I did this in erotic romance space opera, I had ER betas who said 'Huh?' when the sci-fi betas had no problem tracking.

In two weeks my new book will be out and the opening is the MC telling us what is about to happen in the book.

It works for the story, the MC's character and the genre.

I'm not going to worry too much about it.


As a side note, while the 'just tell me' advice is often good, it sometimes goes against common sense - for instance, if you are giving a presentation, you should tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you have just told them. It sounds repetitive, but think of it this way, 'introduction, core content, summary'

What I'm trying to say is that sometimes that approach is actually the best one. In fiction though, not always.

Linda Adams said:

Doesn't work for everyone. When I followed that advice, I ended up with story structure problems because I started way too late.

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triceretops said:

True, it's not this solution fits all types.

tri

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Maybe I'm just cranky, but...

Now clearly not every story should begin in the middle of a dramatic action like that — that would get repetitive quite fast — but the principle is quite good.

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even the writer of the article acknowledged that it doesn't work for all things all the time all ever in every instance.

Or, as Sir John Henry Moore wrote:

I hate a prologue to a story
Worse than the tuning of a fiddle,
Squeaking and dinning;
Hang order and connection,
I love to dash into the middle;
Exclusive of the fame and glory,
There is a comfort on reflection
To think you've done with the beginning.

And so at supper one fine night,
Hearing a cry of Alla, Alla,
The Prince was damnable confounded,
And in a fright,
But more so when he saw himself surrounded
By fifty Turks, and at their head the fierce Abdalla.

On of the distinctions made about two thousand years ago between epics and other genres was that epics start "in media res" or in the middle of things, while histories start at the beginning or "ab ovo," at the egg.

Precisely. In my case, 'author's notes' begin ab ovo. Boring as hell to anyone who isn't me - and me, on a bad day. But these fake histories are the structural underpinnings.

The actual story is the point in those notes where some gut-wrenching change or event just happened to somebody interesting.

In order to start in the middle, I'd have to know the whole story, and when I start writing, I don't know any of it. I have no idea where the middle is. I start where the story starts, regardless of genre, or type of story.

That post cites Andy Christie's famous opening line:

“I’m about 5000 feet above Albany on this perfect, beautiful, cloudless day when the girl who just pushed me out of the airplane starts screaming, ‘Wait, wait, your chute!’

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When I read that opening, my first response is to hope this character is going to plummet to his horrible death.

It's really not good to open with dull world-building or exposition, or with superfluous descriptions of weather or houses. But starting with pointless action isn't really any better. I'm not a child who needs to be constantly distracted with motion, and action sequences aren't really much of a novelty.

The most important thing to understand as a writer is that the reader's default response is indifference, or possibly hostility. Agents, editors and ultimately readers are looking for an excuse on the first page to stop reading your book forever. They don't care about your mise en scene action opening for the same reason they don't care about your plodding world building opening: because you haven't made them care.

A story starts at the beginning, and the beginning is a character who has a problem. The part before we meet the character is not the beginning. The part before he has a problem is not the beginning. Similarly, dropping the reader into something that happens much later without any context is not the beginning either. You have to get your reader invested on the first page.

Your opening needs to be designed to introduce the character and his problem. He can be sitting in his office when somebody comes in and drops the problem on his desk, or he can be in the middle of a gunfight. But he needs to be distinctive and interesting from page one, and the problem needs to be as well.

And that's hard. Which is why most people who try to write fiction fail.

djf881 said:

When I read that opening, my first response is to hope this character is going to plummet to his horrible death.

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My personal response is: he's just jumped out of a plane and he can talk and hear?

bearilou said:

Maybe I'm just cranky, but...

even the writer of the article acknowledged that it doesn't work for all things all the time all ever in every instance.

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One of the problems though is that the disclaimer comes across as unimportant and meaningless. It gets a quick sentence, and that sentence is buried in the middle of a paragraph. In fact, it was so insignificant in the post that I missed it entirely until you pointed it out.

I've never understood this:

The most important thing to understand as a writer is that the reader's default response is indifference, or possibly hostility. Agents, editors and ultimately readers are looking for an excuse on the first page to stop reading your book forever.

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As a reader, I open a new book full of hope. The hope that for a few hours I will be entertained, educated and maybe even given a new perspective on life. I don't open a new book and think 'Right you arse! You've got one page to make me care or that's it!'

And surely each agent/publisher opens a new MS hoping for the next Rowling or Pratchett or Evanovich. The Big One. The one that will make so much money his bank will have to open a branch just for him.

It seems to me that regarding your readers as your enemy is totally missing the point.

djf881 said:

That post cites Andy Christie's famous opening line:

When I read that opening, my first response is to hope this character is going to plummet to his horrible death.

It's really not good to open with dull world-building or exposition, or with superfluous descriptions of weather or houses. But starting with pointless action isn't really any better. I'm not a child who needs to be constantly distracted with motion, and action sequences aren't really much of a novelty.

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I haven't read that book, but I love that opening. Not because it's actiony and makes me go "omg, is he going to die!?" but because it's funny. I like the juxtaposition between the descriptions and the fact that he realizes he's about to die.

Now, if it turned out the character didn't have a sense of humor and the book was meant to be taken 100% seriously, I'd be less impressed as I went on and perhaps not enjoy the book, but as an opening, it makes me grin and I loooooove love love love characters with amusing, funny voices telling me their story. Hell, I love writing them, too.

One-size-fits-all rules for writing rarely work for me. For every rule I can usually remember plenty of exceptions.

For instance, the idea that a prologue or a big scene-setting opening is bad. I’ve read many a book in my many years where those were so well-done and fascinating that I bought the book before reading any further.

That said, in my own writing I try to begin with a single sentence that hooks my readers. Maybe something like this, which I dash off not as an exemplar but as an example.

Before she died the first time Sarah was an ordinary teenaged girl, neither bright nor dull, a pretty cheerleader but not super hot the way some of her cheer mates were.

A page of background, followed by the scene where she dies the first time.

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As with all advice it must be taken with a grain of salt. It's only one person's opinion. However, the single sentence that resonated with me was, "Our format is one that depends on the plot moving forward, and it can't move forward until its started." And really that's it in a nutshell. Has my opening moved the plot forward or left it spinning its wheels in one place? Something to think about.

ishtar'sgate said:

As with all advice it must be taken with a grain of salt. It's only one person's opinion. However, the single sentence that resonated with me was, "Our format is one that depends on the plot moving forward, and it can't move forward until its started." And really that's it in a nutshell. Has my opening moved the plot forward or left it spinning its wheels in one place? Something to think about.

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QFT.

Very well said.

ishtar'sgate said:

Has my opening moved the plot forward or left it spinning its wheels in one place?

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Fine for a plot-driven story. But there are plenty of stories that don’t depend on plot. Some focus on characters and the plot is secondary. Some focus on settings and atmosphere. And so on.

All of the different ways to approach a story work. We shouldn’t be blinded by our personal preferences, and think everyone in the world shares them.