# Normal beginnings



## Garren Jacobsen (Jun 14, 2017)

So, I have heard several times that your beginnings need punch, pizzazz, yahoo and how. The punch needs to be emotional somehow. Often times the advice says it needs to happen right on the first page. However, I find myself not really liking those beginnings and I feel like when I try it it's so boring, lifeless even.

I've also noticed a trend in my writing my beginnings are...normal. Not like normal in the writing world but normal in the sense that characters are doing normal things. One character is coming home from an early morning job and starts flirting with a girl, conlfict ensues at the end when his family tries to dissuade him from going to the magical college of his dreams, which he of course tells his family to go suck a salty nut. Or, in another book, a middle aged father comes home from work, plays with his son, and watches helplessly as his son kidnapped on the last page of the first chapter by magic cultists. Another book, an attorney is making his closing arguments, accepts a new and crazy case, then loses the case he argues.

Those book openings are very...normal. Emotional? Sure, but normal. Do those openings fly in the face of convention? Is that a bad thing? Will readers be bored? Am I overthinking this and misunderstanding the advice (this is likely), tell me oh sages!


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## Heliotrope (Jun 14, 2017)

Normal, or mundane? Two different things. I like mundane. It helps the reader connect to the character and makes the cool stuff more interesting when it happens later. 

Fiction does not need to open with a bang, it needs to open with a hook. Again, not the same things. A hook simply raises a question. "Will the guy get the girl's number?" is enough.


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## Garren Jacobsen (Jun 14, 2017)

Heliotrope said:


> Normal, or mundane? Two different things. I like mundane. It helps the reader connect to the character and makes the cool stuff more interesting when it happens later.
> 
> Fiction does not need to open with a bang, it needs to open with a hook. Again, not the same things. A hook simply raises a question. "Will the guy get the girl's number?" is enough.



Let's go with the Dad story. He comes home and his goal is to get his son's jamies on. The son fights him, because two year olds are jerks sometimes but its also kind of fun. Kid goes down for sleep then bang home invasion kidnapping. Hook or no hook? (I recognize this is difficult to answer in the abstract)


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## FifthView (Jun 14, 2017)

Brian Scott Allen said:


> Let's go with the Dad story. He comes home and his goal is to get his son's jamies on. The son fights him, because two year olds are jerks sometimes but its also kind of fun. Kid goes down for sleep then bang home invasion kidnapping. Hook or no hook? (I recognize this is difficult to answer in the abstract)



Maybe we should discuss normal, mundane, and boring.

I think the above example will depend somewhat on the length of the chapter. If it's fairly short, then having that kidnapping happen on the last page could work pretty well. If the chapter's longer, a large number of pages of the father coming home and putting jammies on the kid could be incredibly boring.

But there may be other terms. The Writing Excuses podcast crew has often used the idea of "blending the familiar and the original" which, although usually applied to general story ideas, might apply here too.

So let's say the coming-home-putting-jammies-on-child is the familiar. We could add another layer that is less familiar. Let's say that day, there was a large disturbance at the office; the boss's two children were murdered the night before by their baby sitter. We've heard those stories, but they aren't really familiar to us, because most of us haven't experienced that. So when the father's putting the jammies on his own kid, this horrible day makes the activity much different than his normal experience (and ours.)

Or let's say there's a small framed photograph on the dresser in the kid's room. It's the father's father, who died in Desert Storm when he (the kid's father) was ten years old. And the photo is on the dresser because the father likes feeling that his own father watches over his son.

And there are lots of little details like that we can use to make the familiar a little different, unusual, or at least more meaningful.

Of course, you could add a wilder original element, like the father has been violating the laws and cloning humans at work, modifying those clones to have better resistance to disease and longer life spans. Or, whatever.


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## Ruru (Jun 14, 2017)

I like mundane beginnings. As Heliotrope said, it helps the reader connect with the story. I also think a normal beginning to a story helps set a contrast with whatever event the story will be about. Starting in the thick of it can (though not always) make it hard to make future chapters seem more dramatic or intense, compared to starting with an everyday scene.  A hook is important; there has to be a reason to keep reading, and I don't think you could stretch the 'normality' on for too long, but starting this way has a nice, unhurried appeal to it. Show how good things were for  your characters before the events of the story get involved!


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## Heliotrope (Jun 14, 2017)

I agree with FifthView, I can't know without reading it. Of course execution is key. I tend to prefer magical realism and urban fantasy to traditional fantasy, so a beginning like you described does not bother me if done well. 

An example I would use would be something like the the Robin Williams film "Hook". Same premise, the father struggles with day to day, mundane issues with his young children, then one night they are kidnapped and he sets out to rescue them. I think the film started by showing how the father, Peter, is always too busy for the children. It introduced the problem, which was he was more focussed on work than appreciating his children. Of course, this will be his character arc, and what he needs to overcome in order to rescue them. He will have to rediscover  his own sense of childishness. 

So in your case, if you were to present the mundane beginning in a way that shows a problem, and hints at a character arc, then it might work. 

It all must tie together to the big picture.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jun 14, 2017)

Nothing wrong with normal, boring is another issue. I open with a game of dice, but the game isn't something you know, and it's a bunch of priests and monks in a cave playing the game. Familiar, but you know you aren't in Kansas... so to speak. That said, the dice game plays into the character, but also plays into an event 140k words later, and further into book 2. But it still has a hint of the normal, the familiar, it's not life and death, it's not a bomb going off. 

Personally, I think it works.


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## Penpilot (Jun 14, 2017)

One of the things the first act to a story is supposed to do is show the reader what life is typically like for protagonist before the story world takes over. It depends on your character and what's 'normal' for them, so doing typical mundane things wouldn't be out of the question if your protagonist is just a normal person. The key is to make these mundane things interesting to the reader.

If memory serves the opening chapter of Game of Thrones has Bran accompanying his father, Ned, as he goes about his duties as Lord of Winterfell. The chapter shows what a day-in-the-life is like for house Stark. 

If you think about all the action openings to Bond movies, part of the reason they're there is to show what a day-in-the-life of Bond, the super spy, is like.

How about the Harry Potter books? If memory serves, don't they all generally start with Harry back in the normal, mundane world with the Dursleys, where he's being treated badly, before he goes back to school?

Check out the books you've read. If you look closely, I'll bet most start with a what's normal for the protagonist situation.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jun 15, 2017)

GoT and Bran is an interesting one... there is the usual, but it sure isn't a day in the life as they head out for Bran to witness an execution for the first time. It establishes the norm of relationships (and a bit of culture) but it also puts us smack in the middle of a tense situation from a newbie POV. Life lessons and blood. Then they find dire wolf pups. So, it's a mixed bag, which is what I personally prefer in opening chapters. It also had a prologue to set the tension and explain who the guy getting whacked was and why he'd fled.


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## FifthView (Jun 15, 2017)

So maybe it depends on what normal describes: normal for the characters or normal for the reader?

Or exchange "normal" for "mundane."

When thinking of hooking a reader or interesting a reader, I tend to think of what is normal for the reader rather than what's normal for the characters.

Heck, normal for the characters might be quite exotic for the readers.

So those examples of GoT, Harry Potter, and the like are a little concept-breaking for me, here. "Yeah, go ahead and begin your story by showing the everyday, mundane life of your characters!" Well, the mundane might be sitting in front of a television all day playing video games, with mother bringing snacks every few hours. Do you want to read a chapter that is little more than a description of 8 hours playing of Minecraft solo? Let's say, 20 pages of that. But if the mundane life of the character involves pixies, dragons, demons, and the MC's body magically altering every few hours—an automatic, unpreventable, normal organic experience for the MC in that world—well, you can brag to all your writer friends that you have NO problem starting out with the mundane for every novel you write, heh.

This kinda folds back into the idea of "blending the familiar and the original." I hate the word _original_ there because we all know almost everything we write has been done before in some fashion, heh. But for me the words _familiar_ and _original_ are relative to the reader, not the character. Same with _normal_ and _mundane_. Maybe that blend is sometimes a blend of two different _mundanes_: the reader's and the character's. But there's enough of a gap between those to interest a reader.

When I'm thinking of hooking the reader, then I'm thinking of those terms as they describe the reader's experience.

I do think there's room for discussing those ideas in terms of the character's experience. You could start a book with a boy living under the stairs, which is normal for him, or you could start the same book with the opening lines, "Harry dropped his sack lunch and froze. Something like a dragon from the story books had appeared above him and now dived, eyeballs fixed on Harry and toothy maw wide open. It was as if the dragon did not want Harry to take his algebra test today."

So...yes, there's a difference between the two approaches. The latter is a little like the "explosions in the first or second paragraph" approach, and in comparison the former might seem like "starting with the mundane" approach.  But for the reader, imagining life sleeping in a little cubby beneath the stairs, being mistreated by adoptive parents...That might be normal for _some_ potential readers, but not for the majority, I'd think. (Plus, if you've already had a super-long prologue called "Chapter One" in which the adoptive parents are paranoid about and hateful toward wizards, and the wizards worry about leaving a boy with such muggles, then that scenario of living under the stairs and being mistreated takes on an even less mundane flavor for the reader.)


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## Steerpike (Jun 15, 2017)

There seems to be a trend more toward i_n media res_ as an approach to openings, as opposed to setting up the "normal" situation before moving on to the events that upset that normalcy. As a reader, I am fine with either approach so long as the opening is interesting. Whatever you do, don't bore me. If you're starting with normal life, I think a strong voice and the ability to create a quick connection between the reader and characters are helpful.

One advantage the "normal" opening has in SF/F is that the world in which the story takes place is typically not the real world, and so starting with a bit of normal life in that world allows the author to establish just what is normal and what isn't. Being grounded in the normal workings of the world allows the reader to react to whatever sets up that normalcy. 

I feel as though the story proper generally starts when something upsets the normalcy, so even when using a "normal" opening, I would start as close to the beginning of the story as possible while still allowing for the author's goals in using the "normal" opening.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jun 15, 2017)

Brian Scott Allen said:


> So, I have heard several times that your beginnings need punch, pizzazz, yahoo and how. The punch needs to be emotional somehow. Often times the advice says it needs to happen right on the first page. However, I find myself not really liking those beginnings and I feel like when I try it it's so boring, lifeless even.
> 
> I've also noticed a trend in my writing my beginnings are...normal. Not like normal in the writing world but normal in the sense that characters are doing normal things. One character is coming home from an early morning job and starts flirting with a girl, conlfict ensues at the end when his family tries to dissuade him from going to the magical college of his dreams, which he of course tells his family to go suck a salty nut. Or, in another book, a middle aged father comes home from work, plays with his son, and watches helplessly as his son kidnapped on the last page of the first chapter by magic cultists. Another book, an attorney is making his closing arguments, accepts a new and crazy case, then loses the case he argues.
> 
> Those book openings are very...normal. Emotional? Sure, but normal. Do those openings fly in the face of convention? Is that a bad thing? Will readers be bored? Am I overthinking this and misunderstanding the advice (this is likely), tell me oh sages!



I don't think beginnings need punch and pizzazz. Actually, I think a flashy, action-packed beginning can betray that the author's trying to make up for the beginning's emotional vapidness. All you need is to get your reader to care. 

All the beginnings you mention seem perfectly fine and interesting. Depending on execution of course, they could be perfect for pulling in the reader.

Edit: This is coming from someone who has her MC slit a guy's throat in the second sentence of her WIP. But, in a way, that *is* a normal beginning, because kill or be killed is very much the MC's day to day life. 

But generally, flashy beginnings bore me. They don't make me feel invested, they make me feel BORED. (Mainly talking about the action-packed sort here.) But, flashy details aren't what pulls us in and invests us in a story. It's the characters, what they want, what they are thinking and feeling. 

Punch and pizzazz doesn't equal a hook. 

Maybe go back over your favorite books and note the moment you felt hooked? What did it for you?


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## FifthView (Jun 15, 2017)

Steerpike said:


> One advantage the "normal" opening has in SF/F is that the world in which the story takes place is typically not the real world, and so starting with a bit of normal life in that world allows the author to establish just what is normal and what isn't. Being grounded in the normal workings of the world allows the reader to react to whatever sets up that normalcy.



I also think that a SF/F world may present plenty of opportunity for setting up that "reader's mundane" vs "character's mundane" stimulus to create interest.

A lot of stories set in our own boring, mundane world may need to rely on other things. This may be why MCs might have peculiar flaws, quirks, interests, histories. E.g., the drunk, the sociopath, the collector of unusual items, the former spy, whatever. Or unusual family dynamics or family histories. (Earlier this morning I was thinking about _The Brady Bunch_.) It's not as if SF/F can't do these things as well, nor that non-SF/F can't use unusual milieus.

Then there's the problem that what a reader may find "normal" could be something he's read many times rather than lived, himself. So when a character seems identical to 20 other characters from books he's read, or when elves and dwarves are basically like every elf or dwarf or else come across as basically just humans with the tag "elf" or "dwarf," that might seem boringly "normal" to the reader.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jun 15, 2017)

This can be a chicken and egg situation. But I find it fascinating that you connect fighting/action with a lack of emotion. If written well these are some of the most emotional scenes in a book or movie. The typical "emotional" scene can be as vapid as any fight sequence. And let's face it, emotion is tricky, what gets one person fired up will mean nothing to another. 



DragonOfTheAerie said:


> I don't think beginnings need punch and pizzazz. Actually, I think a flashy, action-packed beginning can betray that the author's trying to make up for the beginning's emotional vapidness. All you need is to get your reader to care.


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## Penpilot (Jun 15, 2017)

Demesnedenoir said:


> GoT and Bran is an interesting one... there is the usual, but it sure isn't a day in the life as they head out for Bran to witness an execution for the first time. It establishes the norm of relationships (and a bit of culture) but it also puts us smack in the middle of a tense situation from a newbie POV. Life lessons and blood. Then they find dire wolf pups. So, it's a mixed bag, which is what I personally prefer in opening chapters. It also had a prologue to set the tension and explain who the guy getting whacked was and why he'd fled.



Let me try to tap dance around this a little. It is, from my perspective, still a typical day-in-the-life. Yes, it's a more interesting day--which is probably a good place to start--but it's still representative of what normal life is like for House Stark. A child of House Stark witnessing an execution isn't unusual. I can't remember if it's explicitly stated, but I got the impression that each son was required to do this. It was part of the lessons Ned taught to his children.

As for the prologue, I think the chapter still works without the prologue. The prologue just adds another layer.


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## FifthView (Jun 15, 2017)

I don't have a strong memory of that first chapter, but I think maybe the execution was normal for House Stark, not normal for Bran.

I guess we could start an urban fantasy YA tale by having the MC go in for his first driver's test, or maybe start his first day at his first job ever, or having sex for the first time. Very normal, mundane things but entirely new for the POV character.

But these aren't quite like having that same POV character kill a burglar in the first chapter, heh.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jun 15, 2017)

Works without the prologue... sure. The book could work without the execution too, or the wolves, for that matter. But, no prologue, and the execution is nothing to me. 



Penpilot said:


> Let me try to tap dance around this a little. It is, from my perspective, still a typical day-in-the-life. Yes, it's a more interesting day--which is probably a good place to start--but it's still representative of what normal life is like for House Stark. A child of House Stark witnessing an execution isn't unusual. I can't remember if it's explicitly stated, but I got the impression that each son was required to do this. It was part of the lessons Ned taught to his children.
> 
> As for the prologue, I think the chapter still works without the prologue. The prologue just adds another layer.


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## Garren Jacobsen (Jun 15, 2017)

FifthView said:


> But these aren't quite like having that same POV character kill a burglar in the first chapter, heh.



Well, if the burglars stopped eating his friend bread (as in bread made from his friend's soul) we wouldn't have problems now, would we?


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## Aurora (Jun 15, 2017)

The beginning just needs to be engaging, is all. It must have conflict, voice, and good characterization. How one begins a book (boring or flashy) doesn't matter so long as it has the ^^. For me, anyway. 

The more I write, the less I worry about the beginning being perfect. I start with character and a good place to introduce the reader to this character and advance towards the conflict. My wip starts with the heroine hunting in the woods and by the end of the page, her conflict is introduced via conversation with another character. 

A last thing, OP have you considered analyzing books you like that are also similar to yours? Study their pacing. How they open. THis helps more than one would think. Good luck.


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## Penpilot (Jun 15, 2017)

Demesnedenoir said:


> Works without the prologue... sure. The book could work without the execution too, or the wolves, for that matter. But, no prologue, and the execution is nothing to me.



Without the prologue, there's something lost, but that doesn't change the fact that the execution is part of everyday, "normal", life.  

As for removing the execution, to do that you'd have to rewrite the whole chapter, not just simply decide not include it. So it's not the same thing. The execution is part of the story. The prologue is by definition outside of the story.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jun 15, 2017)

I disagree, the traditional prologue is outside the story, these chapter prologues are not. 



Penpilot said:


> Without the prologue, there's something lost, but that doesn't change the fact that the execution is part of everyday, "normal", life.
> 
> As for removing the execution, to do that you'd have to rewrite the whole chapter, not just simply decide not include it. So it's not the same thing. The execution is part of the story. The prologue is by definition outside of the story.


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## Steerpike (Jun 15, 2017)

I think the prologue of GoT could just as easily have been called Chapter 1 and worked just fine.


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## Heliotrope (Jun 15, 2017)

Regardless of whether it was a chapter or a prologue, I'm interested in knowing how it started. I vaguely remember it was some crow who got run down by a bunch of white walkers... or it was a crow whose companions got changed into white walkers? Does someone have the book on them? Check for me... 

What was the main character doing at the beginning of the scene? (I'll bet it was something mundane like cooking). 
What was his goal?
What were the stakes? 

GRRM is a master at story structure. He would have introduced those three key things first before making it all crazy with frozen dudes with blue eyes.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jun 15, 2017)

Depends on how you define "mundane" it's getting dark north of the wall and some wildlings they are hunting are dead and there's a dispute ongoing. Will is the Character, he's rather passive. You can call it mundane, but it's a tense mundane. 

Goal: Hunting down the wildlings, alive or dead.

Stakes: pretty much life or death, previously, whether or not they finish the job of hunting the wildlings, maybe. But life/death is established quickly with the chatter about the dead and bad feelings and the woods growing dark and cold.

I would also say that Will's actual goal is to go back to the wall for safety, but he doesn't lead the party.


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## FifthView (Jun 15, 2017)

Yeah, I was just reading it in the Amazon preview.

I don't know how much I like the relativity of "mundane." These crows may normally do this kind of work, so...mundane. James Bond may normally have car chases, gun fights, etc. across a city but, meh, mundane because it's what he normally does. Peter Quill may be in a dead city hunting down one of the most powerful artifacts in the _entire universe _(although he doesn't know that's what it is), but he normally does such things, so mundane. Indiana Jones....heh, makes my mundane life seem pretty exciting, since Indy and I normally do things on a normal basis in our normal lives.* Heh.

*Edit: By which I mean, being a professor of archeology....Oh, nevermind heh.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jun 15, 2017)

This is going way off topic by now, LOL. But, it's setup to be clearly out of the ordinary as I recall. Yes, they go on rangings regularly, but! hell, you could argue it both ways, it doesn't really matter. It's in media res, just not with an explosion. But I don't think it ever establishes "normal" because GRRM strikes fast to let us know things are weird and outside the norm.

Interseting to note how Indie establishes the outside the norm in "prologue/chapter" before establishing his mundane, which of course works so well because of the contrast.


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## Heliotrope (Jun 15, 2017)

Yes ^^^ but I think, when I use "mundane" this is what I mean. Basic story structures says that the "set up" should show the character in their "real world"... whatever that "real world" is. I use "mundane" to mean "real world". So in the case of GOT, the crows "real world" involves them wandering around in the wild killing wildlings. Interesting to us. Mundane to them.


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## FifthView (Jun 15, 2017)

> This is going way off topic by now, LOL. But, it's setup to be clearly out of the ordinary as I recall. Yes, they go on rangings regularly, but! hell, you could argue it both ways, it doesn't really matter. It's in media res, just not with an explosion. But I don't think it ever establishes "normal" because GRRM strikes fast to let us know things are weird and outside the norm.



I think that's true. Or not. They were doing normal things but there's something unusual that happens. That's like me driving to work, same-old same-old every day, but seeing a naked streaker one day or maybe a shooting star.


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## Heliotrope (Jun 15, 2017)

Yes. I think the point is to establish status quo so it is interesting when it changes. Which is why the Pixar story format works so well, and it's something I'm teaching my six year old at bedtime. Even he now knows to start a story with: 

Once upon a time there was a boy named.... 

Every day he.... 

*But *one day....


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## FifthView (Jun 15, 2017)

Demesnedenoir said:


> Interseting to note how Indie establishes the outside the norm in "prologue/chapter" before establishing his mundane, which of course works so well because of the contrast.



I think Indy lives a dual life, so he has dual-mundanes. It's like Superman. Being Clark Kent and being Superman are probably both mundane to him. IF we are going with the relative mundanity approach.


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## Heliotrope (Jun 15, 2017)

Yes!!! "Dual-mundaness" lol. Awesome. The Clark Kent example was a good one. 

Once upon a time there was a super adventurous history professor named Indy. 

Every day he risked his life to preserve important historical artifacts... 

*But* one day.... He was sent to find the most valuable artifact of all... the Arc of the Covenant!

Can this brave historian risk everything in a race against Hitler to find it? Western civilization is at stake....


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## FifthView (Jun 15, 2017)

I worry about the relative mundanity approach because I'm not sure it tells us terribly much vis-a-vis execution. 

New writer #1: Can I write chapter one showing the character in his mundane life?

Expert writer: Absolutely! In fact, establishing the status quo before you break it is a powerful way to begin your novel!

New writer #1: Good, because I was worried that showing my character playing eight hours of Minecraft would be boring.

New writer #2: Ah, good, because I wanted to show my character surviving a booby-trapped ancient Mayan city to secure the magical orb that will shape the whole plot!

Edit: Sorry to go to such silly extremes in my effort to explain what I mean, hah. But then again, this is _my_ mundane living...




Heliotrope said:


> Yes ^^^ but I think, when I use "mundane" this is what I mean. Basic story structures says that the "set up" should show the character in their "real world"... whatever that "real world" is. I use "mundane" to mean "real world". So in the case of GOT, the crows "real world" involves them wandering around in the wild killing wildlings. Interesting to us. Mundane to them.


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## Heliotrope (Jun 15, 2017)

Hmmmmmm.... good point. And this is where it get's tricky. Because we say two conflicting things. "Open with a hook!" and "Show the 'real world' first." It can be confusing. 

Honestly, the only reason it all became clear to me was by studying every book intro, movie intro and TV show intro I could until I understood how it all fit together.

There have been examples of this on these forums for years. I remember an early example a few years back where the story opened with a dude climbing a tower to find a girl he was worried about. 

I was like, WTF. There needs to be at least another chapter before this because I have no clue who this guy is, who this girl is, why he cares about her, or otherwise WTF is happening here. The writer wanted a crazy hook. It was not working.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jun 15, 2017)

The basic premise of opening with a guy climbing a tower to find a girl he was worried about (while extremely generic here, I don't know the details) could be done. I think the key to attach to that is: as written, it needed a chapter in front of it. 

The first line of a successful book could absolutely be: The car exploded in a deafing ball of fire, throwing shrapnel into the crowd.

It's what comes after that will determine if it works or not. I always like to think of an opening line that soooo many people think is brilliant: Call me Ishmael. Is it really a great line if what comes after sucks? 

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - nevermind how long precisely - I had a wart removed from my hand. It was an ordinary wart, not a hairy ugly thing like the mole on my back. Now that bugger's a hideous thing, let me tell you, I wouldn't let a cheap hooker see that abomination on my most drunken night. This here wart grew there after a sea voyage I went on right before I had that wart removed. Nevermind how long before the wart removal, just know that it was before. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing in front of a dermatologist's office, I think of that damned wart. And thinking of that damned wart, it makes me think of that voyage, and the crazy bastard at the helm and a whale with a bad attitude.


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## FifthView (Jun 15, 2017)

@Helio:

Also complicating the matter is using the idea of _in media res_ as an antithesis to "begin with the character's mundane life."

You recently mentioned elsewhere that characters should always be in motion, already have a goal and be moving toward it when the first chapter opens. In a way, they are already "in the midst" of the action in their own mundane life, heh. Living as an activity, full of action. So we could actually start _in media res_ while simultaneously starting with the mundane. [Edit: although technically this may be a pseudo-version? Not sure if I'm violating the standard definition.] This is that opening line of dialogue, "Yeah, bleed!" and a punch being thrown; but, this is just another day of getting beat up by a bully.

I do think there's an important distinction to be made. _In media res_, when the action is specifically plot-related, a step in the plot, is different than _in media res_ that is more milieu-related or simply a part of the mundane living of that character.

So one could start the status quo in the midst of an interesting event to hook the reader.


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## Heliotrope (Jun 15, 2017)

Yes. That is exactly it. I think it all boils down to having a goal with high stakes, whatever that may be. In that same post you mentioned above I suggested giving the character a temporary goal and stakes, even if the point is to thwart them with the "hook". Ideally, the initial goal and stakes would play into a bigger part of the story, like character arc, which would be the point of the set up.

This is why understanding story structure is so important. Everything plays into everything else. Skip Knox mentioned, a while back, about how everything must have the feel of 'falling forward'... this sensation of everything leading into everything else. I loved that way of looking at it and think about it all the time now.


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## Heliotrope (Jun 15, 2017)

Dem, yeah, I think that is true... "The way it was written" it did need an earlier chapter... but to be fair, I sort of feel like the car explosion opening works great in films, but not so much in fiction. I don't know why. I feel like in films, it is very visual, with music etc... there is more for the senses to attach to so movies can get away with it... but fiction is different. Fiction is very much in the brain of the narrator. It's much more intimate. 

I loved the opening line to The Martian,  

_I'm pretty much ****ed. 

That's my considered opinion. 

****ed._

The movie can start with catastrophe. Fiction has to start with a person. It's a different medium.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jun 15, 2017)

Mmmm, in both mediums they can come off heavy handed and bad, but I would maintain that it could work just fine, the trouble being that most of the time you see a boom event opening fiction it's poorly done. In fact, this sort of thing works best in serial fiction/movies, where you already know the characters and their general activities. Boom, and then dropping into 1st narrative could easily pull a reader in. 

I'm "meh" on the Martian intro, means crap to me. Assuming I was randomly picking up the book instead of going "hey, everyone says this is great" I would respond by saying, "Yes, you probably are." Then put the book down. I won't read that book, movie was meh, whatever. This is a case where the line in the movie works better for me than in a book. 

But then, I'm not going to pick up a book called the Martian t begin with, unless his name is Marvin and he carries a disintegrator ray.

EDIT: And once Damon's face is on the cover, I'm really not reading the book, heh heh.



Heliotrope said:


> Dem, yeah, I think that is true... "The way it was written" it did need an earlier chapter... but to be fair, I sort of feel like the car explosion opening works great in films, but not so much in fiction. I don't know why. I feel like in films, it is very visual, with music etc... there is more for the senses to attach to so movies can get away with it... but fiction is different. Fiction is very much in the brain of the narrator. It's much more intimate.
> 
> I loved the opening line to The Martian,
> 
> ...


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## Penpilot (Jun 15, 2017)

Demesnedenoir said:


> I disagree, the traditional prologue is outside the story, these chapter prologues are not.



I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this point. 

But as for the other aspects, I think almost any opening scenario can be made interesting if approached correctly. As mentioned, emotion is key. Finding that emotional 'in' that will connect character to reader is part of what will make or break an opening, regardless of it's a Bond action scene or a kid playing minecraft for eight hours. 

And of course there's the issue of what type of story is being told. The opening makes promises to the reader, so if it's an action/adventure story, a kid playing minecraft might not be the best choice for opening.

But if it's another type of story, it could be perfect. If a kid is playing minecraft for eight hours, it brings up the question of why and where are their parents in this? This can start us down a rabbit hole that explores things like what it's like to have absentee parents. Maybe the kid can play minecraft eight hours because his Dad works two jobs to support them, and their Mom is gone. Maybe they play minecraft because their homework is all done, and they're able take care of themselves, and that's the only form of luxury for them in the household.


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## Heliotrope (Jun 15, 2017)

Or maybe it's like The Last Starfighter where the video game playing kid get's picked to save the universe by a bunch of aliens because the video game was really a test put on earth to find a great warrior.... in which case it serves my point that the mundane intro can be important if it serves the plot.

But.... as PP said, it needs to be framed in a way that makes it emotional... given some sort of question or 'hook' so the reader wants to read on to find out if this video game playing kid will ever see the light of day and maybe actually make a friend or something...


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## Demesnedenoir (Jun 16, 2017)

I'm sure we do, but the difference between a traditional prologue, which is truly outside the story -- see Tolkien's rambling about Hobbits -- and a chapter prologue like GoT, are profound and represent the changing definition of "prologue". When a lot of modern writers like GRRM use the word prologue, it means something different than "by definition" because definitions change over time. The chapter prologue is a strategic choice in publishing/writing that might happen for a variety of reasons, but it isn't necessarily outside the story, but it can be. In order for GoT to hold the same effect, if the prologue were cut chapter 1 would have to change. And not in a good way, otherwise GRRM likely would've done it. Love him or hate him, he knows what he's doing.

Why is the prologue called a prologue? Because a chapter 1 where the POV character is executed in chapter 2 would horrify publishers, because readers naturally glom onto the first character they see and the fear is they'd feel cheated (and they would). And GoT is already horrifying to publishers in this regard, but at least in this instance the Chapter 1 character manages to survive despite being shoved out of a tower, heh heh. Chapter 1 needs a recurring POV character, and that's why the prologue is a prologue instead of chapter 1, not because it becomes before the story.

But in the end it's a rather pointless discussion, it sure worked for GRRM, no matter what you call it.



Penpilot said:


> I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this point.
> 
> But as for the other aspects, I think almost any opening scenario can be made interesting if approached correctly. As mentioned, emotion is key. Finding that emotional 'in' that will connect character to reader is part of what will make or break an opening, regardless of it's a Bond action scene or a kid playing minecraft for eight hours.
> 
> ...


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## FifthView (Jun 16, 2017)

One of the ways showing a slice-of-life in the first chapter can go wrong: "It'll have resonance later."

No, it needs to have resonance now, even if later it's a bigger deal.

An example would be showing that kid playing Minecraft for eight hours simply because "I want to show how he's addicted to the game. That'll become more important later, at the end of chapter two or beginning of chapter three."

Spending the entirety of chapter one having the kid play the game, with perhaps only incidental interruptions (kid sister keeps coming into the room, bugging him–"I want to show how he doesn't get along with his sister."), could be incredibly boring if it goes on for ten pages. Especially if you are describing the kind of city/base he's building in the game. 

You could show the kid being addicted to the game with fewer words devoted to that game play while showing other things about his life. Let's say you decide to show his addiction by introducing family conflict and kid's personality that combine to _prevent_ him from playing it. Mother yells from the other room that he needs to come out and eat dinner with his family, kid keeps saying, "In a minute!", Mother finally opens the door and says, "Now!" There's an argument that involves some hateful words/attitude from the kid, so the Mother grabs up the PS4 and says, "You're not getting it back for a week." Kid stews in his room–doesn't actually go out to dinner–until he hits on an idea. He calls his father, who's divorced from his mother and lives a few miles away, and asks if he can borrow his laptop for a school project he needs to write. Actually, he's planning to use that laptop to play Minecraft until he gets his PS4 back. Now you can plot all kinds of consequences from that, heh.

I think that showing is good, but often the "I want to show..." reasoning can go awry. Also, I think that even with the mundane, you need the same kind of try/fail cycles, obstructions, conflicts, what I redundantly called "tiny little wrenches" in another thread recently. These make the mundane feel real and active, plus those wrenches are occasions for showing something about the milieu and personality traits of the MC. How an MC reacts to the mundane can have resonance later when he's dealing with bigger, more serious events, obstructions, conflicts, wrenches.

Edit: Or let's take the Indy-esque example I mentioned in an earlier comment. "I want to show that my character regularly goes to wild and weird places to collect artifacts." Fine. But when we see Indy, we see the obstructions, conflicts, his reactions to things that happen, and this gives us insight into the character. But showing the character breezing through the scenario–with only the occasional incidental "Oh crap" internal dialogue–could be incredibly boring.  "Oh crap" is generic, how anyone would react to any number of obstructions.


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## Heliotrope (Jun 16, 2017)

Yes. I want to thank ^^^ a thousand times. This is exactly right.


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## Steerpike (Jun 16, 2017)

Demesnedenoir said:


> Why is the prologue called a prologue? Because a chapter 1 where the POV character is executed in chapter 2 would horrify publishers...



I'm curious if there is a basis for this, or if it is an assumption. I ask because I've seen this sort of thing happen quite a bit (more often, POV character in chapter 1 dies at the end of the chapter). Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child do it from time to time, and they label the opening as chapter 1, not a prologue, at least in the ones I looked at (I think they use a prologue in some, for example when there is a huge time gap like from the 1800s to the present time).

Maybe it has to do with reading a lot of thrillers, horror, and the like, but I know I've read plenty of books where chapter 1 introduces a POV character who is dead by the end of it, and then chapter 2 starts with the main characters being pulled into the events of chapter 1. The idea that publishers are horrified by this concept doesn't seem to hold up. It all comes down to whether an author can pull it off effectively, and for some stories that kind of opening is quite effective.


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## Steerpike (Jun 16, 2017)

I suppose it is worth mentioning that the type of novel you are writing impacts these decisions. This is a site for genre fiction, so the advice given throughout this thread applies well. If anyone here is writing something more along the lines of literary fiction, you'll find that tolerance for the mundane aspects of life for a fairly prolonged portion of the beginning of a novel is greater. Even then you're likely to get some hint of conflict early on. Ms. Dalloway takes place, I believe, entirely over the course of a rather mundane day. The first sentence hints that there is some conflict going on, but it is understated and largely internal throughout, and really the "day in the life" of Clarissa is much the same as any other might be, except for certain internal realizations she has arrived at. 

There's a lot of what I see as "just another day" at the beginning of that novel, and we're well into it before Clarissa's realizations start to turn the day into something a bit more.

On the fantasy side, and which probably qualifies as literary, Peake's Gormenghast books have a lengthy establishment of the status quo, which plays into the theme in those books. 

In the end, there isn't a right or wrong answer as to how you have to start your novel. It's been done different ways, many times, and quite successfully. I think you have to decide for yourself what your vision is for how your novel unfolds, then write it and determine whether what you've produced is effective or not. If not, then you go back and try again.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jun 16, 2017)

GoT was an example given (without full knowledge of course) to me when chatting with an agent and discussing the start of my epic WIP, and then when talking to an editor this topic also came up.  It lead to my "prologue" being turned into chapter 1, because he became a recurring POV. I'm not trying to put words in GRRM's mouth or his publishers, editors, or whatever. Thriller and horror genre fiction would be far more tolerant of first chapter POV deaths. But as or more importantly, these are "one off" characters for POV. Death or otherwise, the word prologue almost becomes shorthand for "do not get too invested in this character".

But, that said, I've had 3 or 4 chit chats with folks in the pub world who, when talking about nobody writers like myself, would get nervous with a chapter one apparent MC/POV character dying. Or for that matter, with any writer, not that it couldn't be done. It's just a risk. Heck, they don't even love books that don't start with the protag, which is the safest route... get your readers into the protag. Of course, once you sell a million copies all bets are off, LOL.

Additional evidence for GRRM:

Prologues-- Character

Game of Thrones-- Will
Clash of Kings-- Cressen
Storm of Swords-- Chett
A Feast for Crows-- Pate
A Dance with Dragons-- Varamyr

To the best of my memory, none of these characters are ever seen from POV again. While "death" isn't always a determiner, being a one off character POV is.

But ran out of time, LOL.


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## Steerpike (Jun 16, 2017)

@Demesnedenoir

I can see where it could be a risk for new authors. I suppose anything that doesn't conform to the greater expectations is risky. Then something like House of Leaves comes along and makes me wonder if all advice for new writers goes out the window.

When it comes to risk, it raises an interesting question, because it seems to me you're always having to balance competing interests. On the one hand, you have those who are put off by a point of view character being introduced and killed in a "chapter 1." On the other hand, you have those who simply dislike prologues and are inclined to avoid them. 

One is hit with so much competing information and advice, it seems as though the best course, ultimately, is to simply follow one's own vision for the work at the outset. At the point an editor or agent is involved, changes to that vision can be considered then.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jun 16, 2017)

I can't disagree with a thing here. But, it's never bad to err on the side of caution, or you may never get that agent to give you advice, LOL. The world of writing is whatever works, works, but one must still get people to read far enough to realize it works. And that could come down to pure luck, the mood the reader is in that day, LOL. 

The "brilliance" of the movie Scream that folks in the H'wood world were discussing after it came out was killing off Drew Berrymore in the beginning (if I'm keeping my memories straight). Killing the "name" actor. It worked. Whatever works, works. 



Steerpike said:


> @Demesnedenoir
> 
> I can see where it could be a risk for new authors. I suppose anything that doesn't conform to the greater expectations is risky. Then someone like House of Leaves comes along and makes me wonder if all advice for new writers goes out the window.
> 
> ...


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