Best way to introduce characters (Show me how you did it?)

[DameiThiessen]

(I'm sorry if this isn't the right forum. I'm still fairly new. )

As usual, I am struggling with the best way to introduce my setting and my characters. I know what I want to do - I want to begin with the MC standing with a weapon to his head and some description of how he is feeling as he looks at the two teenagers and the woman he is escaping with. I thought that might be a better way of introducing them, as I can establish characters and tell the reader what they look/act like all the same. Later on most characters will be introduced in the first battle scene. What I need now is some inspiration. Should I begin with the weapon to his head, or the events leading up to it? Which should be introduced first - characters or setting? Should I include anything on what he looks like at all? I haven't written in a long time and I'm sort of out of touch. What I am sure of though is that I absolutely abhor when a writer introduces a character by saying, "Hi! This is my name, this is what my hair looks like, this is what my eyes look like, this is what my skin looks like, this is what I'm wearing-" so I'm trying to avoid this at all costs.

How did/do you introduce your characters and your settings for the first time to the reader? Why did/do you do it like that?

Which authors do this really well?

Feel free to include an excerpt if it helps.

 

[Devor]

I know what I want to do - I want to begin with the MC standing with a weapon to his head and some description of how he is feeling as he looks at the two teenagers and the woman he is escaping with.

I don't have examples for you, but just remember that the situation needs to build before the reader will truly care about the characters. You also have to remember that with an intense opening you're also setting yourself an intense standard to live up to. Where do you go after the situation is dealt with, and will it live up to the expectations you're establishing?

Think about the Lord of the Rings, and consider that there's a reason the story starts in the Shire instead of the wounding of Frodo on Weathertop. You may get readers to care for a moment about the action, but you haven't gotten them to care about the characters. When the action scene ends, where are we? Or can you really keep the action going?

That said, it can certainly be done. One of the projects I'm working on opens with the seemingly main character being killed gruesomely, not in the opening paragraph but within the first five pages. The idea is, for a few pages you fall in love with the town's hero and his girlfriend, and then he dies, and she has to step up to the plate. There's a purpose to the scene and it hopefully won't feel like a bit of a gimmick, and it sets the stage nicely for the gruesome and ever-escalating conflict which follows.

 

[DameiThiessen]

Those are some great things to think about, thank you.