Is This Trend Over-Done? Even if it's Done Well?

[Night Gardener]

If you don't use that idea, I'm stealing it.

Peat I am using this lol. It's part of the lore of the WIP. Thanks for liking the idea, though.

 

[Night Gardener]

To answer the other question in the OP - I am down for flashbacks. However, I often struggle with action heavy openings where I know very little about the character and learn very little about the character. If an author combines this with spending more time showing their flashy magic system rather than their characters, they've probably lost me as a reader there and then.

Peat I'm leaning towards the same sentiments- opening with intense action with no context for characters is a hard sell. Then there's the additional question of just how much of the events would need a retro-active explanation. In the draft I have now, there's a contextual introduction to the character, and events/intrigue escalate quickly. The first part of the draft ends with flight from political-legal turmoil.

To start the book with a scene immediately before the MC escapes would probably be very intriguing to readers, but...that leaves the first part of the story -several chapters in fact- as a flashback of events leading up to the flight that makes her a fugitive. While I suppose that is manageable as a technique (it essentially becomes out-of-order story telling) I think it might hurt the overall pacing of the story.

 

[Daccari Buchelli]

... Also, as a side question: any thoughts on this method being utilized in, say, the second act?
For example, one chapter ends with two armies about to engage on the battlefield, then, the next chapter opens having skipped over all the details of the battle- and instead- the character wakes up in a hospital tent, wondering how they survived and what happened in battle? Trying to recall events after the fact for the audience?

.......

I personally feel that it would be better to witness the battle if it's a crucial event within the story. Plus, I won't lie- I love a good, gory battle scene.