• Welcome to the Fantasy Writing Forums. Register Now to join us!

Stories do not usually start...

Heliotrope

Staff
Article Team
I've seen it before. But don't worry about copying. Everything is subconsciously copied.

The first line of "Voyager" third book in the Outlander series won an award for its first line:

“He was dead. However, his nose throbbed painfully, which he thought odd, in the circumstances.”
 
Last edited:
Ironically, it is actually bright and cheerfully sunny when this happens.

[I mean actually dying, not just starting to die and then have a fake out 400 pages later or whatever.]
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
Nothing's completely original. D.O.A. starts with a man reporting his own murder, he's dying. No fake out. In the maze of books in the world... any major element, it's been done. So what. Do it well, don't worry about original unless it's a total rip off, heh heh.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
First, forgive me, I can't help it, but it's bad joke time.

I wish more stories would start with the Main Character dying. I would gladly read three pages about Richard Cypher getting dragged to death by his horse. The actual six hundred page novel? Not so much.

But I'm curious as to how the story proceeds after this scene. Is the character telling the story of his or her life from their deathbed? Is the story a deeply personal bio? A story about the events leading to the death? There are lots of ways to take it, but it's hard to talk about originality with just the one piece of information.
 

Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
Didn't Citizen Kane start with the protagonist dying?

Any way, there are plenty of stories that start that way. Don't worry about if it's been done before, just do it well and you'll be fine.
 
^I never want to watch that movie. It would send me straight into depression.

The protagonist of my story is a magically-made doll whose life span is only about a year long. She finally collapses after trying to find someone important her, and cannot even move as she lies there, dying, and the rest of the book is her flashback of how she got there.
 

TWErvin2

Auror
It's been used, or variations of it. The first line to The Five People You Meet in Heaven are: This is a story about a man named Eddie and it begins at the end, with Eddie dying in the sun.

In my novel Relic Tech, the main character is on a medical bed, hooked up to equipment with a terminal prognosis.

As has been indicated, there is probably nothing totally new out there. It's what you do (the story you tell) based on that beginning.
 
Top