![]() Incalculable pain, pitched countless soulsįor dogs and birds, as Zeus' will was done.īy starting with action, the reader is pulled into the quarrel and war. The Roman poet Horace first made this observation in his work, A rs poetica.īlack and murderous, that cost the Greeks ![]() With no exposition, the first line immediately engages the reader with action. These poems are some of the foundational work of Greek literature-and prime examples of how to use in medias res in your story.Īchilles and Agamemnon fight during the Trojan War. The literary technique originated in two epic narrative poems by the Greek poet Homer: the Iliad and the Odyssey. The events that came before the starting action may be something that the reader learns later in the story, often through flashbacks. Stories that start in medias res dive into a crucial part of the action in an important chain of events. While it creates drama and stakes from the first page, it can also sometimes be confusing for the reader who isn't acclimated to the world or character yet. Whatever point you choose, you need to know that there are trade-offs. In other words, the first scene could be a slightly later beginning, the climax in the middle of the narrative, or it might pull from the resolution, after all the action has happened, and all the characters are sorting through the events. If you're beginning your story in medias res, the action on the first few pages can come from anywhere along the storyline. ![]() They could be bailing water out of a flooding dinghy, or wheeling a sick patient into an operating room. This could be in the first chapter, we see the characters running from a dragon, or sitting in the principal's office after a prank gone awry. It is starting somewhere other than the natural starting point in the story. This is more than skipping unnecessary backstory. In medias res is a Latin phrase meaning “in the midst of things.” It's used as a literary term to explain when a story or scene starts with a character in the middle of the action. You want to hit the ground running with an opening line that puts your main character right into action. You want to start a scene in the middle of things. That's the job of exposition: to set up the character in their world and disrupt them with the inciting incident.īut you don't want to start on the day they were born or with a ton of unnecessary backstory that will bore the reader. No, I mean in the larger story of this character's life, where does this particular episode or story begin? When I say where, I don't necessarily mean with setting, although that's part of it. One of the first tough decisions writers make when beginning a story is how to start, or more accurately, where to start the story. Let's find out what it is and how you can use it for your story today. But what if there's a better place to begin the story? One that will hook your reader and keep them turning the page? Ancient storytellers understood the power of beginning in medias res. Beginning writers often start stories with a ringing alarm clock, following the protagonist's daily routine.
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