Introductions

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I have trouble with introductions. They are the bane of my writing existence. It’s hard to start a story well; you can’t throw the reader into the thick of battle without informing them beforehand about the events taking place or without explaining said events later in the story.(thoroughly, of course) Another problem is planning out the events; I can’t allow the story to get too out of control.
Example 1:
If I want to create a fantastical world with dark unicorns and hungry dwarves, I need to figure some way of putting the reader in the story, rather than a simple, history book experience. If you can understand the concept well, a third person narrative is better than a boring, dull, omnipresent god going through the tour for the umpteenth time.
*Disclaimer
Author would never dream of making fantasy book; they’d put me in jail if I showed such a cliché to the public.
Example 2:
If the characters are in a gigantic, epic war and just began fighting, my protagonist shouldn’t die if he is really important to the whole thing. I’m always tempted to screw up the entire plotline and go in a totally different direction; but, alas, if my dude dies early, most of the time the story dies with him.

There are a few different ways to introduce the story.
Flashback
A character remembers an event or detail that is important (or not) to the story. If the event (or detail) is important, then most likely it reemerges throughout the story, or comes up at the end. (Sort of cliché, though)
Into the Fray
We are thrown directly into the gist of everything happening. A common example is battles, medieval and otherwise, anything concerning lots of action and emotion. Usually, this overwhelms the reader until he can figure out what’s going on.
Narrative
Different narrations are first person, third person, and omnipresent, with the occasional writer’s opinion. It’s good to mix these from time to time. I like first person and third, but omnipresent is just a bit intruding for me; I also like to spice up my descriptions with personal quips and anecdotes.

Another way to introduce a story is to pretend it’s a long, unexciting literary essay. One example is all the text directly above this sentence.
So here’s the story. Finally.
*Disclaimer
No such story exists in actuality. This was a small rambling of mine about literary intros. So, I just dragged you through a very pointless essay, and you enjoyed it. (At least I hope you did; maybe this essay infuriated you to a certain degree and puts me at the top of your hit list, not the desired effect)
By the way, I did spare you one thing; an essay about introductions could have been thirty seven times longer than this one. Thank me for it.

• DCTomas89
  Aug 21, 2008
  Haha, very good. I like essays about random little topics that can be dragged on and on forever, each point fairly distinct and meaningful as all the rest. I used to have a lot of trouble with introductions. Well, just the first few lines, the other stuff came naturally to me, because of all the planning I do.
  
  Though, in my series of novels I'm working on, it's easy for me to leave things unexplained so I can explain them later. There's always a balance of things you can and can't tell the reader (personally, I like to be a little in the dark when I read books) cos if evereything is explained to you, it seems you know how the story will end before the end even gets there. (which is quite boring in my opinion)
  
  so, I really liked a big rant. Was an awesome thing to read first thing when I signed on here today. Made me laugh, made me shake my head in agreement and even made me cry (just kidding) Kudos.
• Michael
  Aug 4, 2008
  Interesting.
  
  I also have trouble with introductions. How can we properly execute the delivery of a story about an interesting character in an interesting situation, all while sparing the reader a very uninteresting summary of a necessarily complicated backstory?
  
  I usually use one of three different strategies: The first is to put the reader in the middle of things with no immediate explanation, and then reveal more details as the story goes on. (The downside of this approach is that I have to keep perfectionist self from over-explaining every detail to the reader when I should be creating a sense of mystery instead.)
  
  The second is to keep things simple and ordinary in the beginning, so that no explanatory introduction is required, and let the complexity of the story build up as it goes along. (The downside here is that it might take a while to build a strong emotional character this way; I think this approach is best for novels, which I never have the patience to write.)
  
  The third approach is to go ahead and give that explanatory introduction, but without boring the reader to death, if at all possible. In "Homecoming," I did reveal quite a bit of the backstory (as well as the character's personality) through the opening narration, in the form of little anecdotes and such. Then further backstory was discreetly revealed through dialogue between characters toward the end.
  
  This article seems more like a prompt for open discussion than a completed piece of writing, so I'm not really sure how to vote on it right now, let alone review it. In any case, I'm glad we can post comments on articles without voting first.

• Date Added
• Aug 2, 2008 at 2:28 PM
• Article Type
• Essay
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• Humor
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• Education
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