Practice Corner - in medias res
Last week we talked about ways, some people believe, you should never begin. A point that seemed pretty much agreed with across the board, that was a turnoff - Info dumps. But, I have AU and I don't want to confuse the reader with the differences from canon and my AU.
So I bring you this weeks tip from : bookgeekconfessions
If you’re a fiction writer, you’ll be aware of the need to grab a reader’s attention as early as possible; to hook them, preferably, on your very first page. One key technique for doing this is to start your story in medias res.
The Latin expression in medias res means “into the midst of things”. Used as a literary term, it refers to starting a story by jumping straight into the middle of the conflict or action.
It’s often a temptation for writers to start by providing all the background information for their story, all the character and location detail they’ve laboriously worked out. But this exposition or “infodump” can be very boring.
A better approach is to skip the exposition, at least temporarily, and dramatize your work’s central conflict from the beginning. As well as immediately involving the reader, this helps set up narrative tension : the reader wants to know why the described conflict is happening. Explaining too much up front can deflate this intrigue. Over time you can slowly reveal the explanation in what will, hopefully, be a satisfying and engrossing process for the reader.
Filling in the back-story can be achieved in several ways : via flashback, for example, or by having your characters recall prior events. The skill is in providing the reader with just the information they need, without either overwhelming them or leaving them bemused. The best approach is to reveal your back-story in dribs and drabs so that a lot of the time, your readers aren’t even aware they are being informed.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with writing long sections of factual information for your own use, as you work out the details of your setting. In many ways, this is a good thing. Just don’t expect your readers to wade through all that before they reach your actual story.
So lets take Harry Potter. (since duh) When you look at the beginning, we are hooked in with a normal sounding man, who is having peculiar things happening to him one morning. A cat reading a map, seeing people in cloaks, hearing talk of the Potters. Talk that makes Dursley nervous because he knows them. And the only hint you read is there was no point in worrying Mrs. Dursley; she always got so upset at any mention of her sister. He didn't blame her -- if he'd had a sister like that... but all the same, those people in cloaks…
So many tidbits in the first 6 paragraphs. The man who’s POV starts the story is not the man character. Heck he isn’t in the top ten. But he was the normal bringing us into the world. We are not told about the cat beginning McGonagall, or what the call a person that can turn into an animal. We can guess why people would be wearing cloaks. We don’t know why the name Potter brings to mind his wife’s sister.
Wouldn’t the story be so much boring if it started as , “There once was a boy named Harry Potter, who’s parents died by a evil wizard, before he died trying to kill Harry. After finding him in his destroyed house, and his Godfather being arrested, was sent by Dumbledore, an old wizard who was Headmaster of Hogwarts ….”
A little hard to absorb all that in huh?
The trick is to dole out your information. Give it out in interesting ways. Did we need 19 pages explaining why McGonagall can turn into a cat? No, and you would have skips through most of it, if you are still reading to that point anyway.
But don’t give out too little either. It can confuse your reader. So what is import to your reader to get to the next scene? What can your reader learn IN a scene? What did HArry learn from Hagrid? How did we first hear about Quidditch?
Some more help? Try reading
http://avajae.blogspot.pt/2013/05/how-to-avoid-writing-info-dumps.html
http://tobiasmastgrave.wordpress.com/2011/09/22/avoiding-info-dump/