Structural Question.

It depends what you mean by 'showing what he has to lose' - if you mean all this is scene setting and establishing the status quo, then I'd say 30k words is too long, however awesome a status quo that may be. Most agents will tell you to start you story where the inciting event takes place, the first domino that sends the rest toppling, or at least the event that sets things moving towards the climax. You could have 100 pages of your character having an extraordinary and exciting life, but if that's not what the story is about, then it's backstory. 30k is far too long for backstory.

Cut to the chase.

I do agree that 30k is too long for backstory/setup. Unless the reader doesn't know it's a set up. If you can make it feel like there's significant rising action before each of the falls you might be able to achieve a "Gotcha:here's the what the story's really about". As long as the reader has been well entertained up to that point then it can work, but whether or not it works and how well it works is mostly up to you and your prose.

Good luck and I hope that was helpful.

Virgilante said:

This is a tale of the MC rebuilding his life.

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If this is the story about someone rebuilding his life, you might start with the MC taking the first step to rebuild his life.

If your story is about the MC discovering who shafted him and getting revenge, (c.f. Ghost) there's a reason to lay groundwork for the suspense plot. The reader needs the clues. 'Discovering' is part of the main story.

If the story is about the MC seeing the falsity that underlies his existence and fighting it, (c.f. Logan's Run,) the reader needs the preliminary worldbuilding because the nature of the society is integral to the MC's actions throughout.

In the two cases above, aspects of this 'ordinary world control' the plot for the rest of the movie. We know this because, if you changed that 'ordinary world' significantly, the whole story would fall apart.

In your case -- does the ordinary world control later events? Would it matter whether the protagonist was a rich playboy, a successful lawyer, the best clown in the circus? Is there something unique about his life that will determine the course of the rest of the story?
If so, present those unique elements either at the beginning or in scenes inserted as backstory.
If not, you probably don't have to extensively show his life prior to him buckling down to solve his problem.

If you are writing a bildungsroman or a 'hero's quest' story,(c.f. Star Wars,) there is a place for showing the ordinary 'beforehand' of the protagonist's life. These are metaphoric 'road books' and the everyday world is the starting point. It's a stepping off place.
In good examples of this sort of story that section is (a) full of portent and (b) brief.

We are all tempted to write backstory.
We must resist.
If it helps you to write all this out, you should do so.
Then, when you go into your first redraft, chop off the first three chapters.

I think you should try writing the scene of everything going to pot as the first scene. Then you can flashback to when everything started. Really the structure can be done in a few different ways, but the only thing you can do to know which one works is to try it out.

Also, try writing each of your chapters as one sentence. Then you will know which parts are vital. My current WIP is 58,000 words, so 30,000 words is more than halfway through what is going on. Read through and ask yourself these questions:
What is the main point I want to get across here?
Do these details work towards the main point? If not, why have I included them?

Hope that helps.

I try to pull the rug out in the first five pages. You can show what a character has to lose in a hundred words. Back story isn't what hooks readers, and what a character has to lose only matters when he loses it.

Pull the rug out immediately. This is the story. Get to it fast, or readers won't stick around long enough to even realize there is a rug.

Jamesaritchie said:

I try to pull the rug out in the first five pages. You can show what a character has to lose in a hundred words. Back story isn't what hooks readers, and what a character has to lose only matters when he loses it.

Pull the rug out immediately. This is the story. Get to it fast, or readers won't stick around long enough to even realize there is a rug.

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This.

Start with the initial conflict, where everything clashes and end when everything clashes once more.

You can show us what he loses while he's in the process of losing it.

Virgilante said:

I'm writing a science fiction piece. When I start in the MC's everyday life it's pretty exciting. This is a young man driven to seek advancement. The rug is going to get pulled out from under him at 15K words, and again at 20K. In fact it's going to be terrible.

This is a tale of the MC rebuilding his life. I'm worried that 30K is too long to wait until the complete decay takes over. There is all kinds of other disaster, but the personal one takes time to get to.

Would this be offputting to you as a reader? It's all flash and pop, then his life changes. I'm worried that it might seem like an artificial hook, but I want to show what he's losing. Where he winds up is going to be pretty damned good though.

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I would decay sooner.

Nobody wants to get bored.

Raise the stakes sooner and then go about solving the problem.

Virgilante said:

This is a tale of the MC rebuilding his life.

Click to expand...

Then the tale begins where he starts rebuilding his life. Page 1. Delete anything prior to that, refer to it in the text if it's needed, if not, leave it out.

Sorry to lop 15,000 words (or 20,000) off the front end of your story, but sometimes it has to be done.

Jeff