Beginning a novel with a dramatic action scene

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Mr Flibble

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Not for 50 pages is one guideline.
New one on me, and it seems a bit off imo.

You'll hear variations on what is essentially the same good advice not to provide backstory

EETA: And that isn't what that link says unless I missed it?



until the reader is sufficiently invested in your story/character, one way or another.

This on the other hand is more like it. And if it takes fifty pages....Done right, I'll be invested by page three. Or sooner. Done wrong, after fifty pages of not knowing why someone is acting as they are/who they are in essence, I may well fling the book (ETA I can see this working for something VERY plot heavy. But if you want me to invest in your character I need to know what makes them tick. And often that is the sum of past experiences that shaped them into who they are now, and why).

"Backstory" can be anything from a couple of words and up. Dribble it in, yes. But leaving it to that far in? That seems....arbitrary and unnecessary (and maybe harmful to the story). Do it when it is needed, and as little as is needed. As that link says :
The secret to backstory is to introduce it in miniscule amounts and only as necessary. Let it loose when your reader needs to know about it and then drip it into your novel rather than pour it. Offering your reader pieces of information is much more effective than info dumps.
Maybe I missed it but it says nothing about leaving it for fifty pages? Only leaving it until it is necessary?

As for the OP -- someone said above and I think I agree that you are possibly starting your story in the wrong place. I know the advice is to start in media res, but it doesn't have to be that dramatic! What is your story here? Is it why she jumps? If so, then the jump should come later because the story happens before. If the story is "what happened after Jane jumped" then OK, start with the jump but then the backstory isn't as much part of this story and you should concentrate on, da dah! what happens after she jumps.
 
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Buffysquirrel

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There is? I'm curious about this one, where has this guideline come from? Is it a creative writing thing?

It's advice from Don Maass, literary agent and author of Writing the Breakout Novel.
 

Mr Flibble

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Which is odd because I see backstory (of a sort -- it probably depends on how you define it.) in the first few pages of some books he reps?

Like I say, maybe it depends what you mean by "backstory". (ETA: I take it to mean quite a lot -- including say backstory of the world if you're in a fantasy. It is still stopping the story now to take a couple of paras to explain what has happened before now. Page 3, Storm Front, Jim Butcher. Or backstory via dialogue - what happened last book - page 4, Summer Knight) EETA: Ofc in those examples they are a) brief and b) inserted just when the reader needs to know them, which is exactly as it should be. Not at any set page point.
 
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Graz

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"3. No backstory in the first fifty pages


Verdict: Spam (a step up from baloney)


If backstory is defined as a flashback segment, then this advice has merit. Readers will wait a long time for backstory information if something compelling is happening in front of them. But if you stop the forward momentum of your opening with a longish flashback, you’ve dropped the narrative ball.


However, when backstory refers to bits of a character’s history, then this advice is unsound. Backstory Bits (I call them BBs) are actually essential for bonding us with a character. If we don’t know anything about the characters in conflict, we are less involved in their trouble. (Read Koontz and King, who weave backstory masterfully into their opening pages).


I’ve given writing students a simple guideline: three sentences of backstory in the first ten pages. You may use them together, or space them apart. Then three paragraphs of backstory in the next ten pages, together or apart.


I’ve seen this work wonders for beginning manuscripts.
http://www.killzoneauthors.blogspot...dvice-writers-should-ignore.html#.U_oESY10zmI
 

Bufty

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In context his advice is perfectly sound.
 

CathleenT

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It is always best to try and attach some emotional connection to the person falling beyond the reader as a bystander.

If you think about it, it would just take a few lines to make some sort of connection. You don't need to nor should you go into major backstory here. Just hint at the reason enough to make connection via thoughts or secondary POV character.

I think this is a great idea. You could open the thing with a bystander trying to stop them from jumping. It would be a way to dribble in a little backstory and invest the readers in your character.

Also, I don't know if it would help, or where your story is set, but people have lived through jumping off the Golden Gate bridge. The safety nets weren't put up until recently. Someplace busy might be more believable for a compassionate stranger walking by.
 

Twick

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This is advice from someone unpublished, so take it as you wish. But I think you have to ask yourself why you're starting at this point, if you haven't plotted out what the next scene will be.

The most common options, I think, would be to either go back to the real start of the story, making most of it a flashback, or to move forward with the MC regaining consciousness. Do you see the cliff scene as the high point, or a starting point in your story? Do you want to go forward, or rewind and get back to this scene when readers understand finally what drove her there?
 

Dances With Words

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I'm mixed on the question. I submitted the opening of my novel to a group of online betas who promptly bashed me. "There's nothing happening to hook the reader!" they said. "You need to grab them and don't let go!"

Well.... I get their point. But honestly, I have never really liked opening opening it with an action scene. I have very limited room to identify my characters and what they are doing, let alone any minor backstory. There were hints in the original opening of the drama unfolding, but no real action at all.

It worked, ultimately, but it might have worked better had I left it alone. I think it can go either way. It will depend on how well you hook your reader into the story.
 

thepicpic

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dribble, don't dump.

This is quite possibly the single greatest piece of advice I've ever read. No, I'm not easily amused. Honest...

Starting with drama is fine, but I found out to my cost that needless drama isn't.

But it sounds like you're having a similar issue I've been having with one of mine. It's taken me the better part of five years to start and actually find traction because I just didn't really know where the story started. I'm not even sure now, but my latest attempt is the strongest so far.
 

Nymtoc

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I read a lot of mystery/suspense and try to write in that genre, and I am sick--sick!--of novels that begin with some blood-curdling event, immediately followed by extended backstory.

"She lay mangled, her face a blotch of red, her left arm broken at a bizarre angle and her bra twisted tightly around her neck. On the stage above, the dancers were doing the Black Swan Pas de Deux.

Miranda had come to the city dreaming of becoming a dancer. Her small-town background had hardly prepared her for this sort of life, since her father worked as a teller at the First National Bank and her mother barely made ends meet working at the FoodJoy supermarket on Pleasant Street. Miranda had done well enough in school, especially in art classes, and in those days her biggest dream was to become a cheerleader at Binkley High School, but by the time she was fourteen, she...."

:dire: I made that up. I think it needs revision. :cool:
 
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