posted
In one of my novels, the whole story revolves around one very important incident. The incident is brought out off and on throughout the story, but I felt that it was better to show what happened before I got into the actual story. The reason for this was to make what happened to this young woman have a huge impact on the reader before they got involved with the rest of the story. The best example I could give for this type of plot device would be THE HORSE WHISPERER, where the accident that causes everything else to happen is shown in detail before getting into the rest of the story.
So, my question is this; Is it better to make this kind of impact on the reader or to let the reader just read the results of what happened but not the details through the characters throughout the rest of the story? I really feel it's important for the reader to feel what happened to this young woman. To me it makes much more of an impact and brings everything together later on. I guess it bothers me that it's so separated from the rest of the story.
posted
Aristotles' Poetics mentions that a story begins with the First Cause, a circumstance that doesn't necessarily follow anything else. The first cause implied by your post is what happened to the young woman. Cause precedes effect. Everything succeeding would then follow the train of causation: cause and effect, action and reaction; first cause, emotional response, physical action, emotional response, physical reaction, emotional response, effect, which in turn is a new causal circumstance, and so the train chugs along toward climax.
Posts: 6037 | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
I suspect your approach is the right one. It is common to start with a scene in someone's childhood and then jump ahead in time; I have also read effective books where the characters in the first scene are not MCs, but the event is pivotal to the following events.
Follow your gut, write it, and then see what your readers think...
posted
If the whole story depends on the reader understanding what happened to the MC at that time, you better darn well take us readers there first so we can see/hear/feel it with the MC! Your gut instinct is taking you somewhere - run with it. If for some reason it doesn't work the way you envision, you can fix it on rewrites.
I think we second-guess ourselves, we writers, too much. Gut instinct is *great* for figuring out direction, making quick decisions, finding solutions. Go with it!
posted
Well, actually the young woman isn't the MC, but the mother-to-be of the MC. The story is about the man the MC grows up to become and the mysteries that surround his parents that he's never met. But the same thing applies regardless.
Thanks everyone for pointing me in the right direction. I honestly feel that I should visualize what happens to the MC's mother. It does leave a much bigger impact on what follows.
Printer-friendly view of this topic
.
