YA Fantasy how common is the waking up scene?

[AnyaKimlin]

I want to start my novel with a scene where the character wakes up. Now I know it is a cliche, but i can't think of a fantasy where it is the start.

There are a number fantasy children's stories where they go to sleep that come to mind.

Part of me wants to keep it, because it is a good scene and part of me needs to lose words anyway.

 

[terryweide]

I can't speak that much about YA, but in Roger Zelazny's Nine Princes in Amber, the main character wakes up from an over-medicated coma. He also has amnesia. As I recall, in Robert Silverberg's Lord Valentine's Castle, the main character, Valentine, suffers from similar amnesia. So the idea isn't that uncommon. Hope this is useful.

 

[j d worthington]

First: What purpose does it serve in the development of the story?

Second: Could that purpose be served as well without it as with it?

Third: If not, could it be served with it in another form, or is its present form the best way to accomplish what you are attempting there?

If what you have -- or something very close to it -- really does serve an important, let alone vital, purpose in the tale you're telling (either in achieving an atmosphere, serving as an important bit of misdirection, adding to character development or "world-building", or in actual terms of plot or action, etc.)... then by all means keep it. If you are only keeping it because you like the scene itself, then chances are it needs to be jettisoned in favor of something else. Hemingway's dictum "Kill your darlings" can apply to much more than the use of adjectives.....

 

[meursault]

Many of the cases where this device is used successfully involve Hero waking up to a new world.

For instance, there are any number of stories of people who went into a coma and woke up years later. Includes RL, such as that Polish dude who "time traveled" (so to speak) from 1988 to 2008 into a post-socialist world.

Also the film 28 Days Later, where Hero wakes up in a hospital bed after the zombie apocalypse.

 

[Phoenixthewriter]

I have grown tired of the waking up scene really, and its especially annoying when you find it in Zombie-inspired work. However, I do believe its a wonderful tool if used as a way to throw in some backstory.

For instance, a character wakes to someone pounding on his door. It's a good friend and they are offering soup. Turns out the protagonist is very sick and bedridden from a previous engagement, unfortunately, he gets thrown into his next ordeal before he can truly enjoy the soup.

If the character just wakes up, there has to be a lot of meat behind it. As JD said, it's got to be integral to story development.

 

[Susan Boulton]

As with anything it depends on how it is written. If you think you have a good scene write it, cliche or no. You will find a lot of people will say don't do this or that, it is not a matter of not doing something, it is a matter of doing it well and in a manner that catches your reader. Cliches are only bad when they are used in a way that totally blows the reader out of the plot. It you look hard enough at any book or film, they are peppered with them.

I have used, what you would call a "waking up scene," at the beginning of my new WIP.

The first three paragraphs are a kind of flashback/prologue The hero is the pilot of a lancaster bomber during WWII, his plane has been hit during a raid and he is ordering the crew to bale out.

Then the scene shifts to him waking up back home in 1947, after being a POW for 3 years. The whole, "waking up," scene is a way of showing the reader how he has been thrown back into his pre-war life, but he is no longer the same man. Even the very act of waking up in the morning reminds him of the recent past and how in his mind he failed to save his crew.

I write for the most part, what one published called, gentle, parochial horror/fantasy.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Thanks to everyone for your advice it has given me a lot to think about. I'm working my way through a review of my first chapter and it is the first one to call it cliche or mention the problem. I think it is going to stand, but I am semi tempted to start later because it may allow me to cut the words down.

First: What purpose does it serve in the development of the story?

Second: Could that purpose be served as well without it as with it?

Third: If not, could it be served with it in another form, or is its present form the best way to accomplish what you are attempting there?

These are useful questions I'm going to paste them to a document and keep them. I'm quite good at killing my darlings - delete is my bestfriend. Please feel free to ignore my musings lol I work better out loud.

1) It develops the character what better way to show a lazy, smelly prince than have him dragged from an afternoon nap by his father asking why he isn't at school. He rolls over and rummages through the mess on the floor to find the smelly jeans covered in blood he wore to go fishing earlier in the day, then his long hair (vital to the story) is shown because it is full of knots, dirty and he can't find a comb. Standing up from the bed his ribs hurt from the fight he was in. Washing his face with a cloth allows him to find and explain how he got his bruises and the black eye (yes I also use the mirror cliche lol) when he checks to see what he has done to himself. His dress changes throughout the story as his role changes and he becomes more responsible. It also gives an idea of the sort of time it is set in, because he lives in a palace built 800 years ago, and his father wears a uniform that was designed centuries ago it could come across as medieval without the boy in jeans.

2) Could it be shown a different way? Probably, but now the whole story (97K) comes from that point changing it could involve an entire rewrite, because I am anal about having a story that doesn't feel 'patched.' Personally I don't think it is bad enough to warrant that. It introduces and fleshes out both the main character and his father (who never appears again).

3) It could've been done differently if I hadn't been very new to writing when I first started writing the novel. I think it serves the purpose well maybe I can shorten it a tad.

 

[Mouse]

I hope it's not 'cliché.' I've done it in the novel I've just written (which is the third in a series) and it doesn't exactly start with the waking up. There's like a mini-scene, then the character wakes up. Though to be fair, the final scene of the book before was her passing out so...

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Thanks Mouse - I'm feeling better now it was just a surprise after had the opening reviewed many times to have it brought up. Part of it was after reading it I was thinking oh my, I'm going to have to rewrite the whole damn thing again and I thought it was finished lol

 

[Anne Lyle]

It's one to be very wary of if you want to get an agent, because it's so over-used and badly done that it can mean an instant rejection regardless of whether yours is good or not. I can't remember the exact stats, but I'm sure I've read of agents reporting that half of all submissions seemed to start with the character waking up.

You could consider whether it needs to start literally at the point where the character wakes up. Does he have to be asleep, or could he be doing something more interesting but equally character-defining? Idly making paper airplanes out of his history textbook, for example...

As for rewriting the thing again - welcome to the club. I don't know how many times I rewrote the beginning of my first novel, and there may be a last few tweaks before it goes off to the printers. If you hate revising and polishing your writing, you may be in the wrong line of work

 

[AnyaKimlin]

oh I don't hate it I actually quite like it which is the problem. If I start rewriting the beginning I will probably rewrite the whole thing. It is now almost completely done, polished, edited etc and whilst it ca be improved I am sure I am also very happy with it.

I may take your suggestion and have him reading a physics book (or actually i like the idea of engineering a paper plane. Thanks for that one) which will help solve another issue the same reviewer had with him swinging between typical teen language and the odd bigger words The one thing missing from the scene is his intelligence which he is wasting.