Post-Disaster First Chapters

[The Big Peat]

(warning - this is a kinda thinking aloud post)

I've been playing around with first chapters recently and noticed I'm frequently going with the aftermath of a disaster for my first chapter.

Now, I feel this is slightly unusual. Most books seem to start with either

a) An "action" sequence; usually either with a disaster happening, or something seemingly good but eventually catastrophic happening.

b) Everyday reality into which a disruptive element is dropped in.

Its not that I don't think post-disaster can't work or anything like that. Every murder story that starts with someone at a crime scene is post-disaster; every story that starts with someone waking up on a battlefield or in jail.

But I am wondering whether its harder. Whether the reactive nature of the situation makes interjecting a hook more difficult. I'd have thought that it would make it easier - he's in a jail! Be hooked! - but it doesn't seem to work that way. I mean, obviously it doesn't when you think about it. Being in jail is where he is - the hook is what he does about.

And I feel like that there is a problem here in that it adds to the descriptive burden too much because not only do you have to introduce character, setting, hook, you also have to explain why the hell they're there; what disaster happened.

I do like the idea of it though and its effects when it works. It sets stakes really early and because it features the character thinking more than acting, it introduces the character better. Well, for my money, at least if they're a thinky character.

Does this make sense to people? Can anyone think of some opening chapters that really worked for them in this vein? Is there anything I'm missing about the strengths and weaknesses of this approach?

 

[HareBrain]

I think you've got the pros and cons down. It probably works best where the disaster is one that doesn't need a lot of explanation -- something simple, like a car crash. Otherwise it can lead to the reader running to catch up, because unlike normal backstory or setting, the details of the disaster are going to be immediately relevant to the character, so they all have to be got across quickly as well as what the character is actually doing and thinking in reaction.

It also goes against the classic "hero's journey" opening, in that you don't set up the "world of common day" that the MC then has to leave behind. On the face of it, this ought to be a non-consideration, but I wonder if the structure is so embedded in our expectations of stories now, it just feels strange if it isn't adhered to.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Is there anything I'm missing about the strengths and weaknesses of this approach?

IMO it's a good idea to start in the middle of something happening - but it'll be the POV character's internal conflict that will drive the story more than an external one, as this will create the stakes that will hook the reader.

I don't have time to look for examples at the moment, but if a story begins with an action situation that threatens the life of a character, we need to know why that character must survive - why we should root for them - to really feel engaged.

2c.

 

[Biskit]

It probably works best where the disaster is one that doesn't need a lot of explanation -- something simple, like a car crash.

Or something that can be presented in a sentence or two, with explanation/backstory coming out in the subsequent paragraphs. Ignoring the fact that I can't think of any concrete examples (except one of my own, and that's down at the simple car crash level), I don't see a problem with an opening that uses the first sentence or two to say 'Fred stared at the aftermath of the devastating X' with no immediate explanation of what X is, but a few handy descriptors to hint at the mess, then presents the intricacies of X as Fred starts picking up the pieces/screaming for help/putting his affairs in order.

 

[tinkerdan]

This question takes me back go Elizabeth Bear's All the Wind Wracked Stars.

There has been a great battle and one side has won and there are two survivors on the losing side sifting through the blood and destruction trying to understand why they survived and how that affects them. All of that is the inciting incident that helps define and shape the story. I think this works because it is right at the end of the battle when death is fresh and still looming.

 

[Phyrebrat]

If I'm following your question - and accepting/adding to what HB has said - sometimes the hook is the intrigue, though: He's in jail, we don't know why, but Peat The Author artfully sows little seeds here and there as to what put him in jail as he's planning how to escape.

Graphic novel, granted, but doesn't The Walking Dead leave the apocalypse unexplained?

Setting an opening post-disaster is a canny method, because on the hooky side, it can allow you to get right into the character's POV and response to it without the backstory or explantion of what has happened; on the technical side, it allows you to reserve the disaster as a place to keep things which can later be used as a reveal, or help the reader understand why a character has been motivated to act a certain (morally questionable?) way. In other words you can keep secrets from the reader in the disaster (or pre-disaster for that matter) which when later revealed bring much more gravity. I'd also add that works well for discovery or planner writers.

pH

 

[Joe Loomis]

I'm glad you brought this up. I am thinking about my own story, and I'm starting to worry that I don't have a great Hook. I was thinking about redoing several of the beginning chapters to "fix" my hook to make it a little sharper to grab readers.

 

[night_wrtr]

it allows you to reserve the disaster as a place to keep things which can later be used as a reveal, or help the reader understand why a character has been motivated to act a certain (morally questionable?) way.

For sure. This all the way. I like the idea of setting this up and slowly dropping clues or explanations. Do it.

 

[HareBrain]

It can be tricky though, because readers differ in how much and how long they can tolerate the author keeping secrets from them when the character would know them perfectly well, and probably be thinking about them a lot. As a reader, I often enjoy the drip-feed, but I've also read books where it went on too long and became frustrating and off-putting. Just something to bear in mind.

 

[Dan Jones]

It can be tricky though, because readers differ in how much and how long they can tolerate the author keeping secrets from them when the character would know them perfectly well, and probably be thinking about them a lot. As a reader, I often enjoy the drip-feed, but I've also read books where it went on too long and became frustrating and off-putting. Just something to bear in mind.

Phyrebrat mentioned the Walking Dead earlier, and this is exactly what happened to it, IMO. Fizzled out into a shaggy dog story because what my old teacher called the "extra-textual experience" wasn't fleshed out.

Another book that does post-disaster rather well (and which you've probably have heard of) is Inish Carraig. It opens well into the aftermath of the invasion, and it's the plight of the primary character John that provides the immediate stimulus (I don't like to use the word "hook" if I can help it!).

 

[Ihe]

Whether the reactive nature of the situation makes interjecting a hook more difficult.

As others have touched on, the hook can be the mysterious backstory itself, but you have to reveal it eventually, at least in part. If the disaster itself isn't explained or it isn't really tied to the plot (TWD doesn't get hung up on the why of the zombiecalypse at all, for example), your subconscious reader can detect a bit of a lazy plot device that has no merits in itself, like beginning with a diabolos ex machina, and some people could object to it on the basis of arbitrariness. If you can keep the plot the same by swapping the initial disaster with a different one, you might want to rethink it (although I'm aware some stories leave out explanations or backstories quite on purpose, but the omission itself often has thematic, mood, stylistic, or meta relevance).

I'm OK with the original disaster if it's even marginally relevant. As a general rule, I think all plot devices should multi-task (move plot along + add something specific the story wouldn't have otherwise). Easily interchangeable disasters is bad writing. Other than that aside, I see no problem with your first chapter habits.

 

[Paul Meccano]

I'm writing a book at present where I'm purposefully misdirecting the reader in an attempt to completely throw them, ( Harebrain, I already know this can drive you nuts if not well presented) this because Readers, don't just love to try and work out what's happening, they actually can't help it. Bless us all.
Anyway the truth for me is that you can't expect to misdirect as a magician would a passer by, if you have no skills in doing so. The story must call for the misdirection and you must have the skills.
In other words know your story. If you don't know it, then write from wherever you feel you need to start, but don't call it the middle beginning or end until you know your story.
On completion you will be the magician with the skills to misdirect and can re-write if necessary or add and adapt if wished. you will also have written the hook or will have fallen asleep on yourself prior to finishing if not.
I find getting stuff on the page raises the issue and solving the issue creates stuff to get on the page. But its never in its final order, especially when the plot is half decent.

Bla,Bla,Bla
I do go on

 

[The Big Peat]

Thank you everyone for your thoughts - haven't had enough time to process all of them properly and respond! But I am reading.

 

[The Big Peat]

It also goes against the classic "hero's journey" opening, in that you don't set up the "world of common day" that the MC then has to leave behind. On the face of it, this ought to be a non-consideration, but I wonder if the structure is so embedded in our expectations of stories now, it just feels strange if it isn't adhered to.

Interesting point that I hadn't considered. I'd like to think the hero's journey isn't that deeply embedded as the way to do it, but maybe it is.

I'd also float the idea that you can run the hero's journey arc as purely mental - they can start thinking of themselves as one thing and transform that one way, and maybe that would satisfy. Hell, depending on the character, post-disaster can be common day. A thief thrown in prison is maybe pretty normal. A soldier trying to find his way back after a lost battle is still a soldier. Well. I guess that one is common day-ish.

IMO it's a good idea to start in the middle of something happening - but it'll be the POV character's internal conflict that will drive the story more than an external one, as this will create the stakes that will hook the reader.

I don't have time to look for examples at the moment, but if a story begins with an action situation that threatens the life of a character, we need to know why that character must survive - why we should root for them - to really feel engaged.

2c.

Agree on the bolded.

On the other part - something someone else said to me about this that resonated is they like post-disaster because generally, there is no set way the scene has to end to progress the story. Which clicked in my mind as one of the big reasons I like post-disaster rather than disaster itself. Which links in here -

if a story begins with an action situations that threatens the life of a character, I *know* they're going to survive. There is no dramatic tension. Maybe if a lot of characters are threatened, maybe I might believe one might die. But just one, post-prologue? They're going to survive. There's no dramatic tension.

And sure, you can totally sucker readers in with *How* it happens rather than *What* happens, but it does limit the options and *What* is a really powerful tool.

Which is why, on consideration, I would tell an author that if they want to start with a big action scene, the stakes should be something the character can lose without ending the book there and then. Going to jail - fine. Losing the artifact they're trying to steal - fine. Life or death? Risky. Not to mention the author has then given himself far less room for rising the stakes without getting ridiculous.

If I'm following your question - and accepting/adding to what HB has said - sometimes the hook is the intrigue, though: He's in jail, we don't know why, but Peat The Author artfully sows little seeds here and there as to what put him in jail as he's planning how to escape.

This - the idea of the mystery of why being the hook - is a very good, very important point.

That said - if I'm dripping it through the first chapter, I still feel there's that burden of an awful lot going on at once. And if its very little seeds... then there's not much burden, but uncovering the mystery is probably a major part of the story. Which can make for a fantastic story but I'd hate to get locked into it as the only way of doing this.

Setting an opening post-disaster is a canny method, because on the hooky side, it can allow you to get right into the character's POV and response to it without the backstory or explantion of what has happened; on the technical side, it allows you to reserve the disaster as a place to keep things which can later be used as a reveal, or help the reader understand why a character has been motivated to act a certain (morally questionable?) way. In other words you can keep secrets from the reader in the disaster (or pre-disaster for that matter) which when later revealed bring much more gravity. I'd also add that works well for discovery or planner writers.

pH

Agreed about it being really good for getting straight into the character's PoV. I think its one of the reasons I love the idea so much.

I think there's a lot to be said for post-Disaster stories where they know What happening to them but they don't know Why. Great way to hook a mystery.

I'm glad you brought this up. I am thinking about my own story, and I'm starting to worry that I don't have a great Hook. I was thinking about redoing several of the beginning chapters to "fix" my hook to make it a little sharper to grab readers.

Hook is a difficult one. Everyone agrees that you need to capture the reader's attention in some way early on - they might hate the word hook, some do, but everyone agrees on that - but what exactly it is that captures readers is something with a lot of argument, not least because readers are very different from each other.

Something I do believe strongly though - most ideas can serve as a hook if written well enough, and good writing is a hook in and of itself.

It can be tricky though, because readers differ in how much and how long they can tolerate the author keeping secrets from them when the character would know them perfectly well, and probably be thinking about them a lot. As a reader, I often enjoy the drip-feed, but I've also read books where it went on too long and became frustrating and off-putting. Just something to bear in mind.

I'd say I personally have a pretty short tolerance level for characters not thinking about things they logically would. Butcher pulled it recently in the Dresden Files and while it worked because I didn't realise the character knew about it at all, it still felt pretty lame once I'd finished reading it. Ultimately, its a sort of Idiot Plot - I think it works far better for the character to simply not know if you want to take it long term.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I would tell an author that if they want to start with a big action scene, the stakes should be something the character can lose without ending the book there and then. Going to jail - fine. Losing the artifact they're trying to steal - fine. Life or death? Risky.

I do like that insight.

 

[Ihe]

Seconded.

 

[TitaniumTi]

I think Alex Hughes Mindspace novels could be described in this way. They follow on from both the apocalyptic disaster that formed the world the characters live in and the protagonist’s personal disaster. The first book of the series starts in a police interview room after a murder, and also hints at ongoing fallout from the protagonist’s personal disaster: “Since Lieutenant Paulson had exiled me to the interview rooms, I’d be here three hours or more with nowhere else to go; I thought about that hard, knowing some of it would leak into my face.”

The author is clever in the way she feeds us information. We find out about these disasters throughout the series, as the consequences affect the protagonist’s world and the events he has to deal with. Several books into the series, the reader is still learning more.

It does make the protagonist seem a bit reactive; I occasionally felt like yelling “get a grip”. But for the most part, I thought it worked well.

 

[night_wrtr]

if a story begins with an action situations that threatens the life of a character, I *know* they're going to survive. There is no dramatic tension. Maybe if a lot of characters are threatened, maybe I might believe one might die. But just one, post-prologue? They're going to survive. There's no dramatic tension.

To add onto this point - I remember reading a couple of books that started with battle scenes. I had the immediate lack of tension. Both instances, I'll have to try remembering which books they were, the characters died at the end of the fist chapter. Chapter two moved to a new POV which was the main POV the rest of the book. This didn't sit well with me. I had the normal thought that they would survive, and I also just spend X number of words getting to know the character. It felt like a waste and a cheap trick to bring tension.

I get the point though. They showed the disaster from a different viewpoint to inform the reader, but it didn't work for me. The character had no relevance to the story other than to show the disaster. My opinion is to stick with the MC either in the distaster and do something like you suggested, somehow changing the stakes, or starting post-disaster and dropping in what happened over the course of the first chapter or more. Depending on how intricate the thing is, it doesn't have to be an elaborate mystery. A subtle sentence here or there should be enough to get the reader on track.

After reading this thread and looking back at my WIP, I've noticed that two of my three MC's are introduced after some version of this "post-disaster" ideal. Funny.

 

[Shorewalker]

A bit random, this, but a few points...

I agree that a life-or-death at the start of the novel doesn't give me much sense of dramatic tension, or indeed any investment in the character. Often I find that I just want the scene over, as I know what's going to happen...usually a seat-of-the-pants escape.

Post disaster, though...that could intrigue me, so much so that I've worked my own WiP around to resemble this sort of set up. Prologue is a sort of 'last will and testimony' letter to a beloved brother before our protagonist heads out to meet her fate. Chapter one opens with her a penniless, filthy traveller, some two thousand miles from home. I hope that the reader immediately connects with her loss, is intigued by how it all played out and, most importantly, is invested in finding out how she can make her way back.

On the issue of keeping secrets, I agree that this will only work if the POV character is similarly oblivious. Harking back to my own WiP (look at me, look at me), our protagonist is being pursued, but she has no idea why. There are things connected to this that also defy explanation, and the first eight or nine chapters deal with her quest for answers. She gets them at the same time as the reader and the penny drops for everybody at the same time, all the little clues and references finally making sense.

 

[Paul Meccano]

I'm not surprised at how many people have decided they know better than the author here. This happens when you read enough books to find patterns in writing styles or escapes for the author caught in plot crisis. I'm sure if reviewing enough, one can get tired.
However, Is it possible you may stop reading a book because you think you "know" what's going to happen? This to me is a real problem and one that can come from not daring to invest ( based on what you think to be true). Granted, It can come from experience ( of which there is a many years worth on this site)
It would be a shame to think that plots and any approach to all plots in the future have been discussed and categorised; organised and filed, here, on this site, already!!
Where is the freedom for future writers to experiment and play with the reader if they are taught 1+1= 2 without suggesting it could equal 11

A first time or early reader, teenager or lesser read adult would not have the problem of pre conception, I'm sure they would be upset that the book was ruined for them, if you told them the character will live. For who really knows? Untold stories are as such.

On the issue of keeping secrets, I agree that this will only work if the POV character is similarly oblivious.

Not only but certainly for the majority and without finding a case in point to counter, could be accepted as true. But beware!

if a story begins with an action situations that threatens the life of a character, I *know* they're going to survive. There is no dramatic tension. Maybe if a lot of characters are threatened, maybe I might believe one might die. But just one, post-prologue? They're going to survive. There's no dramatic tension.

Really? I beg to differ.