Temporarily child protagonists?

[Pentagon]

Hello,

My google fu has unsurprisingly failed me again, so I thought i'd just throw it to my favourite community.

Basically, I want to do my opening chapters, 2-3 when my protagonist is a teenager, having to make choices about things like education.
I then go on to tell the story as the child then grows up into the exciting protagonist that they undoubtedly are.

It strikes me as how Harry Potter is of course introduced, with him being delivered as a baby.

So couple of thoughts,
1. Is this a prologue masquerading as chapter 1. / I am aware that the general feeling is prologues = bad and had thought that I was quite happy to follow that advice, but have I unwillingly been lured in.

2. I like it because I think it lets me tell a lot about what's unique about MY world without inflicting a boring info dump on my reader. When I ask the questions, is it necessary and what does it add- i feel that it adds quite a lot, but is my own belief that it's great enough..

3. Is it clear who the protagonist is. Taking the example of Harry Potter, I don't remember reading the first chapter and thinking that Vernon Dursley is the protagonist despite the great amount of attention given when he's shouting at people and going to work etc. Equally, when the cat becomes a person, you don't think that she likewise is now the protagonist being revealed. I do wonder, if this is because of the title, Harry Potter and... we are forced to patiently wait for this Harry Potter geek to turn up.

On the same vein, the intention was for the first chapter to be from the POV of the father, and then it move to the child from chapter 2 onwards.

Assuming Line 1 and 2 are exposition. Line 3 is Harry's father had worked hard to get him ready for pre-school. Is it immediately clear by the messaging that the dad is a temporary pov. I mean, Harry's dad could be a vampire for all we know, but the operative point, the first mention is saying he's a dad and not just any dad, that he's Harry's dad.

What are peoples thoughts?

 

[Brian G Turner]

Is this a prologue masquerading as chapter 1.

The way you describe it makes it sound like so...

Basically, I want to do my opening chapters, 2-3 when my protagonist is a teenager, having to make choices about things like education.

...because you're not talking about the story as much as establishing setting and character.

However, there are ways to make this interesting - obviously, a sense of conflict from the start.

You'll never know unless you write it, and even then, you can always edit it out if it doesn't do its duty.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Why not pop it up on critiques?

 

[Plucky Novice]

It sounds like the real story gets going when the protagonist grows up, hence the prologue query.

2. I like it because I think it lets me tell a lot about what's unique about MY world without inflicting a boring info dump on my reader. When I ask the questions, is it necessary and what does it add- i feel that it adds quite a lot, but is my own belief that it's great enough..

Does it just provide an exposition opportunity or is it progressing the story? Does the story still work if you start it later?
If you start it later can you work hard to overcome the info dump problem?

I'm wrestling with a similar issue myself at the moment and these are some of the questions I've been asking myself.

I hope that's useful.

 

[tinkerdan]

Whether it works or not; we wouldn't know until we start reading it.
A lot depends on your skill and style in presenting your story.
Also I wonder about the nature of the question.
Are you wondering about what age and genre you are writing for--ie:Young Adult or otherwise?
You should be if this is going to introduce the story.

As a reader I do these things.
Look at the cover(usually to determine if it's the genre I seek and then if it might interest me; however I try not to judge a book by its cover--no matter how difficult that can be sometimes).

Read the blurb(Does it catch my interest? Does it sound like the preferred genre.)

Open the book(when possible)and read as many pages as I can or as many as I can stand to read.

The last is the most important; because that's the one that determines if the book is for me.

I'm not sure that my needs in a beginning are quite the same as those that get tossed around even in forums such as this; however I can usually tell in a short time whether the writer is connecting with me and that is important to me.

How well do you write?

 

[Pentagon]

Whether it works or not; we wouldn't know until we start reading it.
A lot depends on your skill and style in presenting your story.

How well do you write?

Well, that's not the answer I wanted! I am just frantically editing, I will post something in the critique section shortly enough...

Why not pop it up on critiques?

Because I'm horribly insecure, but sometimes you have to take the plunge.

I'm glad that it sounds like I'm not the only one wrestling with these questions.

 

[Ihe]

It can work. As far as I know it works even if you do the father's POV for longer than a few chapters. I remember that in The Pillars Of The Earth, the MC doesn't come into his own until one third of the story in at least, it felt like. Then again, it would require very careful attention to detail in matters of pace, emotional weaving, and plot structure to pull off, as well as there needing to be a reason for it--pulling it off for the sake of a gimmick will not read well.

I personally like those timeskips, specially because they usually are (and always should be) a better, more entertaining start to the story than the actual start, but I can only tolerate this tactic the one time per story. More than that and you could take tension and reader motivation away from the present and ruin the flow and the connectedness of the reader to your work, so choose wisely where you want to place it. Its position within the story often has very different consequences.

Doing it at the start is smartest, as the reader is not yet bound to the hero's journey, and the changes can be bigger and more exciting, as the MC is more moldable. If you do it in the latter third of the story, readers would rage as they are too invested by that point, and it could not be worth it as by the time your MC has come into his own, not much change would happen even after a couple of years (goals and character are firmly set by this point). Not that it never works, mind you (I vaguely recall a few doing this for stylistic/poetic/meta reasons to great emotional effect), but as a general rule of thumb for myself, I hold this to be true. If you do it right down the middle of the story, well, that's a minefield. That's roughly around the time the MC usually has his/her turning point in the character arc (new information gravely changes an element of the story, the MC makes a drastic choice, etc). Doing the skip there would cheapen one of the more emblematic and theme-relevant moments of a story. Once you hit the halfway mark, the plot usually picks up in agency in the latter half and pulls out all the stops, but it has that momentum only because it flows directly from the former half. A disconnect down the middle ruins your story's momentum, IMO.

Back to the early post-skip change though, it needs to be significant enough (in energy and pace, above all) to warrant the reader falling in love with your work all over again, as it is sort of the real start of the story (even if the teen-years preamble is justified for plot purposes). It is tough trying to make the MC different, but still hold on to some of his core traits, those that will help the reader extend/transfer their already-established emotional investment from the young MC to his older version.

This tactic works better in the visual medium, where the changes after the hiatus can be shown quickly and clearly, in order to move on with plot. A new start in a book is much slower and the shiny new feel can evaporate quite fast if you don't up the pace after the timeskip.

So why do you wan to skip over those years? Do you want to skip the hero's "training" phase? That in itself could use its own post, talking about how that affects the reader's investment, the plot, and the structure.

Wow, I'm talkative today; that was a tangent right? I'm not too sure, it seemed appropriate at the time, I'm kinda word-drunk (is that a thing?). At least half of what I said is sure to be poppycock. Despite the professorial tone I've tried to invoke, I'm quite the novice, so take my holy teachings with a pinch of salt .