Starting a story in the middle of the story...

[Quiet_Cool]

Yeah, it's most likely been asked before, but since when do I mind being repetitive?

Okay, so I'm working on this story (which may or may not appear here at Lit.). The story in question has been running through my mind in many different forms for... well, since middle school. I'm well past middle-school age, BTW.

Here's the gist: The story I'm writing is only part of it, and it happens in the middle, but I've left a lot of reference to the past, not a dependency on it, but enough reference that the reader may wonder who these characters are, and what's taken place outside the story. It's complete, or at least I think it will be when I finish it, but has those pesky references.

My question: Do any of you feel that it will harm the readers view of the story to have this extra information in there? Honestly, it doesn't feel right to me to remove any of it, but I don't know for certain how I'll feel about it when I'm editing.

Have any of you done this? If so, what were the results?

Q_C

 

[CharleyH]

Yeah, it's most likely been asked before, but since when do I mind being repetitive?

Okay, so I'm working on this story (which may or may not appear here at Lit.). The story in question has been running through my mind in many different forms for... well, since middle school. I'm well past middle-school age, BTW.

Here's the gist: The story I'm writing is only part of it, and it happens in the middle, but I've left a lot of reference to the past, not a dependency on it, but enough reference that the reader may wonder who these characters are, and what's taken place outside the story. It's complete, or at least I think it will be when I finish it, but has those pesky references.

My question: Do any of you feel that it will harm the readers view of the story to have this extra information in there? Honestly, it doesn't feel right to me to remove any of it, but I don't know for certain how I'll feel about it when I'm editing.

Have any of you done this? If so, what were the results?

Q_C

It depends Extra info can either go a long way, or can be irritating and unnecessary background. I have started stories in the middle, not here, and it works perfectly. Depends, really.

 

[Weird Harold]

... but I've left a lot of reference to the past, not a dependency on it, but enough reference that the reader may wonder who these characters are, and what's taken place outside the story.

Unless you start every story with, "After hours of pressure and pain, my world was flooded with light and someone hit me in the ass. I drew my first breath and screamed," you're starting your story in the middle.

Including "backstory" references is one way of adding depth to your characters and isn't done enough in amateur fiction, IMHO.

How you make the references and how much time you spend on them in relation to how much time you spend on telling the story is the hard part. You have to stike a blance between making your characters more "real" and interesting and distracting your readers from the story you're trying to tell.

My question: Do any of you feel that it will harm the readers view of the story to have this extra information in there? Honestly, it doesn't feel right to me to remove any of it, but I don't know for certain how I'll feel about it when I'm editing.

Like most of these questions -- if you have to ask if it's OK, your subconscious is telling you it isn't OK. Write the story as it comes to you and don't worry about how much backstory there is until you start editing. That's the whole point in editing -- to decide whether you've told the story you intended to in the way you intended to and make changes if you haven't.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

hey QC.

I don't usually do this, but I'll reccomend taking a gander at one of my stories. It's none erotic, called Voices. I reccomend it because what you want to do sounds a lot like the standard character building tools of the genre of that story, cyberpunk.

If Voices seems close to what you are trying, send a PM to Raphy. He writes masterful cyberpunk, with multiple reference to back story you have no ide aof and it works. He can probably help you with that particular technique as well as anyone I know on lit.