Not Starting with the Action, by guest blogger Kat Zhang

Kat Zhang is a Spoken Word poet and a Creative Writing major. She is represented by Emmanuelle Morgen and her book WHAT'S LEFT OF ME is about a 15-year-old girl fighting for her right to survive in a world where two souls are born to each body and one is doomed to disappear. It recently sold in a three-book deal to HarperTeen. You can read more about her writing process, travels, and books at her blog, www.katacomb.blogspot.com


How many times have you heard someone tell you to “start the story with action”? I know it’s something I’ve heard a lot. In fact, I’ve read that the average new writer really ought to be starting their story with their current chapter three in order to get rid of all the unnecessary waffling and backstory.

Sometimes, this is absolutely true. One of the most important things a good beginning must accomplish is hooking the reader, and what easier way to do this than with some intense action? But sometimes, the “big moment” isn’t the place to start the story.

Think about it. Does Harry Potter start with Hagrid arriving to tell Harry he’s going to Hogwarts? Does The Hunger Games start at the Reaping? Yes, some stories can get away with plonking the reader right down in the midst of things, but others, especially those set in a world very different from our own, need a few pages to orientate the reader, first.

Also, the trouble with a high stakes beginning is that we don’t know the characters well enough to care. The Reaping would have been sad even if we didn’t know Prim and Katniss, but think about how much more it hurt after having read the scenes of Katniss hunting and striving so hard to care for her family. Collins had already given us enough backstory for us to really understand the depth of the bond between the sisters and the true impact of Katniss’s offer to take her sister’s place.

Likewise, if Harry’s suffering at the hands of the Dursleys had been summed up in a sentence or two instead of shown us, then the relief and magic of Hagrid showing up wouldn’t have hit us as strongly. Starting with the most exciting part of the story is all good and well, but sometimes, you need just the right amount of backstory to put that excitement in context and ramp it up even more. One of the important parts of the hero's journey is the beginning, when the hero is still at home. We can also call this the World Before, since not every hero actually physically moves. The World Before is…well, the world before. Before the Reaping that changed everything. Before Hagrid. How can the reader fully appreciate the effects of the Inciting Event unless he gets a glimpse of how things were before?

Of course, I’m not saying you should have a chapter of info dump before getting to the “good part.” There should still be action. But it should be a smaller blip in the radar, something exciting, but not so exciting that there isn’t time or space to slip in some backstory. The most exciting parts of a story are all about moving forward. You don’t want to slow down a gunfight with background information. Collins didn’t waste time during the Reaping scenes explaining how close Katniss and Prim were, or how horrible the Hunger Games were—all that had already been accomplished.

Weaving in backstory and keeping the story moving forward can be a tough balance to keep. But lately, I’ve been hearing so much about “starting the story right in the midst of things,” that I just wanted to put a little reminder out there: sometimes less isn’t more. Sometimes a little breath before the storm can be a good thing.