V.M. Lavigne

Forget characterization and worldbuilding, sometimes you just need to dive right into the action. A duel between a couple mages. A secret meeting. A near-death experience. It’s a great way to get a reader’s attention, and that’s the point of in medias res—to start “in the middle of things.”

In medias res is essentially a type of hook used to draw a reader directly into the story by bypassing all that boring exposition and intricate worldbuilding and opening with an actual scene. Characters and plot are introduced not through exposition but through action, which can make for a bold and eye-catching first look at what is to come while also stirring some curiosity about what has already transpired.

That being said, there are some things to keep in mind when employing an in medias res start.

What should opening a scene in medias res accomplish?

1. Link it to the plot.

A scene opening in medias res should be a pivotal part of the ongoing plot. The story has long since started by this point, so the opening moment presented to the reader should be one crucial to what is already happening and what is going to follow. It should be intricately linked in some way with the character’s development, the progression of the story, or the overall theme. Britney isn’t out for a Sunday stroll or off to run errands in town. She’s waist-deep in the already occurring conflict, and this needs to be shown. Extra emphasis on shown. Not that conflict can’t also be subtle, but for in medias res to work well even subtle conflict should be felt.

2. Make a dramatic statement.

The whole point of beginning in medias res is to make a powerful impression upon the reader in order to draw them in. This is not the place to hold back and be humble with your writing. This is the place to throw all the punches, to elicit emotion and make a bold statement that will carry your reader through the coming slowdown of dialogue and flashbacks and backstory. Readers have little information to go on at this point so what you show them needs to be interesting. In fact, I would think of a scene opening in medias res as a climactic moment that should mirror, foreshadow, or enhance the actual climax of the story that’s to come later. This makes for a great opportunity to create a killer opening line or to present or perhaps foreshadow the story’s Dramatic Question.

3. Define your character through action.

I have no idea who Britney is. All I know is she’s half dead with black ichor down the front of her robes muttering something about a necromancer named Fred. Without a backstory to build some emotional connection to this character, we have to find a way to portray who they are by their actions and words in this opening scene. I think this is by far the trickiest part of using in medias res because while you, the all-knowing author, may know why this character is so amazing this will be the reader’s first impression of them. Make it count. Make them want to be invested in Britney’s strange situation and wonder what her beef is with Fred the necromancer. Make them feel pity or outrage or suspicion towards her. This opening scene should be a defining moment in who she is, so be sure to define her clearly.

4. Create suspense.

Evoking curiosity is the sole point of any good hook. In medias res openings have the unique opportunity to evoke curiosity not only about what’s to come but also about what has already occurred. Both the past and future are sources of suspense that should be explored with building momentum throughout the rest of the story. For that reason, it’s important to maintain a certain amount of mystery and vagueness in the opening scene so as not to give away too many details too early. Limit information to only what is necessary to provide clarity and interest to the current situation. Shore up your backstory and revelations for later.

How to provide backstory when starting in medias res?

When you begin in medias res, there’s the delicate process of revisiting what has already occurred in order to fill your reader in on the plot points leading up to the opening scene so as not to leave them dangling in suspense forever. There are multiple ways of accomplishing this.

1. Dialogue

If your character has been present for the events leading up to the opening scene (or is at least aware of those events), then naturally they themselves can provide information by simply recounting those events to or discussing them with other characters. Just beware of unnecessary info dumps. It’ll become tedious if characters spend too much time reminiscing about previous scenes and make readers feel cheated out of experiencing those moments firsthand. Keep your dialogue organic and find ways of slipping information into ordinary conversations.

2. Flashbacks

Flashbacks are another method of providing henceforth unseen backstory, and they have the advantage of actually showing what happened rather than telling what happened. Inserting flashbacks into an ongoing story, however, can require some authorial finesse. The easiest method is simply to start a flashback at the beginning of a chapter in order to avoid the hassle of transitioning into it altogether, but if you must transition mid-chapter, be careful to do so in a way that the reader can follow. Having a familiar smell or sound trigger a sudden memory, using an object like Dumbledore’s memory-collecting pensieve, or utilizing a character’s psychic abilities are all ways to transition in and out of a flashback. You can change the verb tense as well when you transition into a flashback as a means of alerting the reader that you are shifting back into past events. Whatever method you choose, just be consistent with it. Using flashbacks too inconsistently or too often can be jarring for the audience (*cough* Zack Snyder *cough*). Flashbacks are meant to be brief snippets of crucial information. If you need to provide lengthier details, consider using nonlinear narration instead.

3. Nonlinear narration

Nonlinear narration is one of my favorite literary devices so I’ll likely not explore it too deeply here as I have plans to dedicate a whole post to it (restrained excitement). Nonlinear narration is quite simply telling a story out of chronological order, which goes perfectly with a story told in medias res because you’re already beginning out of order. The difficulty with nonlinear narration is that, if done poorly, it can be confusing as hell to readers. Even if done right, you may still lose some people along the way. Probably the easiest way to avoid confusion with nonlinear storytelling is to dedicate each chapter to one timeline (aka, no time-skipping mid-chapter), and to be straightforward in indicating what timeline each chapter is taking place in. Using nonlinear narration allows for lengthier exploration of backstory or plot points that have occurred prior to the opening scene without having to rely on flashbacks and dialogue to relay that information. It’s great too if the plot occurs over a long span of time with multiple viewpoint characters because you can dedicate whole chapters to different characters at different points in time, making for an exciting storytelling rhythm.

4. Perspective changes

Using a different perspective can also be another means of providing backstory. This can be done by actually transitioning to the perspective of another character, maybe one with more intimate knowledge of the backstory events, between chapters or between in-chapter breaks. Or you could create a physical narrator who can comment on the events of the story from outside the story as well as provide a useful means of transitioning between backstory events and main story events. Or you could utilize recordings, newspaper clippings, dusty old films (classic horror trope), a box of letters or any magical equivalent to reveal backstory from the point of view of someone else. I personally have a penchant for storytelling via letters as Bram Stoker did in his novel Dracula, so I find an old collection of letters or a found diary to be a fascinating means of providing backstory. Maybe after Britney escapes her harrowing situation, she discovers an old diary that belongs to none other than Fred the necromancer, which not only provides backstory but perhaps provides backstory from a contrasting perspective.

Examples of well-written openings in medias res.

Shutter Island (2010)

Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island opens with U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels vomiting his guts into a ship toilet. He’s obviously unwell (oh boy, the foreshadowing) and obviously in the middle of a voyage. He joins fellow U.S. Marshall Chuck Aule on the ship’s prow, and we learn that they’re new partners in route to their first case together—the investigation into the disappearance of a woman from Ashecliff Hospital, a mental asylum on the secluded Shutter Island in Boston Harbor. There is mention of Daniels’ history with the U.S. Marshalls, indicating his seniority, as well as talk of his wife who died in a fire several years ago. This is supplemented with a brief but somewhat disconcerting flashback and Daniels’ conviction that she died peacefully from smoke inhalation before the eerie island looms into view.

This scene is so well done—and a good example of utilizing suspense. We are thrown directly into the action of Daniels’ arrival at the eerie Shutter Island with little information about him or his new partner other than what is provided through dialogue and flashback, but we’re given little bread crumbs of hinting suspicion that will eventually tie Daniels’ own backstory in with the current investigation. We’re given the impression there’s more to this than meets the eye, but what exactly that is, is left for us to try and decipher alongside our main character. There is enough information to make us suspicious and curious, but not so much that it spoils the coming twist.

Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003)

Quentin Tarantino’s opening scene to Kill Bill: Volume 1, with its iconic black and white noir-style, has become a classic. The camera never even shifts off our nameless main character, a woman who is battered and bleeding on the floor. There’s a man off camera, whose face we never see, but we know he must be Bill by the embroidered handkerchief that he uses to wipe blood off the woman’s face. Obviously by the title of the movie, we can guess this Bill is the villain, but to add to that a brief dialogue is provided in which he discusses her perception of him as a sadist. At the end of the scene, she tells Bill that the baby is his before he seemingly shoots her dead.

What a hook. The questions elicited by this opening scene surround the relationship between these two mysterious characters and the nature of their conflict, which is essentially the plot of the movie itself. The story proceeds in nonlinear fashion, jumping from this pivotal opening scene to four years later as the woman wakes from a coma to find her baby is gone and then switching back and forth between the events of four years ago that led up to her near fatal encounter with Bill and the currently transpiring events in her hunt for Bill and their child. The movie provides incredibly vague information in the opening scene, allowing for suspense as the audience follows essentially two stories being woven together.

Want a version with a zombie main character seeking vengeance on a mafia syndicate rather than an assassin guild, perhaps told as an anime? Check out Gungrave. (You’re welcome.)

Dark Matter (2015-17)

The sci-fi TV series Dark Matter opens with an obviously damaged spaceship (as is often the case in sci-fi). Life support is failing. Dangling wires and shooting sparks are everywhere. Two crew members wake from their stasis pods and encounter each other in the command room, where they engage in fisticuffs before one prevails over the other and mashes some futuristic buttons to stabilize the life support systems. A third crew member then appears waving guns and demanding to know who they are. It’s then both of them realize they don’t know who they are. They ask the third crew member who he is. “I have no idea,” he admits.

This is one of my favorite sci-fi series (though admittedly that is a long favorites lists). I was immediately drawn in by the premise of an amnesiac crew waking from stasis aboard a damaged spaceship with no idea who they were or how they got there or even where they were supposed to be headed. The series revolves around these six crew members, who assign themselves numbers since they have no names, trying to decipher the complicated web of their own intertangled backstories alongside the equally curious audience. Most of the information they glean of their pasts comes from former acquaintances or news articles or gossip, which continually begs the question: can they rely on the truth of such second-hand information; and do they even want to know the truth of who they were? Identity is the prevailing theme of the show and how contradictory and confusing it can be to suss out when you have no founding memories, and this is portrayed perfectly in its opening scene.

Also they have a hilariously charming android. Second favorite android of all time next to Data. And a comic book.

---

In medias res can be a great tool to use to hook your audience right at the beginning of the story. Combined with various other literary devices, it can be a powerful method of storytelling that can highlight important plot points to be reverberated throughout the rest of the story. However, I think it’s important when using in medias res (or any literary device, for that matter) to ask yourself why using it is important. What does it contribute to your story? Does it bind the story together behind a cohesive idea, or make it more confusing? Would your story benefit from the suspense created by in medias res or suffer from it? Is there a plot point in the middle of your story strong enough to even carry an opening scene? Sometimes the answer is that starting your story at the beginning is actually the better option, but sometimes utilizing in medias res can really give a story the punch it needs to get off its feet. If you feel your plot suffers from a lack of suspense or a slow start, it wouldn’t hurt to consider if it might flow better with an in medias res start.

Hoping everyone has feasted and fraternized to their heart’s and belly’s fulfillment this Thanksgiving and hoping I’ve provided some structural inspiration to your stories with this look into in medias res. It seemed an appropriate literary discussion as Thanksgiving is kind of the middle child of the holiday season, acting as some weird transition between celebrating the dark and dreadful to embracing the festive frenzy that is to come. Enjoy yourself, read, write, comment and conserve your energy while you can, for the holidays are upon us, my friends.