: Re: Starting a book with a scene from the middle So. I'm currently working on a novel. (It's my first ever.) I need all the help I can get. I had an idea where I start with a scene which

This technique is very widely used. It is known as in media res (in the middle of things), and as TV Tropes notes, it's a technique used in the Iliad by Homer, "and Aristotle diagnosed it in Poetics, making it one of the first identified tropes."

Off the top of my head, I can think of a number of films that have used this technique. For example, Walk The Line (about Johnny Cash), starts off with him about to go on stage, and he's looking at a saw, at which point we go back in time to him as a child and the memories he had of an incident with just such a saw. Pulp Fiction uses this to great effect (as do some of Tarrantino's other films). The Usual Suspects, Batman Begins ... there is a long list!

Since you're writing a book and not a film, then this technique is also widely adopted in written form: Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein used this method, as does Margaret Atwood in some of her novels, and ... the list goes on!

How it works out is entirely up to you, but this is perfectly acceptable as a technique.

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: Re: Starting a book with a scene from the middle So. I'm currently working on a novel. (It's my first ever.) I need all the help I can get. I had an idea where I start with a scene which

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: Nonlinear novels Let's say that you are writing a novel whose narrative is non-linear. That means that when Chapter One refers to the present time, e.g. the 2010s, Chapter Two, instead of telling

: Novel set in Forgotten Realms universe My question regards using the forgotten realms setting for writing a novel. I'll explain. My original intention was to request permission to write a novel

: How to motivate yourself to finish something? Far too many stories of mine have gone unfinished simply because I lost motivation to keep writing (and it doesn't help that I manage to convince

: What are potential pitfalls for a young writer? Though I'm by no means perfect, I generally consider myself a good writer. The issue is that most older writers I know look back on their writing

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