: Re: Skipping the first act? In traditional story structure theory, the ACT 1 is made to set up the world and host the inciting incident, the ACT 2 is made for the main quest and sequence of

@Karen856

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If the story begins in the middle of an activity, it's fine to fill in the rationales behind that activity later, but there still has to be a reason why the story starts (and ends) when it does.

"Set up the world" sounds more literal than it needs to be. It could be as simple as introducing the protagonist. There will be an Act 1, even if it's as short as a sentence.

We all do this all the time. The inciting incident could be someone posting a question on a website (Act 1), the main quest could be the answers and comments (Act 2), and the resolution could be the original poster awarding the "best answer" star (Act 3). Questions of how the posters came to be looking at the website can be introduced later - if they're relevant to the story.

Readers expect a story to have a beginning, a middle and an end. It's down to the skill of the writer to represent that as a chronological order of events, a progression of thoughts, or any other way that takes their fancy.

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