: Re: How to invest readers in a story that (initially) has no clear direction? The main character of my novel (third person limited) is an outlaw, on the run from government agents and living from

@Si5022468

Vote Up Vote Down

What I would personally do in this situation is a "How We Got Here" scenario.

Start off towards the climax of your story, with the protagonist facing down (or preparing to face down) whatever the final antagonist happens to be. This will solve your problem of introducing the antagonist and the long-term objective, and also provides an additional hook: how did the protagonist get into this situation, and how will they get out? Then, you flash back to the chronological beginning, with your character on the run from the law, and proceed from there.

A good example is the video game Persona 5. It takes a couple of hours of set-up and gameplay before you actually get into a Palace and start fighting Shadows, and quite a bit longer before the protagonists decide upon their long-term goal of forming the Phantom Thieves and reforming criminals.

So to signal immediately what the storyline actually is, the game starts off several months in the future, with the protagonist getting betrayed and captured during a Palace heist, and uses the framing device of the protagonist relaying the preceding events during an interrogation. Since you know from the beginning that the protagonist gets betrayed, this also adds the underlying driving question of who betrayed them, which isn't answered until the story catches up with itself towards the end.

(0)

Login to post a comment!