: Re: First Chapters protocol I am a first time novelist with writing experience. I have an idea for my novel that begins with an important scene which actually plays out in the middle of the novel.

@Cody1607638

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I feel it would be appropriate to start with the something in the vein of "two years earlier" though you may just want to date both events and let the readers work it out, that's more of a personal style thing than a one size fits all.

The issue I see is that if you put that much story between the telling and the event you're either going to have to tell the tale of that scene twice. You could do this by repeating the passage, writing it from another point of view or paraphrasing it. But if there's that much story between the telling and the actual event you won't get away with simply reference it offhand like a lot of stories do when they're telling multiple interwoven narratives close together in the book structure that were separate in time.

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