: Re: Will it push away a reader if I start my book with the frame story? So, I'm writing a novel where MC believes he is influenced in some way by an entity he calls Common Sense. He suspects

You must decide first and foremost how you want your readers to initially treat your MC's belief that he is influenced by an "entity". If you tell the readers right from the start that the entity in question exists, they are going to view everything differently from if you allow them to assume at first that no such entity exists (as would be more realistic). I think that should be what guides your decision of where to put the story of the entity.

As for starting with the frame story in general, I haven't heard of anyone being put off by the One Thousand and One Nights starting with the frame story. Or The Canterbury Tales, or The Decameron, for that matter. Good Omens starts at the creation of the world, ~6000 years before the birth of the MC. 2001 A Space Odyssey starts with prehistoric proto-humans. The distant start serves the story and its themes in all those cases. What serves your story? What are the themes you wish to explore?

As long as the narration is interesting, as long as the story is entertaining, I don't see your readers running away because of where you chose to start.

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: All of the answers are good. I will add that safe and nurturing places also help. Positive traditions--traditions of light--these help. Minor characters who are only good also help. So build

: Re: Will it push away a reader if I start my book with the frame story? So, I'm writing a novel where MC believes he is influenced in some way by an entity he calls Common Sense. He suspects

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: How to Write a Colossal Cast of Characters I'm planning a book series called The Weasel Sagas. Things have been going great up until now, where I've realized I've hit a bit of a problem:

: How to create a memorable line? I recently re-watched the Overwatch animated short "Honor and Glory". You can tell the writers were proud of the line "Live with Honor, Die with Glory", as the

: Using real words from a foreign culture feels like 'Calling a rabbit a "smeerp"' I'm working on a novel, that's set in pre-Islamic Persia, in the same general way that The Lord of the Rings

: All of the answers are good. I will add that safe and nurturing places also help. Positive traditions--traditions of light--these help. Minor characters who are only good also help. So build

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