: Re: Do I need to start off my book by describing the character's "normal world"? I know a lot of books do it (Harry Potter, LOTR, Wheel of Time). It's even part of the "Hero's Journey". However,

@Steve161

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You do need to establish your character's "normal" -- but you almost certainly don't need to do it in a lump at the beginning of the book.

The Hobbit doesn't start with a long chapter about daily life in The Shire; it starts with Gandalf showing up after only a few paragraphs describing the physical setting. The deep description of The Shire is doled out in dribs and drabs leading up to the visit of the dwarves, and even moreso put off until the first few chapters of The Fellowhip of the Ring -- roughly seventy years after the events of The Hobbit.

Nine Princes in Amber doesn't start off with a description of Corwin's "normal" -- either the one he'd established on Earth, or before then, back home in Amber; it starts with Corwin waking up in a hospital bed, with amnesia. It takes five books to get a reasonably complete description of Amber, and of course no deep description was needed of ca. 1975 Earth, because readers lived there.

In short, many very good books fold the "establishing shots" into the story, because this draws the reader in much more effectively than starting with "I got up and made coffee" (although in fact the first book of the second Amber series, Trumps of Doom, did start with that, by way of explanation about what was special about that particular day).

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