: Re: Can a novel chapter have a suspenseful flashforward opening? Like in the TV serials, can we have the opening section of the novel relate the ending or some part in between of the chapter (as

@Correia211

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Not a "suspenseful" opening perhaps, but here are the opening paragraphs of To Kill a Mockingbird:

When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken
at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem’s fears of never being able to
play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his
injury. His left arm was somewhat shorter than his right; when he
stood or walked, the back of his hand was at right angles to his body,
his thumb parallel to his thigh. He couldn’t have cared less, so long
as he could pass and punt.
When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we
sometimes discussed the events leading to his accident. I maintain
that the Ewells started it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior,
said it started long before that. He said it began the summer Dill
came to us, when Dill first gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come
out.

The whole rest of the novel is a telling of the "events leading to his accident." Said accident happens right at the end of the story (by which time, I suspect, most readers have completely forgotten about it!)

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