: Re: How can I reconcile the exposition of the three act scheme vs. starting out with a bang? I am a few thousand words into my newest draft and starting to question if I picked the right beginning.

@Debbie451

Vote Up Vote Down

What you might want to do is get the whole thing written as a three-act piece with exposition in the beginning. Set it aside for a month, and then come back and see if the opening is too slow. If it is, now you can figure out a way (as Fox Cutter suggested) to add in a prologue or some other in media res opening which creates the bang you're looking for. But you'll have something to start with. You can't edit a blank page.

Also, having a slow opening (exposition) is more of the classical Hero's Journey. Not every story follows that pattern. The idea of the exposition opener is to set establish the Normal World which the Hero has to depart to go on the Journey. If the Hero is already on a Journey, or if Journey is not what your Hero does (for example, if your Hero is a detective, or a doctor, or a mercenary in the middle of a war zone), then you only need to explain as much as is necessary to understand the setting of the story.

(0)

Login to post a comment!