Plot Study: Introduction
by Saladin Akara on June 19, 2009
in General Writing, Hints and Tips, Plot
The introduction ‘act’ of your story is where you give the reader all the information about the world they will be entering, along with background to explain the upcoming conflict. It’s your opportunity to lay the foundations for the rest of the tale.
Characters
It is during this section that you introduce your characters, giving an insight into their personae, allowing the reader to familiarise themselves with your cast before you throw them into the ‘meat’ of your story. Often, characters will come and go within a story, and this is your opportunity to introduce the core group of characters who will be playing the lead parts.
Obviously, the protaganist is introduced here directly, but what about the antagonist? Should he/she be explicitly introduced? I suppose this is entirely dependant on personal taste. For me, I like to only hint at the main protaganist during the introduction: That way, you can build some tension as the reader tries to figure out who is the main bad-guy.
The World
The introduction gives you a chance to introduce your world: Its people, the governmental structure, and the current situation it is in. It also is a chance to put into context where your characters stand within the world - which can be of utmost importance to the story.
History
As in the real world, the history of your created realm often will have shaped how it now stands. Your introduction gives you a chance to tell part of that history, and your readers will have a greater understanding of the world.
The origins of the protagonist, antagonist or any other character could well be inter-mingled with the history of the world, so you can also explain their background - And legends are always a nice way to give hints to what will happen later on in the story.
Atmosphere and Tone
The atmosphere and tone of your story could well stay the same throughout, and the introduction is a nicely convenient place to put them in place, giving your reader a taster of what to expect throughout the story.
However, the tone and atmosphere could also change by the end of the story, but you need to set the initial tone so the reader can see the changes. What better place to do it than here?
I mentioned I would be using the ‘Lord of the Rings’ as an example throughout this theme, so let’s take a quick look at what Tolkien did in his ‘introduction’ to do that which has been discussed above.
Starting off in Hobbiton, we are introduced to the race of Hobbits, who are a friendly, happy-go-lucky race of people who have no care of the outside world. It is also here that we meet our main protagonists: Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin. We see their attitudes, ideals and personalities quite well - Frodo, the adventure seeking young man who feels bogged down by responsibility; Sam, the duty-driven gardener who loyally serves his master (Frodo) well; Finally, Merry and Pippin who are both very similar: cheeky, mischievous friends who haven’t a real care in the world.
We’re also introduced to Gandalf, who plays a big part in the story, and get an insight into his position and power. But, his main ‘purpose’ during this part of the plot, from a storyteller’s viewpoint, is to give us, the reader, an insight into the history and world. He tells the story of the One Ring, and its creator, Sauron, while also giving us an idea of the world outside Hobbiton.
Overall, the tone and atmosphere are happy, cheerful and bright (Just about all Hobbits’ speech is ended in exclamation points!), yet during Gandalf’s telling of the story and legend surroudning the Ring, we get a hint of the darkness that will later prevail the story.
The introduction ends quite nicely as Frodo is charged with leaving Hobbiton to take the Ring to Rivendell so the elves can choose what to do with it.
Tolkien gives us a nice example of how Freytag’s analysis actually works in literature, and we’ll take a look later at how the other sections are utilised.
Your Introductions
What do you like to see/put into the introductory phases of stories? Do you like the way Tolkien makes his introduction? What other introductions have you enjoyed? Share with us!
Great thoughts for the introduction. The one thing I would comment on, in regard ot history, is to be wary of the info dump. Elizabeth Spann Craig has a great post on this http://midnightwriters.blogspot.com/2009/06/information-dumps-and-how-to-avoid-them.html and is well worth reading. Personally, I like the history of characters and worlds to be slowly revealed, rather than dropped on us straight away in the intro, but everyone likes things differently.
Recently I’ve been playing with introductions, trying to do slow lead ins, dropping people into action, starting descriptive, starting with dialogue, just to see what works for me. I’m still kind of playing and I’m torn between wanting people to know a bit about the characters and wanting to jump straight into the action. At the moment I’m erring on the side of caution and tend to start with the main character musing on something before they are swept off into action. Maybe I’ll work on it some more.
Thanks for the great post, looking forward to the next in the series.
Cassandra Jade’s last blog post..Fiction Vs Reality
Thank you for the comment, Cassandra! You’re becoming quite the regular here… It’s good to have you around.
I do agree that you need to be careful about just how much information you dump on your reader: Too much and they will lose focus, too little and none of it will make sense. Of course, however, the introduction act isn’t limited to only the first chapter, it is as long as necessary and depends on how much of a ’setting’ you want the reader to have and how long the story itself is.
As for what I do in the initial introduction, or opening scene, when roleplaying I like to give a minimal ’sneak-preview’ of my character, but give a reasonable amount of description about the setting: The environment, the political/otherwise situation of the ‘world.’ It gives other players the chance to see what they are to expect, as well as to give a feel to the way I’m going to be telling the story.
Often, I will apply this to my ’standard’ writing as well. It’s a personal choice of style, and I think you are right in trying out a few different ways. Let me know how you get on.