In Medias Res

Yep, what I love to do on a Sunday morning is read ten pages of senseless dribble not at all related to the plot or the characters.

This is a lot more common than writers think and they commit this sin a lot more frequently than they admit.  I have in fact argued with writers over this.  (Picture me hurling cat toys at a screen as an author tries to justify wasting my time.)

When I was in college, I heard the sacred In Medias Res all the time.  'You have to start In Medias Res.'  'Your characters need to be In Medias Res.'  Avada kedavra! you *&^%#$ writing professor.  If you could actually nail down a professor to what they meant by this--have you tried to nail a professor down?  Bloody and messy!  Anyway, if you could get a professors to define what they meant, they'd say that new writers can usually delete the first ten pages of their WIP.  That idea fascinated me.  I started deleting the first ten pages of everything.  A little tweaking, and hot damn, the professors were right!  Then I started reading other people's stuff.  Wow.  Somehow they had not gotten this piece of advice.  Or had ignored it.

A writer who is a little more savvy, who has taken maybe a writing class or two:  they jump right into the story, the plot is so obvious you have to beat the thing off with a stick.  The first page, two pages, three pages, squee--someone who actually knows how to write and tell a story!  Then the following ten pages are mind-numbingly dull and pointless. 

Seriously, you're writing a romance and sending your main character off to be alone and not mention the hunky guy she just met even once?  In fact, you're going to give me deep, involved details about the scenery?  For ten pages?  Really?  You think I'm a lucky reader to see how artfully you can describe trees?  You just made me look up deciduous and you're proud of yourself?  Did I mention this was for TEN PAGES?   

Or hey, even worse, and a lot more frequent, the science fiction thriller that never launches because the author spends ten pages talking about the ship and the captain standing on the bridge and yeomen walking the halls and other pointless, nameless, blah characters sitting around and absolutely nothing is happening.  If the description is well-done, sci-fi readers will have a little more patience, because the error occurs so much more often--have you ever watched a movie on the Sci-Fi Channel?  These people are masters of the ridiculous.  My experience tends to be with unpublished or self-published authors who do not pull this off, who are just yammering and not describing.  The beginning has an 'and then' feel. 

I'm not sure which error is worse, the one where the writer needs to cut the first ten pages or the writer who tries to mask that they've got ten pages of nothing after a fantastic opening.

Either way, boring is bad.  Don't do it.  The story has to be gripping the whole way through, especially with a modern audience.  Today's readers have too many other options.  Yeah, television and movies are insulting, but they're so much easier than engaging a shrunken brain.  Don't bore them.  Don't make them regret how many authors have easy access to publication--either through self-publication or through small publishers desperate to put anything out there.

Please, please, please, stop torturing me. 

If I don't turn to carrion, I may make another blog entry in a week or two . . . or three.