"In the" vs "At the" [closed]
Closed by System on Apr 17, 2011 at 12:54
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I am not sure which one is correct:
In the beginning of the book
or
At the beginning of the book
As in the sentence:
In the beginning of the book Marco describes his early life.
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2 answers
"In the" sounds like it's going on for a while — a chapter or two.
"At the" sounds like a point on a line: he describes everything in one or two paragraphs and then moves on.
Both are grammatically correct, but I think they have slightly different shades of meaning.
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Either is fine. But they have slightly different... connotations.
"In the beginning" makes most people in the western world think/associate that ancient book called the (Christian) Bible. Which starts out with "In the beginning" ;-)
So, it gets a more epic feel right off the bat than if I started with "At the beginning". "At the beginning" is more modern-sounding (to my ears, anyway).
And "At the beginning" makes me automatically think of a state more than a process ("In" is more neutral that way). So, "At the beginning of our tale, Marco is standing in his workshop" is something I would expect.
Hmm, come to think of it some more, this sounds like a synopsis more than an actual book. Or maybe it's not a question about writing fiction but about writing non-fiction? Or writing non-fiction about fiction? ;-) If so, then my answer is probably way off.
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