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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47321
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47321
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

# Yes, please start in the MC's Normal World.

The point of beginning in The Normal World is directly related to the inciting incident: Namely, the inciting incident has the potential to change the character's life. For good or evil. Whether they like it or not. It may change it immediately, or it may grow to to change it. In all these cases, the inciting incident is going to take the MC out of their Normal World to deal with it, and learn from it, be abused by it, and eventually solve it.

After that, they will return to some Normal: Sometimes their previous Normal world (e.g. the villain is no longer a threat) or more often to a New Normal World (It is new because they have changed, sometimes become a better person, taken responsibility, or become more aware of the World or more Adult and decided their old Normal is too small, or they have a higher purpose, etc).

In order to make the Inciting Incident **_matter_** to the reader, the reader should already know the MC, sympathize with the MC, and understand what the MC is facing when their Normal World is disrupted. **If they don't know the MC,\*** then by definition the MC is a **stranger** and you have something happening to a stranger they don't know and don't care about. They expect heroes and villains, they don't know which they are looking at. It doesn't seem like a _person_ to them. They don't have any sympathy, yet, **they don't know if they like her.**

Further, the second reason for starting in the normal world is that in the first pages of a book, readers _expect and forgive_ a little world building, that authors will be more careful to include setting details and the rules of the world (like whether magic works, like whether we are on Earth, like what time-period we are living in, from cave-dwellers to far future, like cultural details, even whether we have mobile phones and the Internet or not).

Those details need to be incorporated to **orient** the reader's expectations, but they will also get in the way of dramatic scenes, reducing the impact of them. Even if your setting is entirely modern present-day Earth, your MC has a _local_ culture, attitudes, and permissiveness that readers need to know about. A reader living San Francisco California has a much different "Normal World" and expectations than a reader living in Laredo Texas, or one living in New York City.

They are all flexible, they read for entertainment because they LIKE other worlds, but you need to SET their expectations for YOUR story.

Typically, instead of the Inciting Incident, I open the story with the MC in their normal world but with a normal world PROBLEM, something minor that isn't life-threatening or life-changing, just some issue to deal with like we all encounter in normal life. Something breaks or doesn't work, or we run out of something, whatever.

As I've said in other answers: We wake up late because there was a power failure while we slept, and our alarm failed to go off. Or there's no hot water to take a shower. Or we usually have a bowl of cereal for breakfast, but when we pour milk on it, the milk glops out: It has gone sour. Or we have pop-tarts, but the toaster is broken. Our shoe breaks, or shoelace breaks, we have to improvise. Our car won't start; the battery isn't dead, and that is the full extent of our knowledge about trouble-shooting cars.

A _small_ low-stakes problem gives the reader something interesting to follow, to see how the MC behaves in her normal world, how she thinks, if she is creative, etc. We are able to introduce the setting, because the stakes aren't high, and the danger is not life-threatening; it doesn't feel like we are pressing pause on a life-and-death action scene to explain how a light-saber works, or that Luke thinks Darth Vader killed his father.

In most novels the Normal World is the first half of the first Act, which amounts to 10% to 15% of the story. It can be shorter, but without it, stories generally flop, because the reader doesn't know the character, doesn't get what's wrong, doesn't see the Inciting Incident as a **change** from Normal, and when you try to justify the MC's feelings and actions you inevitably stall the story with backstory.

Readers aren't stupid, they are **flexible** and ready for anything when the book opens, they are **expecting** you to set the stage and introduce an MC (or more than one) and supporting characters and culture. If you don't give it to them, they will not find your story Exciting because you jumped right into the action, the will find it confusing and flat, because they don't care about the characters involved.

In The Hunger Games, Katniss is introduced in her weird Normal World, shown to be an expert huntress, shown to love her sister, be afraid of the drones, etc. The Inciting Incident (foreshadowed by nightmares of her sister) is her sister being chosen for the Games; the only way to save her is for Katniss to volunteer in her place. The equivalent of a mother sacrificing herself to save her child.

In Die Hard, John McClane's Normal World is visiting his estranged wife and daughter and trying ineptly to repair his marriage. The Inciting Incident is his family being held hostage, and it is 100% action from there: But we did not OPEN with that, and have to explain _"By the Way, his wife and children happen to be hostages too! And he loves them so much, he will run barefoot over broken glass to save them!"_

The Normal World introduces the MC, introduces the World and Setting of the story as they know it, and introduces the **stakes** for the MC.

Don't skip it. Don't think you are starting at the exciting part. That is not what In Media Res means, it means don't start the story with a lot of factoids and exposition about the history of the world so far; it means start in the middle of things, start with characters doing things, start with some sort of activity, but it doesn't have to be a battle, or the inciting incident. Start with the MC(s) doing things that show us the setting and other supporting characters and the stakes that will be threatened. The Normal World.

Original score: 13