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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48191
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Let's take Tolkien's Middle Earth, and the Lord of the Rings, as an illustration:

**Not beginning at the beginning**

At the very beginning, Eru created the spirits which would become the Valar, who would in turn create Middle Earth. Or something along those lines. This is described in the Silmarillion. (Which it's been years since I read.) Also in the Silmarilion, we get the original rebellion, by one of the Valar, Morgoth, and the actual creation of Middle Earth (hotly contested by the host of fallen Valar, led by Morgoth.)

**Not beginning in the middle**

Besides skipping over the creation of Middle Earth, we also skip over such things as the appearance of Elves, the reign of elvish civilizations, and their wars with Morgoth, and the corruption of some elves to make Orcs, and the appearance of humans, and the appearance of the horrors called dragons, and the fall of Morgoth, and the reason the Valar swore never to return to Middle Earth, and the rise and fall of the Numenorian civilization... We don't even start out with Sauron's ring-making, or the corruption of other rings, or...

**Not beginning nine-tenths of the way through the story**

Long after all the above events, a Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, finds a magic ring which just happens to be the lost Ring of Power forged by Sauron, a lieutenant of Morgoth (the Original villain) who was spared from Morgoth's fall. The ring is very useful to Bilbo, but all of his adventures pale in significance to the true meaning and power of what he stumbled across. The Lord of the Rings doesn't start with Bilbo finding the ring, either - only Bilbo's adventure covers that event in detail, and Bilbo's adventure began before that discovery, and ended with his return to the Shire.

**Beginning at nearly the end**

When Bilbo is ready to give up the Ring, and it passes into the possession of Frodo, our tragic hero, that is when we finally start the story. If we started any later, the story would scarcely make sense. We started absolutely as late in the story as could be managed without making the story incoherent.

I presume this is what Vonnegut means; not all of the background on which your story is built is, or should be, included in the actual narrative. And even details which absolutely must be included can be lightly placed in memory, in setting, as much as in the tale proper. Don't waste the reader's time starting earlier in the tale than you have to.

Original score: 38