Post History

+1 Mark, Galastel. The one thing I would add is structural. Don't forget that the first 15% of a book, before the Inciting Incident (that introduces the major problem), is where the reader expects to be introduced to the main characters and crew (not necessarily the villains, unless you are writing for TV, then the viewer is typically introduced to the villain in the first Act, so it won't seem like a deus ex machina when the villain becomes apparent.)

In 300 page novel (75,000 words) that is 45 pages. Don't be afraid to use them! That is a lot of real estate, and the reader is expecting the start of the book to tell them what they need to know about the world and the characters in it.

Don't info-dump us on either the world, or the characters, or the back-story. Readers cannot memorize very much at all, but they can and do remember scenes and what the characters DID and how they conflicted (which could just be a friendly disagreement over something).

It is a good thing to get your characters into interactions with others as quickly as possible, in the first two pages. That is how we get to know them, through these interactions and dialogue. This is also what is meant by "in media res", starting in the middle of action: It does not mean starting in battle, it means start in a SCENE with no backstory or introduction, just a character doing something that quickly leads to interactions with other characters.

That is what agents want to see. No "thinking, pondering, remembering, wondering" openings, that will get you a rejection. It is too obviously loading people up with backstory. No openings where the protagonist is doing something alone for five pages (five is all that many agents will read for a query). Same reason.

As Galastel says, introduce them in groups; three for an easy start that progresses to the full crew. You will have to devise a reason for that, but you don't ever have to have a dozen people together talking; once introduced people can leave. 3, +2-2, +4-3, -2+2. That's eleven. They may just be recruiting for a friendly group outing; which happens to put them all together for the Inciting Incident that drives the plot forward, and them forward as a team.