There was an interesting talk at our recent Writer’s Group meeting on time lines for stories, and plots, and when to ‘start’ a story. The example given was that of Harry Potter where the opening sequence begins with the baby Harry being left on the Dursley’s doorstep. There is an awful lot of ‘story’ that happens prior to this event, but the author chose to reveal that information in snippets throughout the remainder of the saga rather than front loading the tale with all that information. Otherwise, we may not have met Harry Potter until book six!
Where to start a story can be a dilemma, of course. Starting a tale at one point in the story as opposed to another can completely alter the tone and even the outcome of the tale. Personally, I’ve ripped up complete chunks of stories in the past and moved the entry point much further along to where it gets ‘interesting’.
How you go about making this decision is entirely a matter of personal choice…
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