The detective arrives at the crime scene and finds the body is nearly identical to another murder. A soldier is walking through a swamp, when they are warned by their sergeant that mines are buried underfoot. The bride leaves her groom at the altar, looking to find herself after years of being told what she should do with her life. The singer comes across Robert Johnson’s guitar, thought to be long lost, and finds there’s more than just history attached to it.
All of these could be the beginning of a story that starts in media res.
Latin for “in the middle of things,” a story that begins in media res is one that starts midway through the plot, rather than at the beginning. And believe it or not, a lot of stories start like this. Hell, you’re probably familiar with most of them. The Star Wars movies arguably all start in media res, as they all start when a conflict is well underway. The novel Gone Girl begins with the protagonist’s wife being discovered missing. Wicked, from novel to musical to movie adaptation (love those last two) always start with the Wicked Witch being a well known figure and with several events implied as having happened and being common knowledge.
That last example brings up something important: how do these stories start in the middle when there’s who knows how much backstory we’ve missed? Often, this is accomplished through dialogue, flashbacks, and exposition. Flashbacks are especially popular, with the majority of Wicked being flashbacks, and the Deadpool films using flashbacks to explain why the film starts off with Wade Wilson getting into some insane shit.
And in horror, in media res is also quite popular. From the classics like Dracula, Frankenstein and Jekyll & Hyde to modern entries like Firestarter and Nightmare on Elm Street. Many of my own stories also start this way: Rose begins with Rose Taggert waking up in a greenhouse with no memory of how she got there or of the past two years, “Queen Alice” begins with my main character Joshua Blumfield already giving his report on the urban legend, and “The Dedication of the High Priestess” begins with Annie Hummel going to a gallery after already serving as a model for three paintings.
Why do horror authors, as well as authors in other genres, begin their stories this way? Well, one thing is the immediate hook. Take Nightmare on Elm Street: it starts with Freddy crafting his claws and then chasing after a teenage girl, only to wake up right on time. We’re immediately left wondering what happened and why, and that keeps our interest.
It also makes for great suspense. Take Nightmare again: we’ve already witnessed what Freddy’s capable of in the first scene, and so we wonder what else he can do. Would that have happened if we started with Freddy’s first murders and then getting killed by the parents? That opening violence builds up our expectations and keeps us enthralled.
Finally, you manage to get through a lot of exposition writing this way. Take Gone Girl, for example. Gillian Flynn could have started the story with Nick and Amy meeting, getting married, and the fracturing of their relationship before Amy’s disappearance, but would that have been as fun? It’s more interesting and suspenseful to read about the disappearance and then see how their relationship developed.
Another great example would be my story “The Dedication of the High Priestess” (spoilers for a story that came out in 2022). As I said, that story starts with my protagonist Annie already having modeled for a famous artist. She then goes through the gallery, which then causes her to be caught up in the King in Yellow’s plot to come to Earth. I could have started with Annie taking ballet classes, being scouted for the painter’s new series, doing the modeling gigs, and then going to the gallery, but that would have taken a lot of time and pages, and a lot of effort to keep readers interested. Starting with the gallery showing, using dialogue and exposition to explain how we got to this start, and then getting straight to the horror was very effective.
So, there’s a lot of reasons to use in media res to start a story, no matter the genre. It won’t work with all stories (looking at you The Hogfather, Die Hard, and Kill Creek), but if it works with your story, and you can do all the backstory parts without any issue, I see no reason not to use it. After all, I use it all the time. And look at me now!
Thanks for reading, my Followers of Fear. I’m about to start a new story, and it starts so in media res, some readers might need to read the start again. I thought about starting it from earlier in the events of the story, what I would normally reserve for flashbacks or exposition, but it felt like it would take too long and take up too much of a word count. Thinking about it and weighing my options made me want to write this blog post.
And now, if you need me, I’ll be busy writing what may be the most Halloween-y story I’ve written to date. Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares!
Rami Ungar The Writer 