Slow-Paced Beginnings in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- The first three chapters or so of Child of the Storm suffer from this, with a touch of Early-Installment Weirdness. It doesn't really kick on until chapter 9 when darker themes are introduced, the plot gets going, and it becomes abundantly clear that the forces of good aren't going to have it all their way. Even then, it's all shadow boxing until chapter 21, which significantly ups the stakes.
- About 90% of the first chapter of Friendship Is Optimal: Caelum Est Conterrens consists of an overly detailed and completely irrelevant description of the heroine connecting and turning on her new gadget.
- Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail starts off someone slow in the first arc as it's more about Chloe learning to regain her self-confidence in growth while oblivious to how everyone she loves is freaking the hell out of her disappearance and she doesn't get her main object of stopping the Apex until the very end. The story starts picking up halfway into the second Act, particularly the six-part Cyan Desert Car, which culminates in a lot of Wham Episodes that change the story, and everyone involved, for better or worse.
- Main Character Syndrome (With Exceptions)
shows a good example of this trope as, after 30+ chapters, the narrative is near to the "Let's Watch Our Show" Plot part of the story, and the 40 characters note currently stuck in the dimension is trying to navigate and learn of their surroundings, getting to know one another and their home worlds, and the culture and values they go by.
- Courier's Mind: Rise of New Vegas had this issue pretty bad in its first season, thanks largely to the short length of the episodes, at less than ten minutes. It took till the third episode for The Courier to even leave Doc Mitchell's house and enter Goodsprings, the first town of in the game, and he spends a good chunk of the season on the tutorial quest, in-between just messing around the general area around the town. It's not until near the end of the season, that The Courier gets started on his first real quest. Not helping is that neither The Courier nor the series had really come into there own yet. But luckily by the start of the second season, the episodes are longer, allowing the story to pick up the pace and by the end of it, The Courier has finished the arc started in the last season, recruited his Robot Buddy ED-E, and is finally on the road from Goodsprings to New Vegas. And he's started to come into his own as a character.
- Some aspects of Hivefled's early chapters put people off, such as the slow pace, the grimdark tone, and Gamzee's disproportionate actions towards his own friends. The latter is especially the case if they haven't read the prequel "Reprise" and don't know what happened to Gamzee to make him act like that. Once Character Development sets in and the plot kicks off, these issues are usually rectified.
- Ambience: A Fleet Symphony: Readers expecting a more traditional story will have to wait. Though it starts out pretty intensely, it's infantry actions for the most part, with the girls' ship weapons only showing up in chapter 15. And those expecting The Usual Adversaries, the Abyssals, to make their appearance rather than having Damon and co. merely face muggle malice should be prepared to wait even longer.
- Time and Again takes a few chapters to get rolling after Naruto travels back in time- he spends the first couple of chapters mistakenly assuming he's been captured and subjected to some kind of elaborate genjutsu to interrogate him, so he treats everyone around him like trash since he thinks they're all fake creations of his captors, which is quite unpleasant to read and should have been resolved within the first post-prologue chapter. Also, the difficulty he has adjusting to his younger body again is massively exaggerated until he literally can't walk in a straight line without tripping over his own feet, which is distracting and takes far too long to get past. Once Naruto has control of his body again, the story finally gets going.
- Soul Eater: Troubled Souls: The Cliché Storm that draws out the prologue is only temporary. Once Cancer and Project Omega are introduced, things improve. Once you reach the Cobra Island Arc, welcome to the ride.
