Start as late in the story as possible.
—Writing proverb
"You hit the ground running"
"Most epic poets plunge in medias res
(Horace makes this the heroic turnpike road),
And then your hero tells when'er you please
What went before by way of episode,
While seated after dinner at his ease,
Beside his mistress in some soft abode,
Palace, or garden, paradise, or cavern,
Which serves the happy couple for a tavern."
(Horace makes this the heroic turnpike road),
And then your hero tells when'er you please
What went before by way of episode,
While seated after dinner at his ease,
Beside his mistress in some soft abode,
Palace, or garden, paradise, or cavern,
Which serves the happy couple for a tavern."
—Lord Byron, Don Juan, I.6
"Homer doesn't begin The Trojan War with Leda's twin eggs: he always rushes toward the outcome, and he carries the listener along with him into the middle of things, just as if they were familiar."
"I suppose I have trouble getting into Transistor because the moment you walk in the door, it starts throwing shit at you like the audience at an ill-conceived Holocaust denial open-mic showcase."
"We don't see Zack's discovery of a discarded brick-phone in a storm drain, or Screech being bitten by a radioactive dickhead, or a homeroom roll-call of each character, with voice-over exposition of their trademark traits and crushes. And we don't need to, because it's unthinkable that a time could exist when Zack, Slater and co., and their various interpersonal foibles, weren't as much a part of our cultural database as Stairway to Heaven or the great flood."
—Stuart Millard, So Excited, So Scared: The Saved by the Bell Retrospective
"I'll tell you my story in a way you can understand, with a beginning, a middle and an end. We'll start in the middle."
—Professor Paradox, Ben 10: Alien Force
That wasn't the first time I met the Doctor, and it certainly wasn't the last. Oh no. I just put that at the beginning because it's a brilliant opening.
—Elton, Doctor Who, "Love and Monsters"
Bravoman: How did we get up here anyway? I don't even remember him capturing us.
Alpha Man: I'd wager the show's writers wanted to start us off "mid adventure" it's a writing technique called in medias res.
Bravoman: In mid whawha?
Alpha Man: I believe it's latin for "skip the boring parts".
—Bravo Man Episode 1
Proper story's supposed to start at the beginning. Ain't so simple with this one.
—Rucks, Bastion
When and where did you find out about that world? How is it even possible to steal another's heart? Now, tell me your account of everything. ...Start from the very beginning.
— Sae Nijima, Persona 5
genius! why start at the beginning when you can bypass the whole sburb process
— A comment at the official tumblr of Wake Up.
...our play leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of these broils, beginning in the middle,
— Prologue, Troilus and Cressida
I've started our story in medias res, a Latin phrase which directly translates to "skipping straight to the good bit."
—Madeline, Wooden Overcoats, "Georgina and the Waves"
You cannot just start your story with ‘So there we was, on Air Force One...’
"No, gentle reader, you haven't missed anything— You've merely joined the Man of Steel in the middle of the strangest struggle of his career... But to learn the who, what, when, where, how and why, we must review the mysterious events of the previous 36 hours..."
— Narrator:, The Plague of the Antibiotic Man
