The Only Good Reason for In Medias Res

I love ya, Kurt, but let’s clear up some confusion.

The One-Sentence Essay: In Medias Res is a structural choice where the author begins the story somewhere in the story’s middle or possibly later.

— Thaddeus Thomas

Start as close to the end as possible.

—Kurt Vonnegut

I love ya, Kurt, but let’s clear up any confusion that quotes like this have created: in medias res is not your goal.

It’s not a magic pill that will make any story better. Nor is it about having an exciting opening. You can start with activity and interest without jumping deep into the story. In medias res is misused and misunderstood, largely thanks to movie executives and other story-adjacent people who don’t understand story.

Please note that I said “start with activity and interest.” That was very clever of me and I deserve applause, dammit. We usually say “start with action” and people associate action with violence and adventure. When you hear advice that tells you to put your reader right into the action, I want you to think activity and interest. Things are moving and there is a goal, not the eventual primary goal but a goal nonetheless, and whatever this activity is, it demands attention and holds interest.

In medias res isn’t an excuse to have a banger of an opening line.

There is no reason for true in medias res except as a structural choice, and that’s because it’s a dangerous choice. Popular story structures are popular for a reason. A road and a story both need structure to bridge the chasm between beginning and end. Mess with that structure, and your characters lack clear motivation, the story sags in the middle, and the road collapses.

In fact, in medias res is best justified when you realize your story is two bridges spanning the same gorge. It was a truss bridge and then changed to a suspension bridge. The change is awkward and jarring, and both bridges have complete structures all their own. The most pleasant driving experience would be to wake up (preferably as a passenger) where the bridges join. You experience half the gorge but the entire structure of the suspension bridge. If you missed anything important on the truss bridge, the driver can tell you about it on the way.

That metaphor is clear and requires absolutely no explanation, whatsoever.

So what is Kurt going on about with all that “start the story as close to the end as possible” nonsense?

The story is the crossing of the gorge, not the road that got us there.

Again, another absolutely clear and self-explanatory metaphor that requires no extra effort on my part. I’m on roll. I don’t even need to say anything more. Let’s just end this thing.

Start late; end early. Bye.

— Thaddeus Thomas

When I ran my critique website, we had guests bless us with commentary in our occasional publications—thank Piers Anthony—or by visiting the forum and answering questions—thank you Homer Hickam.

Another author who visited had a three-book series published and was a regular contributor to Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine, one of my dream publications. I don’t remember his name, but I remember something he said because I disagreed with it completely. When it came to structure, he said to skip the set up and jump into the action.

It sounds good, but it’s the same concept as an amplifier you can dial up to 11.

They’re re-releasing This is Spinal Tap. I’m assuming you know the references of my people.

The beginning is always going to be the set up. Always. The end of the dial is that system’s max, whether you call it ten or eleven. The beginning is the set up whether it’s slow or action-packed. Either way, you’re introducing the character, their world, their motivations, and the stakes. The reader doesn’t automatically know these things because of where you start, and that applies to in medias res.

The beginning is still the set up.

Most of the time, where we start our story is a question of a few feet difference on the road as it begins to bridge the gorge. Even if we miss a few seconds, we’re still on that passage of road from the cliff's edge to the first pier. (Those foundational pillars that support a bridge are called piers.) If we’re starting in medias res, our beginning is still the set up and requires all the usual work. Half the journey is complete—half the story is complete—but the new structure is just beginning.

Consider The Odyssey.

Much of the story’s set up is helped along by discussions among the gods about Odysseus’s fate, but the story begins ten years after the Trojan War. Odysseus has been trapped on the island of Calypso for seven of those years, and now that Poseidon is absent from Mount Olympus, Athena asks Zeus to let Odysseus begin his journey home.

The truss bridge began with the end of the Trojan War and stopped either with Odysseus’s arrival on the island or the end of his imprisonment there. You can tell a story with two bridges, and Virginia Woolf’s The Lighthouse could be described this way. She called it dumbbell, two big moments on either end connected by an abbreviated lapse of time. Homer could have structured him epic poem this way with two sea journeys connected by an abbreviated coverage of the seven years on the island of Calypso.

The Odyssey, however, begins when the new structure starts.

The poem begins with Odysseus’s son seeking news about his father. He’s twenty now and suitors are seeking his mother for marriage. We first learn about Odysseus’s trials second hand.

We pick back up with Odysseus as he leaves the island, is shipwrecked, and finally reaches the court of King Alcinious. There he recounts the tale of his travels. Then he returns to Ithica, kills the would-be suitors, and is reunited with his wife.

The Odyssey has its own complete structure, not half of one with us beginning at the jagged, bleeding center.

—Thaddeus Thomas

It’s good to be back.

—Thaddeus Thomas.