>Y-YOU CAN'T JUST START A STORY WITH THE PROTAGONIST WAKING UP!!!>THAT'S SHODDY AND AMATEURISH WRITING!!!!>THIS YOUTUBE VIDEO ESSAY TOLD ME IT'S BAD!!!!!!!!!
I don’t read books unless it starts off with the protagonist waking up
>>24922803What if i couch it within a framing device?
>Chapter One>John stirred from his slumber as light filtered through his bedroom windows.
>>24922815Are clichés dulling your intro's hook? Avoid that AND get your reader up to speed with some crafty past tense and exposition. It will cover all the ground you need and you don't need to start in bed. Here's an example.>Chapter 1>"Another day, just like any other," thought John to himself after taking a sip for his fifth coffee of the day having woken up at precisely 06:00 after working late the night before at the office in order to secure a lucrative new client for his real estate company's budding expansion into deepest, darkest Transylvania before the final team meeting this afternoon. For two weeks his wife had to put up with late nights and by now she was curiously pale, which John put down to a lack of sleep or perhaps an iron deficiency. And just what were those marks on her neck?>"Or is it?" he mused, as he recalled the office's new apprentice and how he couldn't quite put his finger on why he found him mildly offputting. And that trainee's name? Drake Ula (from Romania).As you can see my story drops you right into the action whilst also giving you all the information you need to understand what's at steak. And the way I framed it as John's thoughts makes it nearly impossible for the discerning reader to realise I am doing it. I love writing.
>>24922803I can't think of any good books or stories that start out this way
>start with character waking up>Reveal at the end he didnt actually wake up and it was all a dream and now he really wakes up (or does he?)
>>24922803you can do whatever the fuck, but it better be good
>>24922857kek>>24922858Uhhh, In Search of Lost Time, Ulysess, The Metamorphosis, Molloy by Beckett, and so on. That's just opening chapters, though. If you're talking any old chapter in a book, even Homer starts some off with a character waking up somewhere. It's a usefell and oftentimes effective literary tool to introduce characters and surroundings. As the reader picks up the book/chapter, the mind of the character in question awakens. I see no issue with this at all.
>>24922862kino if done well, honestly.
>>24922862It's always a little funny to me when stories do an "it was all a dream," because saying "none of this is real, the end" just before symbolically restating the same with the closing of the book seems redundant. We already know none of it is real.
>>24922871Tbf most of those are poor stories. You can argue they're great books still but they're certainly not lauded for their storytelling
>>24922858
>>24922901Semantics, really.
>>24922892There's actually much less common in serious literature than stories that start with a character waking up.
>>24922858Lathe of Heaven does this. I think it's enough to be called "good," though not necessarily "great."
>>24922901What?
>>24922803Is that a Venture Bros wojak?
>>24922803Cartoon Network ahh s o y jak
>>24922803You know what I find interesting, the fact that this IS a cliche that storywriters somehow unconsciously commonly fall into as beginners/amateurs. Along with describing the weather.I remember starting short stories I wrote as a high-schooler with these exact cliches, I wonder what it is that makes them so appealing to amateurs as a way to start a story.
>John Smith opened his eyes and found himself in a bed. His room had a ceiling and four walls and a window, through which morning light invaded his room. There was even a floor, and door through which the room could be entered and existed. He had a drawer for stuff, with small, worn, patinated, scratched, antiquated metal knobs, and a small table for a night light.>"Ugh!" John Smith rose from the bed with a small groan and rubbed his eyes and went to stand in front of the full body mirror on the wall. He absolutely had to check out how he looked the first thing every morning.>John Smith noted that he still had hair and eyes and nose and mouth, and resembled a 22-year-old human male. He was definitely not a child but not disgustingly old either, but in that perfect age where everyone wants to be eternally. He also had arms and legs.>John Smith wore clothes and went into the kitchen to eat breakfast, which consisted of a big mug of coffee and the newspaper of the day. The paper for reading and the coffee to be left untouched when the phone rang.>"Hello, who is this?" said John Smith to the receiver. A completely inconsequential conversation with some random slut followed, to deliver exactly one line of plot-relevant content.>"Have you checked the calendar?">Of course, John Smith knew this was a big day. But just how big it would really be, he couldn't imagine.
>>24922803heh, this reminded me of the first piece I wrote in undergrad. I started it with a protagonist waking up.
i heard you like waking up scenes
>short story ends with protagonist dying
>>24922815Needs more adverbs and adjectives (those are the key to good writing):>Chapter One>John, the remarkably ordinary and somewhat disheveled young man, lazily and quite sluggishly stirred from his profoundly deep and utterly restful slumber as the brilliantly radiant and softly glowing morning light gently and ever so delicately filtered through his surprisingly spacious and impeccably curtained bedroom windows.
>>24923090Giga based. I'd actually read this
>>24923090>Well, time to go about my day, thought John. John liked thinking, or so he thought. As he pondered that presumption, he wondered, in fact it would be fair to say he went so far as to consider, that though that thought that he hadn't that morning contemplated that he now realised was by now by gradual coalescence becoming a certain notion, convinced albeit he was nonetheless that which he believed that moment with utter conviction to conclude with one final reckoning. Or so he surmised.
>>24923090Kek
