Starting a story with a report.

[Mangara]

Hello everyone!

I'm making my first foray into writing a short story and I would like some advice.

I want to open the piece and set the scene with a report from an artificial intelligence monitoring the status of a human post surgery. Is this an acceptable way to open a piece? Is it engaging enough? Will formatting be vital to ensure the message is interpreted correctly?

I want to lead up to the return to consciousness then switch perspective to the subject in question.

 

[Boneman]

I have read a book that started that way and it worked very well. The report was (IIRC) very succint, and led nicely into the story. The formatting should be suitably different, so we understand it's a report. Even a different typeface might do it.

If I can recall the book (it was a whole book, not a short story) I'll let you know. You could always post in critiques...

 

[kromanjon]

Hard to say without reading it. In a short story it is alway critical to start with conflict, preferably in the very first sentence. Of course conflict can also be hinted at so it all depends on the circumstances around the AI's reasons for monitoring, its oppinions, the cause of the surgery and so forth.

In short: I don't know.

 

[Abernovo]

Well, there's a story on Daily Science Fiction (good site, in case you don't know it) that begins with a computer making a scan. A little different to your idea, but it still works, I think.

Try it and see. After all, you'll edit before submitting it.

kromanjon, I'm wary of the word 'always'. Starting a short with conflict can be a good idea, but I wouldn't stipulate it as an absolute requirement.

 

[kromanjon]

Of course there are always exceptions but I was using conflict in a very general sense. The general rule in writing short stories is to introduce conflict or some sort of drama as soon as possible. The longer the work, the more "dead space" is usually allowed. But yes, these are not absolute rules, but rather guidelines.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

Hello everyone!

I'm making my first foray into writing a short story and I would like some advice.

I want to open the piece and set the scene with a report from an artificial intelligence monitoring the status of a human post surgery. Is this an acceptable way to open a piece? Is it engaging enough? Will formatting be vital to ensure the message is interpreted correctly?

I want to lead up to the return to consciousness then switch perspective to the subject in question.

It's acceptable, although in MHO if the artificial intelligence plays now other part in the storyline then the reader will feel cheated.

Personally I prefer to get into the main character (or at least a major one) as soon as possible. It's one of the reasons I don't like prologues. You spend three or four pages reading about some charaters that play no further part in the actual meat of the story and then have to re-adjust to the real characters and effectively start the book again.

Usually, again in MHO, information in a prologue can be slipped into the main story when the reader is comfortablely wrapped in the skin of the protagonists.

 

[Glisterspeck]

It's a good approach if you have to have an info dump. I'd do it if the story is about the surgery and recuperation, or somehow otherwise closely bound to the effects of the surgery. Don't the chapters of Ender's Game each start with a progress report of some kind (though not by an AI)