In Media Res

A topic that's come up in e-mail threads I've been a part of over the years revolves around the notion of starting into a story that's already underway. Wikipedia provides the definition of in media res as: "Latin for into the middle of things". I've heard it used to describe the storytelling technique where you don't start at the beginning. One of the more extreme instances of this would be the 1944 Fred MacMurray film, Double Endemnity, which starts off with MacMurray's character, shot and dying, sitting down at a recording device to tell the tale of how he came to that point. You could even argue that this isn't an example of in media res, because it starts at the end and then goes back to the beginning almost immediately and flows forward from there. Perhaps a better example would be something like the TV show, Lost, since it starts with the middle of its story (the crash on the island) and then, over time, fills in what happened before (via flashbacks) as well as what happens next, over the course of five seasons. There are movies that've employed this technique, as well; I'm just drawing a blank as to a good example (maybe Pulp Fiction although I don't remember it well enough to say for sure). It's certainly something I always spot, and poor Vicki has to put up with me exclaiming, "In media res!" whenever it happens. (Did I mention she's up for sainthood?)

Where it came up in electronic conversation, though, was in the context of it happening unintentionally. Specifically, what if a story is already underway when you happen to join it? This could be a movie that started before you tuned to it, a continuity-conscious TV series that's well into its run before you chance upon it, or a comic book title that's got a few years under its belt by the time you give it a try. An acquaintance of mine has always expressed a strong aversion to such a situation, wanting to either be in on the ground floor or not at all. My perspective is quite the opposite: I love the experience of sampling something that's underway and trying to figure out just what's going on. This probably stems from my childhood and comics, since the early 70s were a particularly serialized period in that industry. With only a few exceptions, you could pick up almost any title in those days and find yourself in the middle of a storyline that'd been going for many issues and would be for months more before finishing. So you either threw the comic down in disgust over the rip-off that your fifteen cents didn't buy you a complete all-in-one tale, or you dug the fact that there was a bigger canvas being painted on than you could see in 20+ pages. I was definitely in the latter camp. I still remember the awe I felt at the thought of how much had happened before I got here, and the thrill at gradually picking up on clues as to just what those events were! I loved the challenge! And still do. (Aside: The first time I ever dropped in on a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode, even I found it so inaccessible, in terms of in-jokes and previous continuity references, that I was turned off. That's really saying something when you think about it!)

Earlier this year, I sampled a comic title called Manhunter, which I'd heard good things about but hadn't tried up to that point. It was about 20 issues in, and sounded like it was in danger of being cancelled due to low sales. I decided to give it a try, and if it won me over, I'd add my $3/month to its bottom line. I picked up a couple random issues in the middle of the run, along with the current issue, because I really wanted to sample. If they were incomprehensible - so heavily weighed down by continuity that only loyal fans could decypher their meaning or get any kicks out of them - then I'd forget about it and only be out a few dollars. As it turned out, each issue I read was great, even though it raised more questions in my (newbie fan) brain that it answered. So I then tracked down all of the missing issues and read all of them in order. Which meant I got the best of both worlds: the jumping in the middle experience, and then the read-it-all-in-sequence one, as well.

As far as I can recall, I've never written an in media res short story, although it seems like a fun form to experiment with. Maybe one of these days!