Full transcript
0:00There is a reason why Breaking Bad opens
0:02with a frantic man in his underwear
0:04wearing a gas mask driving an RV through
0:06the desert. If they had started that
0:08show with him just grading chemistry
0:10papers in like a high school classroom,
0:12half the audience would have tuned out
0:13immediately. Instead, they used a
0:15technique that creates an instant
0:17narrative puzzle that your brain is
0:18desperate to solve. My name is Jason
0:20Hamilton. I'm a fantasy author and a
0:22huge storytelling nerd. I previously
0:24spent three years working with Kindle
0:25Prneer, one of the biggest sites for
0:27author education. But honestly, I
0:28created this channel just to have an
0:30excuse to study story mechanics like
0:32this one. Today we are talking about
0:33immediius res. Hopefully I'm pronouncing
0:36that correctly. Literally into the
0:38middle of things. It is the most
0:40effective way to grab a reader by the
0:42throat on page one. But if you do it
0:44wrong, you're just going to confuse all
0:46of the readers. And I'm currently on a
0:48mission to cover every major story
0:49structure out there. So if there's a
0:50specific one that you want to see next,
0:52let me know in the comments. But for
0:53now, let's jump right into the action.
0:56The biggest misconception about
0:57immediius rest is that it just means
0:59starting with an action scene. And if
1:01that were true, every Michael Bay movie
1:03would be a masterclass in literature.
1:04And we all know that that's not the
1:06case. It isn't just about explosions or
1:08high-speed chases happening on page one.
1:10It is more about withholding the context
1:13to create a psychological information
1:15gap. When you start a story
1:17conventionally, you usually get the
1:19ordinary world. meet the protagonist,
1:21get to know their ordinary world, and
1:23you learn about their job, and
1:24eventually something happens, and that's
1:26safe, and it's also often boring. I
1:29media rest tosses the reader into a
1:30situation that is already deteriorating.
1:32It bypasses the setup and forces the
1:34audience to play catch-up. This creates
1:36a specific cognitive effect known as a
1:38narrative puzzle. Your brain sees a guy
1:41in his underwear driving an RV away from
1:43sirens and immediately asks, "How did we
1:45get here? And what happens next?" You
1:47are no longer a passive observer waiting
1:49for the plot to start. You are an active
1:51participant trying to solve the riddle
1:52of the current scene. Scientific
1:54research into narrative processing shows
1:56that this actually activates
1:58problem-solving regions of the brain.
1:59You aren't just watching. You're now
2:01theorizing. You're doing more than
2:03watching at this point. You're actually
2:05theorizing and engaging with the book
2:06itself. The tricky part is that you
2:08can't just stay in that high octane
2:11moment forever. You have to backfill the
2:13information eventually. And that is
2:14where this structure comes in that I'm
2:16going to talk to you about today. Now,
2:18keep in mind this uses immediius res in
2:21the sense that is showing a scene that
2:23happens later in the plot. But sometimes
2:25a medius res can just be it just drops
2:27you at the beginning of the plot in some
2:29interesting situation like in Star Wars
2:31where you don't really know what's going
2:32on and you kind of figure it out later.
2:34In this case, we're going to actually be
2:35flashing forward and then going from
2:37there. Now, if you are discovery writer
2:40or someone that writes by the seat of
2:41their pants without an outline, you
2:43might not enjoy this particular
2:45structure because it requires you to
2:47know exactly where you are going from
2:49start to finish or at least very close
2:51to it. But using an in medius res
2:54framework like this one, we can break
2:56down the structure into distinct beats
2:58to make this less of a prologue and more
2:59of a systematic way of organizing time.
3:01Now, beat one is the climax book. This
3:04involves dropping the reader right into
3:06the middle of the story's climax or a
3:08major crisis point. And this is the
3:10moment where the stakes are highest. The
3:12goal here is to offer tantalizing
3:13details that provoke curiosity. But, and
3:16this is crucial, you do not resolve the
3:18scene yet. For this, we're going to look
3:19at the movie Underworld. It opens on a
3:22dark, rainy city with a woman named
3:23Seline narrating her thoughts on a
3:25centuries old war between vampires and
3:27lychans. We don't see the origin of the
3:29war. We don't see her training. We drop
3:31in right as she is tracking two lyans
3:33into a subway station and a gunfight
3:35erupts immediately. We have zero context
3:38for why these specific lychans are
3:40chasing a human man or why the vampires
3:42are hunting them right now. We just know
3:44it's violent, it's fast, and the
3:46tactical situation is rather messy. The
3:48opening scene ends with the questions
3:50like why were they chasing that guy and
3:52what is going on with the war? The
3:53climax hook works because it serves as a
3:56promise. It tells the readers to stick
3:58with me through the quiet parts because
4:00this is where we are heading. Now, beat
4:01number two is the exposition and
4:03backfill. This is admittedly the hardest
4:05part of the structure to write. Once you
4:07have hooked the reader with that intense
4:08opening, you have to hit the brakes. You
4:10need to explain who these people are and
4:12why they were shooting at each other.
4:14And if you just dump five pages of
4:16history here, you will kill the momentum
4:18that you just built. And the exposition
4:19needs to be filled in gradually using
4:21specific tools. For instance, we have
4:23flashbacks showing the events leading up
4:25to the crisis. dialogue where characters
4:27are discussing the past naturally,
4:30although it's easy to mess that one up,
4:32or time jumps, where you explicitly
4:34state like two weeks earlier or
4:36something like that. In our underworld
4:38example, after the subway shootout, the
4:39story slows down. We go back to the
4:41vampire mansion. We see Selene trying to
4:44convince her superiors that the Lyans
4:46are organized. We get the political
4:48intrigue. We learn about the hierarchy.
4:51And this is all necessary information
4:53that would have been incredibly boring
4:55if we hadn't just seen Seline dual
4:57wielding pistols in a subway station.
4:59The key here is to distribute the
5:01information. You don't give the reader
5:02the whole history lesson at once.
5:04Instead, you just give them enough to
5:06understand the next scene. You are
5:07keeping the tension rising even while
5:09looking backward. And you want the
5:11reader to understand the dire situation
5:12of the opening beat, but you peel back
5:14the layers slowly. And by the way, if
5:16you'd like to learn about how to use AI
5:18as an authorled productivity tool to
5:20help you write 12 plus books a year
5:22easily and perhaps more and without
5:24compromising your creativity or ethics,
5:26please check out the Story Hacker Gold
5:27Group linked down below. So beat number
5:29three is the rising action. Now that
5:31you've established the baseline, you
5:32move into this rising action. This is
5:35the timeline that leads the protagonist
5:37specifically toward that opening scene.
5:39Every challenge they face here should
5:41make that opening image make a little
5:43bit more sense. In Underworld, for
5:45instance, we see the Lyken's plan
5:46unfolding. We learn they are hunting a
5:48guy named Michael Corbin, and we see the
5:50capture of Singed, the scientist. Again,
5:52I'm probably mispronouncing some of
5:53these names. Um, we see the betrayal by
5:55Craraven. All of these plot points are
5:57the bricks that build the road to the
5:59opening scene. We start to understand
6:01why the war is dangerous, and we realize
6:03that the Lyans aren't just mindless
6:04beasts, they are genetically engineering
6:06a hybrid. This section is vital because
6:09it recontextualizes the opening. When we
6:11first saw the subway fight, it just
6:12looked like a turf war. By the time we
6:14get back to the equivalent point in the
6:16timeline, we realize it's actually a
6:18desperate attempt to stop a biological
6:20evolution that could wipe out the
6:21vampire species. The action is the same,
6:24but the meaning has changed. Now, beat
6:26number four is the climax proper.
6:29Naturally, the story eventually catches
6:30up to the timeline of the opening scene,
6:32but you don't just replay the opening
6:34scene and end the book. You have to go
6:36through it. The climax beat brings the
6:38reader back to that specific opening
6:40moment, resolving that cliffhanger and
6:42then pushing into the resolution. And
6:44this is the turning point, the fallout
6:46from that moment that changes the
6:47protagonist's perspective forever. In
6:49Underworld, the narrative loops back. We
6:51get the revelation that the war started
6:53because the vampire leader, Victor,
6:54killed his own daughter for loving a
6:56lychan. The climax is more than a
6:58physical fight. It's the emotional
7:00revelation that comes with it. Seline
7:02realizes everything she believed in the
7:03opening monologue was a lie. and the
7:06structure forces the character to hit
7:07their darkest moment. If you execute
7:09this correctly, the reader feels a sense
7:11of completion because the puzzle pieces
7:13finally snap together, which leads to
7:15beat number five, which is the falling
7:16action and resolution. Once the timeline
7:18has synced up and the true climax has
7:20occurred, you have the aftermath. And
7:22this explores the consequences. If the
7:24protagonist survived the In Medius res
7:26opening, who is chasing them now? And
7:28what did they lose? Seline kills Victor.
7:31She saves Michael. She is now an
7:33outcast. The resolution frames her as a
7:35hunted woman setting up the sequel. The
7:37ordinary world she started in is gone,
7:39replaced by a new, more dangerous
7:42reality. Now, we often think of this
7:43nonlinear type of storytelling as a
7:45modern invention, sometimes popularized
7:48by gritty crime dramas or Christopher
7:50Nolan films, but this technique is
7:51actually quite ancient. It is arguably
7:53one of the oldest storytelling tricks in
7:55human history. The term in medius res
7:58comes from the Roman poet Horus, who
8:00wrote ours poetica around 13 B.CE. Horus
8:03was essentially the first person to
8:04write a how-to guide for writers. He
8:07famously advised the epic poet not to
8:09begin the story above which implies from
8:12the egg. He was referencing the myth of
8:14the Trojan War. If you want to tell the
8:16story of the Trojan War, you don't start
8:17with Helen's birth hatching from an egg
8:19because Greek mythology is weird. You
8:22don't even start with the beginning of
8:23the war. Homer knew this hundreds of
8:25years before Horus gave it a name. The
8:27Iliad does not start with the
8:29Declaration of War. It starts nine years
8:31into the siege of Troy. We drop in right
8:34in the middle of an argument between
8:35Achilles and Agamemnon. We don't even
8:37know why they are there or the full
8:38history of the conflict yet. Homer
8:40trusts the audience to figure it out
8:42over time. The Odyssey pulls the same
8:44move. When the story opens, Adysius
8:46isn't leaving Troy. He is already 10
8:48years into his journey home. Trapped on
8:50an island by the goddess Calypso. All of
8:52that famous stuff, the Cyclops, the
8:54sirens, and all of the other stories is
8:56told in flashbacks later in the text.
8:58Virgil copied this for the Aniid.
9:00Dante's Divine Comedy essentially opens
9:02in the middle of a midlife crisis.
9:04Milton's Paradise Lost opens with Satan
9:06already falling from heaven rather than
9:08showing the rebellion first. Why did all
9:10of these classic heavyweights use this
9:13method? Because they understood that
9:14chronologically life is long and often
9:16dull. Significance usually happens
9:19somewhere in the middle. Now, today you
9:21see this everywhere. It is the standard
9:22for crime fiction. For example, Lee
9:24Child's killing floor opens with Jack
9:26Reacher getting arrested in a diner. We
9:28don't see him arrive in town. We don't
9:29see the murder. We see the gun in his
9:31face and it's an immediate hook. In
9:33cinema, saving Private Ryan is a brutal
9:35example. We drop into the boats on
9:37D-Day. No briefing room, no training
9:39montage, just the shaking hands of a
9:41soldier in the ramp dropping. The
9:42context of the mission, which is saving
9:44one specific guy named Ryan, doesn't
9:46come until the dust has settled.
9:48However, there is a danger here and a
9:50trap that many new writers fall into. If
9:52you drop a reader into a chaotic battle
9:54with characters that they don't know,
9:56there is a high chance that they just
9:57won't care. Action without emotional
9:59connection is just noise. If I see a guy
10:02fighting a dragon on page one, that's
10:04cool, I guess. But if I don't know who
10:06he is or why he's fighting the dragon,
10:08I'm just not worried about him dying.
10:10The cold open or IUS res opening must
10:12contain the seeds of the character's
10:14personality. In the Breaking Bad pilot,
10:16we don't actually see any kind of car
10:17chase. We see Walter White recording a
10:20video message to his family. We see his
10:22desperation and his love for them that
10:23anchors the chaos. And if you write a
10:25scene that is just people punching each
10:27other, you have failed the structure.
10:28The middle of things implies that the
10:30things actually matter. Another pitfall
10:33is the cheating teaser. This happens
10:35when an author puts a flashforward scene
10:37at the beginning just to have some
10:38action, but that scene has almost no
10:41relevance to the actual plot or it's
10:42some kind of dream sequence or something
10:44like that. Do not do this. The audience
10:46will feel manipulated. The opening scene
10:48must be causally connected to the rest
10:50of the book. Now, cognitive science
10:52backs up why Horus and Homer were
10:53actually right. We are wired to close
10:55loops. When you present an effect
10:57without a cause, like a dead body on a
10:59wedding day in Lucy Foley's The Guest
11:00List, the brain produces dopamine in
11:02anticipation of the solution. This
11:05narrative momentum allows you to get
11:06away with exposition that would
11:08otherwise be boring. If I start a book
11:10describing the history of the of a
11:12magical kingdom, for example, you might
11:14fall asleep. But if I start the book
11:15with the kingdom burning down and then
11:17tell you the history of what is being
11:18lost, you will read the history to
11:20understand the destruction. By that you
11:23are buying yourself narrative real
11:25estate. You are using the curiosity
11:26generated by the opening to pay for the
11:28setup required to make the ending land.
11:30So if you are struggling with a boring
11:32opening, try cutting the first couple
11:33chapters. See what happens if you start
11:35when the knife is already at your
11:37protagonist throat. And if you are
11:38serious about mastering these structures
11:40and turning that into a sustainable
11:41career should come hang out with us in
11:43the story hacker gold group where we are
11:45focused on taking these concepts and
11:47applying modern tools to execute them
11:49efficiently. link to that down below and
11:50I'll see you in the next