Writing 202: Wake Up to Start
Greetings and spile! I guess they got a lot of that in 🇨🇦 given the flag. Anyway, you know what is either really great or really badly and terribly done? Waking up as a story opener! So today, my beloved sister Lady Verbosa and I will come with our suggestions for it; let’s go!
Definition
(Vivian:) Like everything, we have to define things. What is this trope exactly? Well, as the name suggests, it is when a story starts, in general. It can also be chapters or scenes, but we focus on the entire story, with the main protagonist, or one of them, waking up from their sleep, and what happens immediately afterward.
(Anne:) This is a type of ab ovo beginning, or “from the egg,” meaning you start at the very beginning.
(Vivian:) Ab ovo is not just when you wake up; it only means you start at the start of the story, as opposed to in the middle of the action, where you later learn how the whole ordeal started (in medias res).
Arguments
(Anne:) This is a hotly debated topic, so let’s look at some common arguments about this. Now, a lot of people are against this, so let’s look at their arguments first, then the arguments in favour of starting this way!
Against waking up as a start
(Vivian:) The major argument against it that I have read is that it is a prolonged start. By which I mean that it eats up lots of space doing generic, mundane stuff that doesn’t really contribute to anything in the story.
(Anne:) This is also the main one I’ve heard. If you show waking up, then you have to show every step until the action. In addition to starting the book that way, it’s also kind of a cheap way of dividing scenes. You wake up at the start, usually finish with going to sleep (which we’ll do in another post), and the scene or chapter is assumed to be a sort of step-by-step walkthrough.
Arguments against this basically say that you want to zero in on the action and skip all the boring stuff. Waking up and going asleep are almost cliché at this point, so it’s often recommended that you start in media res, or in the middle of the action. Ideally, you want to finish at the most dramatic part, and going to sleep is rarely dramatic.
(Vivian:) They already are considered clichés, but that is why we are here: to learn and become even better!
(Anne:) That’s right! You can do all sorts of things, even clichés, as long as you do them well!
For starting with waking up
(Vivian:) We will come to good times to use it, and bad times, but the main argument for using it is that it can be used to set up what normal life is like. What is this part of the hero’s journey called, Anne?
(Anne:) This is the opening stage, often called the Ordinary World, and it’s really important in stories because it often sets up what a character is fighting to preserve (or change). Most story structures start with an ordinary world, even stories that don’t follow the hero’s journey, but sometimes it’s shown in flashbacks. Waking up is the clearest way to incorporate this part of your structure. (By the way, I wrote a whole blogpost on dramatic structure if you’re interested!)
(Vivian:) Anyway, when you start ab ovo, at the start, nothing quite starts the day like a good waking up! I am personally a bit odd in that I love waking up and getting going on my day. Others seem to always want to be asleep; are they bears in constant hibernation or something?
(Anne:) Quick note from someone who LOVES sleep and gets as much as she can: I also tend to track time by waking up. I have my morning routine that sets up the day. While in a story I wouldn’t go into detail on every part, starting a book/chapter/scene with waking up sets someone like me up, too.
(Vivian:) Lady Verbosa is at it again… The point is that for an ab ovo beginning, besides birth, hatching, emerging, assembly, whatever manner you came into this world, nothing says “beginning” quite like waking up and starting the day.
Usage
(Vivian:) Of course, like everything, it really depends on usage, so we will show bad times to use it and good times! But we start with good, because I’m the everlasting optimist 😀
Good times to use
For speculative fiction that deviates heavily from ordinary human contemporary life in terms of ordinary life, starting with waking up can be a great way to show the world in a manner that everyone is familiar with. This combines something familiar with the foreign to help the audience or reader contextualise the weirdness you introduce.
(Anne:) It really is great for unfamiliar settings, and even things that have a lot in common with our world can benefit from this setup. When you start a book with waking up, the audience gets a great feel for the character’s relationship to their world before they’re pulled into the story. Whether a nice place like the Shire or a dystopian world like Hunger Games, starting with ordinary life is important, and waking up would work perfectly well in either of those.
In addition, if you look at each chapter or scene as a three-act structure in itself, with a beginning, middle, and end (which is a great way to look at scenes), this serves a similar function in act one. What sets up our character for this scene? What will drive them? It doesn’t need to be extended, either. Just a sentence or two waking up works!
(Vivian:) Another entertaining version is if it is a highly unnatural waking up, and how the character reacts to that. It can tell a lot about the character in little to no time!
Good Example
(Anne:) The second book in my Imperial Saga, Knight of the Dragon, begins with Jana waking up from a nightmare. This combines action and information about the world with waking up.
A piercing whistle jolted Jana awake. Drones. Coming to plunge her world into fire and chaos again, shattering through the protective shields of the houses to inflame the people within, leaving her father nothing more than ashes. And unlike a phoenix, there was no coming back.
Jana sat upright, body gearing up to run away with Leena and Ari. She paused. Darkness wrapped around her like a glove, punctuated by the snuffling dreams of dragons. Her lungs unclenched, and she took a deep breath to stabilize herself. Not a drone. A dragon.
With another deep breath, her eyes adjusted, helped by the quiet glow of the phoenix across the cave. Was Leena safe? Was she alive?
Her eyes bored holes into the place where her girlfriend lay until she made out the shape safely cuddled in the sleeping bag. Making out movement was impossible. Sweat beaded on her forehead as she waited. Soon the shape was clearly visible, and Jana inched closer, not wanting to wake her but needing to see she was alive.
There was no reason she wouldn’t be alive, and Jana clung to that reassurance. No reason at all. They were safe here. Tahirah shielded this cave so that only people linked to the dragons could enter. No one could get in and slash Leena’s throat, but there were other ways to die. She inched even closer.
Leena’s chest rose and fell. A tear slipped down Jana’s cheek. She was alive.
(Vivian:) What Anne doesn’t say is that it also informs about Jana as a character. The combination of actions and her reactions is characterisation, which makes it a good way to use waking up!
Bad times to use
(Vivian:) This really boils down to the main criticism of the entire trope. Namely, when there is nothing to engage the consumer. The character wakes up and does mundane stuff for a page or two with nothing really happening. We all know what brushing teeth is like, grogging, hitting snooze on the alarm, etc, etc.
It doesn’t contribute to the story as these kinds of actions and traits are far too universal to say anything, and things are too mundane to tell anything about the world.
(Anne:) This is a great point: if it’s something your audience is extremely familiar with, you don’t need to go into detail. Honestly, this is a good tip for all writing. Focus on what makes your world and characters different and unique. You want to establish some similarity in action, like waking up, general experiences, but if you do so, you need to focus on your character’s unique reactions. If there’s something bizarre or unique about brushing teeth, definitely add it! If it’s just mundane, you can skip it or abbreviate it into a couple of words.
(Vivian:) Quick example on brushing teeths, if they are non-human like, like sharks, made out of different materials, or maybe need to use acid instead of toothpaste because of some parasites or whatever, then I want to see the damn teeth brushing!
Bad Example
(Anne:) Vivian is letting me write this one too, because zhi says I’d “do it way better,” and I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or an insult (Vivian: It’s both! A complisult!) 🤨 Well, I’ll still write it! Hopefully, I don’t actually do this in my books, so I’ll be writing one from scratch.
Sharizel opened her eyes and stretched, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Mornings were always so hard. She glanced at the clock. Two minutes until the alarm went off. Why did this always happen? Every morning, she woke up just before the alarm. And like every day, she closed her eyes and tried to enjoy a few moments more.
BRIIIINNNGGG! She slammed the snooze button and lay there staring at the ceiling, trying to get enough energy to sit up. Today was a big day, but she didn’t want to get started yet.
Finally, she hauled herself out of bed, rising with a back-cracking stretch. She went into the bathroom and stared into the mirror. Her eyes were red and she looked like she needed more sleep, but she had to get going soon.
With a sigh, she squeezed some toothpaste out. She knew she was supposed to squeeze from the bottom of the tube, but she always forgot. She brought the toothbrush to her teeth and began carefully moving back and forth, careful not to catch on the underside of her fangs. In the mirror, foam began to form, and she spit it out when she finished.
(Vivian:) Urgh, make it stop! 4 paragraphs of virtually nothing real happening. The one and only good thing is in the last paragraph, where fangs come out.
(Anne:) This is the type of thing you’ll see a lot… interesting details get absolutely buried in boring details!
(Vivian:) Exactly! She could skip and slice off a lot of that and go straight for the tooth brushing, and place more focus on the fangs rather than doing it shallowly. But by having so much before that is boring, mundane garbage, people’s brains disconnect and start skimming for anything interesting, and they can then miss the fangs because it is ONE word in a sea of boring.
Our opinions
Vivian’s Opinion
(Vivian:) Given that I mainly read and write speculative fiction, my position is likely very obvious. This is a story trope I am loving. Why? I mainly do aliens in my own writing, or alien settings, so it is a great way to show their peculiar status quo that they consider entirely normal, but can fascinate you humans!
So it is the main appeal there for me personally. I am all for being thrown in at any point in a speculative world with magic or spaceships or, more preferably, lots of sexy aliens! But if you are going to do more contemporary writing, this probably is not a good trope for you, in my opinion. But hey, you can show me wrong!
Anne’s Opinion
(Anne:) As you can probably tell from the fact that I start one of my books with a character waking up, I’m also a fan of this trope. It’s a great way to set up the ordinary world while at the same time suggesting how perhaps this morning will be different, either different for the character themselves, or different for the audience from what they’re used to. I love stories that highlight this difference through a wonderful compare/contrast with the average audience’s experiences. You can show the commonalities while emphasizing the differences in a way that’s harder to accomplish with other story starts.
However, I do understand the concerns with this trope, and I’ve seen way too many student stories that start with waking up and don’t actually get to anything interesting for paragraphs or pages. There’s a reason starting in the middle of the action is popular. But you can absolutely start from the beginning, from first opening your eyes, and maintain the excitement of starting in the action. It just takes work, practice, and a bit of skill.
Summa Summarum
(Vivian:) And so we are at the end; instead of waking up, we will have to go to bed now. Nah, kidding, we got the whole day! The point of this is that anything can be done if it is done well. Clichés are often frowned upon because they are either trite or constantly poorly done. But with practice, like anything, you can learn to do it well if you think about what makes the trope often bad to begin with. Maybe we will start that, too, or is this the start of it? Talking about tropes, what do you say, Anne?
(Anne:) Tropes are definitely worth talking about! Especially the difference between them and clichés. Because remember: clichés became used so often because they work! In fact, they worked so well that a bunch of people used them! But then they lost their novelty, and weaker writers started using them as crutches, and what was once a beautiful trope became a cliché. Now is the time to bring back the joy of the trope, though!
Hopefully, you learned how to take advantage of the strengths of starting by waking up and avoid the weaknesses, and I look forward to examining more tropes in the future!
Also… is it possible? Is something I helped write actually a decent length and not excessively long? Well, I’d say that calls for a nap! Vivian can have the rest of the day, I’m going to curl up and snooze a bit. And with that, our post is ended.
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Copyright ©️ 2025 Vivian Sayan and Anne Winchell. Original ideas belong to the respective authors. Generic concepts such as ab ovo and the trope in general, along with their strengths and weaknesses, are copyrighted under Creative Commons with attribution, and any derivatives must also be Creative Commons. However, specific ideas such as the examples given, the Imperial Saga, all characters and incidents in the Imperial Saga, as well as all language or exact phrasing, are individually copyrighted by the respective authors. Contact them for information on usage and questions if uncertain what falls under Creative Commons. We’re almost always happy to give permission. Please contact the authors through this website’s contact page.
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