This one choice can completely change how your audience responds to your story

Scene order makes a huge difference. Sequences of events shouldn’t necessarily be either chronological or based on merely the order in which you came up with them. When you introduce a concept can make a huge difference to how your audience perceives a character.


Ordering your scenes mindfully can help you either create a clearer impression of how you want your audience to feel about a character or even be used to cleverly trick your audience into misinterpreting your characters so you can introduce a twist later.


I'm currently starting to turn my historical/fantasy/romance novel Scroll of the Last Empire into an audiobook podcast. While reading it for the recording I noticed a crucial mistake in my scene order that altered how people may respond to, Uyanga, one of the main characters.


It’s an enemies-to-lovers story, so we start with them on opposing sides. I wanted to dive right into the action to grab the audience in chapter 1, but this inadvertently made Uyanga feel like a villain on first impression, as we’re inclined to see them black and white until we get to know them better.


Ultimately this character needed a “save the cat” moment before the action sequences so we know that despite their opposing sides she’s someone we can empathize with. A "save the cat" moment is a part of a story designed to help us see a character in a positive light by putting them in a scenario where are on their side immediately. For example if a character literally saves a cat in the first scene, we're inclined to view them as a kind hearted person.


I did have such a scene in the 2nd chapter. Simply moving that to the prologue so it happens before the first chapter’s battle scene, entirely alters the first impression of the character.

A show like Lost used this to their advantage by intentionally introducing characters in ways that made you get a false impression about them. For example in the first few episodes John Locke rarely talks, he stares off into space often, and happens to have a collection of knives. All these elements of his introduction lead us to assume he's a crazy murderer. But as his backstory is revealed in small doses in later episodes, we have our impression of him changed multiple times.

What are some stories you've read where you got the wrong impression of a character in the beginning?