So what does Medias Res mean?

Medias Res means: “Into the middle of things.”

Honestly, I had never heard of it before.

Per the usual, I’m just reading along and stumbling into the nine-millionth word I need to look up.

In the case of a story, this is referring to where a reader or viewer is introduced.

For example, you could tell a story: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7.

Or you could tell a story: 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 1 – 2 – 7

One of my favorite movies done this way is The Usual Suspects.

Kevin Spacy plays a small time criminal who gets twisted up with some bad people. Only through stories told while sitting in a dingy police office, do we learn the truth.

The Latin of it did remind me of Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc.

I simply love learning something new.

You’ve probably heard the phrase in medias res, which means “into the midst of things.”

-Stephen King, On Writing

Let me be more specific here with the three parts of a story that I am talking about.

Here I mean the three ways in which a story is told.

This is different from the seven points in a story framework.

Narration: Advances the tale
Description: Builds texture to characters and places
Dialogue: Reveals the humanity in characters

It seems like I have heard some argue that narratives should not be advanced through description. 

They say that dialogue should advance a story, rather than a writer telling you what everyone is thinking all of the time.

But to that, I say that a lot of people are awfully critical of something that is completely subjective.

If you can read at whim, you can probably write at whim too.

Just don’t be surprised that the further you get away from the tried and true, the less popular your story will be.

Understand: It is not an accident that Disney’s Moana, Tommy Boy, and Star Wars are essentially the same movie.

In my view, stories and novels consist of three parts: narration, which moves the story from point A to point B and finally to point Z; description, which creates a sensory reality for the reader; and dialogue, which brings characters to life through their speech.

-Stephen King, On Writing