I'm always suspicious of authors who begin in medias res. It's a technique most college students are familiar with, introductions being so tedious to write and deadlines cropping up with increasing suddenness the further into the semester one gets. Far easier to start in the middle of that term paper and worry about coming up with a thesis once the rest is finished. Or maybe I'm just revealing my own flakiness as a writer and not accurately summing up the general undergraduate populous at all. In any case, I've utilized this tactic often enough to know to suspect anyone who begins, “Midway upon the journey of our life...” Good beginnings are so difficult to make.
