History Main / SlowPacedBeginning

** ''VisualNovel/WonderfulEverydayDownTheRabbitHole'' has a rough start can be tedious to people who are expecting crazy stuff (this visual novel has a certain reputation...). Then you have to read the whole chapter again to proceed to the next. Thank God there's the skip button.

** ''VisualNovel/SubarashikiHibi'' has a rough start can be tedious to people who are expecting crazy stuff (this visual novel has a certain reputation...). Then you have to read the whole chapter again to proceed to the next. Thank God there's the skip button.

* The 12" mix of Bronski Beat's "Smalltown Boy" has a 3-minute ballad intro before the main hi-NRG dance portion of the song.

* Many people agree the first half of season 1 of ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' is mostly non-humorous political humor that was outdated before it even aired, in addition to having ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy''-esque {{cutaway gag}}s. Thankfully, the second half of season 1 saw to it to get rid of many of the political humor, as well as completely removing the cutaways. Ever since then, it has been wildly regarded as the funniest animated series on Fox.

* Music/MichaelJackson's "Will You Be There" has the album version from ''Music/{{Dangerous}}'' starting with ''two'' choral preludes, the first of which is nicked from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (which initially went uncredited). Understandably, it's cut just about everywhere else.

* Neil Gaiman himself has this opinion on ''ComicBook/{{The Sandman}}''. For most of the first volume, he was struggling to get a sense of the characters and the kinds of stories he wanted to do, and also had to deal with an editorial mandate to include characters from the DC Universe which he found very awkward. But when he got to the final issue of that volume, which introduces Death, suddenly everything clicked for him. He still advises people that the first volume isn't really worth it, though many fans disagree.
* ''ComicBook/ScottPilgrim'' is a mediocre SliceOfLife series in the first two volumes, before it lets its video game elements play a bigger impact on the plot and characters from volume 3 onward.
* ''ComicBook/TheInvisibles'' seems like it's going to start with a bang, as young StreetUrchin Dane [=McGowan=] is recruited by the title group, a band of interdimensional anarchists. However, by the second issue, Dane has been rejected by the Invisibles and spends the next three issues wandering around London in the company of an old homeless man who lectures him the entire time on magic and mysticism. Many fans didn't make it past this arc to the later issues, which in fairness pick things up [[MindScrew quite a bit]].

* ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'' starts as the story of a LoserProtagonist, in black-and-white. But here, this is voluntary: the story begins with her intelligence limiter removed. So ''she'll'' get better.

* [[SlowPacedBeginning/LiveActionFilms Film - Live Action]]

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]

[[folder:Theater]]

-->-- Creator/AndreiTarkovsky, explaining the beginning of his film, ''Film/Stalker1979''

* ''Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt''[='=]s first few chapters aren't really ''bad'', but seem a bit [[MonsterOfTheWeek episodic]] (especially chapter 2, which is mostly irrelevant to the main plot). It takes some time for the story to come together--[[TheProducerThinksOfEverything from the readers' perspective, anyway]]--plus, those first few chapters [[http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=782 "looked a little weird."]] Annie's UncannyValley-ish squashed-football head [[ArtEvolution is slowly phased out over about 20 chapters]] and the rest of the art, which was already good, improves greatly at the same time.

Contrast LostInMediasRes, where a show starts with too ''little'' exposition, bursting right into the thick of things, or EndingFatigue, when it takes forever to ''end'', not start. Also contrast ActionPrologue, which throws you into the action from the get-go. In VideoGames, the endgame version is DisappointingLastLevel (although a game can suffer from both). Not to be confused with the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Gets_Better_Project It Gets Better Project]], which is aimed at curbing teen suicides.

** A common complaint aimed at ''Tales From Topographic Oceans'' is that all four of its 20-minute epics(!!!) sport this, which has resulted in one of the single [[AudienceAlienatingPremise hardest albums to get into]], even [[DorkAge according to its fanbase]].

* While they still caught some viewers' attention by being very different from G3 and 3.5, which are generally considered a DorkAge, the first couple of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' episodes are heavily clichéd and predictable. While these episodes certainly aren't ''bad'' exactly, they didn't do much to establish their own identity. The show's explosion in popularity would occur at the beginning of the second season, with a villain named [[GodOfChaos Discord]] chewing the scenery, followed by a solid string of great SliceOfLife episodes; [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E3LessonZero one of which]] is still considered one of the best in the series.

-->-- Creator/AndreiTarkovsky, explaining the beginning of his film, ''Film/{{Stalker}}''

This can understandably take a while to get through, especially if the creator is using a fantasy or spectaculative fiction setting, so you may well have lost heart before you get to the interesting part. It might be worth sticking around though: there are more than a few works that are seen as being one of the best in their genre/medium that suffer from this trope, only revealing their true greatness once you manage to slog through all the setup. But that tends to be the exception, not the rule; and either way, the writer probably doesn't do themselves any favours by boring their audience at the start. As many writers will tell you, the first line of a book will often decide whether it gets published or not.

Sometimes, though, this pacing [[IntendedAudienceReaction can be used deliberately]]. Maybe the writer ''wants'' to establish the hero's former life as slow, tedious, and mundane before they discover their SecretLegacy. Or, in the case of historical fiction, the writer wants to ensure that the reader doesn't need the Encyclopedia Britannica close to hand to understand what's going on. But, once again, deliberately making the beginning of your story boring is a ''very'' risky game; it can take quite a tenacious audience to deal with this in the blind hope that your story will eventually have things happen in it. And if their patience is wearing thin by that point, their reaction may be less happiness that such tenacity was rewarded and more annoyance that you made them wait for so long.

This can understandably take a while to get through, and you may well have lost heart before you manage it. It might be worth sticking around though: there are more than a few works that are seen as being one of the best in their genre/medium that suffer from this trope, only revealing their true greatness once you manage to slog through all the setup. But that tends to be the exception, not the rule; and either way, the writer probably doesn't do themselves any favours by boring their audience at the start. As many writers will tell you, the first line of a book will often decide whether it gets published or not.

A ''lot'' of internet works such as webcomics or fanfiction can demonstrate this as a natural consequence of the creator learning to cartoon, plot, and write dialogue [[WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants by the seat of their pants]].

Contrast LostInMediasRes, where a show starts with too ''little'' exposition, and EndingFatigue, when it takes forever to ''end'', not start. Also contrast ActionPrologue, which throws you into the action from the get-go. In VideoGames, the endgame version is DisappointingLastLevel (although a game can suffer from both). Not to be confused with the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Gets_Better_Project It Gets Better Project]], which is aimed at curbing teen suicides.