Can't decide between two common tropes

[RepresentingAnti-Representings]

I am writing one of those 'dies -> meets god -> reincarnates/wakes up in new world' stories.

But I am having problems deciding whether making it so my MC wakes up literally after being given birth OR wakes up in the body of a 19 yo guy (with his past life and current life memories fusing together)

The First option allows me to SHOW the reader how certain events came to be while the MC was growing up. While on the Second option I will only TELL them those events.

But my fear is that with the First option some readers will just ignore the story because of the growing up trope (I feel like a lot of people don't like this trope because they believe it will take long until the MC reaches the good part of the story). While on the Second option, the 'good part' of the story immediately takes place.

By the 'good part' of the story I refer to what most people got into the story for while reading the blurb: a big war, the school ark, the downfall of the MC's family, etc.

What do you think?

 

[Dec]

Why not combine them? Start with MC being an adult, and then use his dreams to show his childhood.
You won't satisfy everyone anyway, especially not with that kind of overused tropes, so...

 

[Valmond]

You didn’t finish the transition.

dies—> meets god—> reincarnates—> wakes up in a new world—> meets Truck-kun.

 

[Hsinat]

You didn’t finish the transition.

dies—> meets god—> reincarnates—> wakes up in a new world—> meets Truck-kun.

MC be like :

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/3166662231972553/

 

[CharlesEBrown]

My wife listened to a webnovel that did this to the poor MC three times.
Once he woke up in the body of an adult alien, and was almost immediately killed (the scene was kind of odd but it felt almost like this was the alien that killed him, and he was living through its final day).
Then he wakes up somewhere else; I don't remember what it was, but he seemed to be a teenager - and again lasted only a full scene, and THEN he wakes up in a baby. At this point, the story kind of speed-ages him to a year old when he first starts talking, then the next chapter has him five or six, and the next one has him a young teen ready to go off to school to study magic - he'd been a soldier in a high tech army that first encountered the aliens with no clue what they were facing at his first death.
Before his third, he discovered magic was real - I think he blew himself and a building up because of it - and at the age of five in his fourth life he began mastering it but only understood the basics so went off to a specialty school to learn more.
Fortunately she didn't subject me to much more of it, so I don't know what happened next, but suspect he winds up making peace with the aliens after about four hundred chapters or so...

 

[beast_regards]

The readers want to see the parts where (and when) the protagonist has the agency to influence the story...

It doesn't necessarily mean he or she would be an adult, but adulthood is usually associated with agency and childhood ... well, is not.

Most anime and manga don't want to bother with backstory either. In the anime it is usually the brief flashback they don't even bother to animate, just the slide show with some narration. In manga, it is one picture, one panel at best, some brief commentary in the box.

Only reincarnation stories that bother with childhood are the ones where the main characters met the other important character as a child. Usually, it's a girl, a childhood friend trope, but otherwise, they skip it.

 

[Tsuru]

I am writing one of those 'dies -> meets god -> reincarnates/wakes up in new world' stories.

But I am having problems deciding whether making it so my MC wakes up literally after being given birth OR wakes up in the body of a 19 yo guy (with his past life and current life memories fusing together)

The First option allows me to SHOW the reader how certain events came to be while the MC was growing up. While on the Second option I will only TELL them those events.

But my fear is that with the First option some readers will just ignore the story because of the growing up trope (I feel like a lot of people don't like this trope because they believe it will take long until the MC reaches the good part of the story). While on the Second option, the 'good part' of the story immediately takes place.

By the 'good part' of the story I refer to what most people got into the story for while reading the blurb: a big war, the school ark, the downfall of the MC's family, etc.

What do you think?

> MC wake up from coma (few days), and remember its past life.
(ultimate solution to all transmigration/reincarnation flaws)


............I........................Seeing all authors, no matter if its JP,EN,CN,KR not doing it (beside few of them) i ask myself
why the HECK no one do that.
Should i blame the fact authors didnt read enough novels themselves so they didnt see it before ? (bakarina did this, some others novels did it too)
Or should i blame this trope being so little used that authors dont know about it ?
I dont know.

 

[ElijahRyne]

I am writing one of those 'dies -> meets god -> reincarnates/wakes up in new world' stories.

But I am having problems deciding whether making it so my MC wakes up literally after being given birth OR wakes up in the body of a 19 yo guy (with his past life and current life memories fusing together)

The First option allows me to SHOW the reader how certain events came to be while the MC was growing up. While on the Second option I will only TELL them those events.

But my fear is that with the First option some readers will just ignore the story because of the growing up trope (I feel like a lot of people don't like this trope because they believe it will take long until the MC reaches the good part of the story). While on the Second option, the 'good part' of the story immediately takes place.

By the 'good part' of the story I refer to what most people got into the story for while reading the blurb: a big war, the school ark, the downfall of the MC's family, etc.

What do you think?

Start when the action/plot starts, otherwise it will seem like filler. I.E. Steins; Gate could start when they first build the Phone Microwave (name subject to change), but instead it starts the day Makise Kurisu dies. The charecters then start to be built up as the tension rises.

 

[laccoff_mawning]

If you choose to go for option #2, consider the following:

Dies -> meets God -> reincarnated as a baby, but with an immediate time skip to adult life.

That way you don't need to bother with the fusing memories thing. (To me, this would feel more natural that some fusing of memories, but idk if other people would think that.)

Also, if you don't have any actual plot considered for a childhood arc, you can always skip straight to adulthood and dripfeed the information you want to convey in terms of flashbacks. The 'This reminds me of when I was five years old and my sister....' type of stuff.

 

[Spacerunner357]

You didn’t finish the transition.

dies—> meets god—> reincarnates—> wakes up in a new world—> meets Truck-kun.

Hah
I think you should Do the Baby one But Don"'t do it conpletely like Work on it and Move to a later chapter and work on that part, so you don't get Burnt Bored

 

[PancakesWitch]

Okay so this is where you decide what your novel has to be about.
You could go for the baby route and then have something more slice of life, focused on family, relationships, and growth.
Some stories use this childhood as their central part and take their time, sometimes in each arc the protagonist ages a year or two or more.
There's an audience for these stories that is usually not the same that would want a MC that is already an adult from the get-go though, those wihtout patience will complain the "childhood arc" never ends.
And the other option is what you described, adult with past memories, the audience here will expect you to start into the action and intrigue right away, and you better be good at info dumping and exploring the world building QUICK, because the childhood arcs give you the power to explore the world at a slow, steady and natural pace, but this one doesnt, your readers will be very impatient.
You could try doing something in the middle where the protagonist ages very quickly through the book, like there's huge timeskips, but there's also a lot of readers that hate that and came to read a detailed childhood.
So whatever you try to write, you better do a good job at not dissapointing the audience that will read your book, if that's what you care about to begin with. If you dont care about audience then I dont know why you're asking this question, just write whatever you feel like and dont put too much thought into it.