There are a number of ways to begin a novel, and more specifically a Multiverser novel.
MJ in his delightful novel chose to begin with the characters already in the Verse for several worlds. This gave them some basic knowledge of what was going on, and started them on the path to herodom.
I tried another technique in Worldwalker. You start by establishing the characters and their problems. This creates the Norm. Then you have the Break from the Norm which is when they verse out.
This is also what I did when I ran Worldwalker the campaign, although in more abbreviated form.
In the story that begins with my tennis playing reporterette getting versed to the Wall at the End of the World verse, I also did this. You establish her concerns and goals such as 1) She wants to become more famous and have better stories and get paid better, and her difficulty 2) She is feeling mistreated at work where she puts in a lot more effort than she gets compensated for. And she's off to get an interview with a mysterious game designer...and Break....she's versed out.
Another way to do this is to have something like the paragraphs I replied to John on the 'List: Breakfast' thread where I showed the new world in its overwhelming weirdness, and then have the hero sit there eating his 'omie', and he quickly summarizes in his mind...
'What's happening? I got up this morning to go to school. Freshman Physics and Basic Calculus in the same semester, what was I thinking I wondered as I scrambled back to get my nearly forgotten books. But if I want to graduated from Roberts in four years with my High Energy Physics major, I have to scramble all the way. Buzzed across town, beat two lights, caught at Morgan and Litcher, and so I decided to take the verboten short cut through the X-ray Lab. There I saw the cute blonde in her so sweet lab coat...I remember tripping. Over an electric cable. And then yellow blobs in white fire, and...Now I'm eating pureed parsnips. Yuck. This is officially my worst day ever.'
At this point, you've established something of the character (harried, ambitious, male, college freshman, intends to graduate with an HEP degree so probably pretty intelligent and fairly logical. Willing to take shortcuts even if the authorities don't like it, if he thinks its safe enough, likes blonde girls on the petite side), and given him potential for some skills... When later in the story you need your hero to build an electromagnet, no one is going to doubt he can do it.
Another type of flashback is more difficult in some ways. You start the hero on the beach just after a first verse. He remembers occasional details from his life as appropriate to the story. I did this a lot with WAW Tadeusz stories as I invented various skills for him to have as I went on.
Yet another type is what I considered for "I, Tadeusz" (yes, the fact that it rhymes with 'I, Claudius' was a definite factor). T arrives fully versed, one might say, in the Multiverse and gets dropped immediately into the soup. This is the story of a hero who is already a hero, and knows the situation.
Another type is the tale told from the sidelines. Watson told Holmes tales. In one WAW, I had a French-Brazillian reporterette who latched on to T, and got dragged into a confrontation with the Forces of Evil.
In "Missing Man" which is another try, the wife is at home with her kids, wondering where hubby went to, and very, very irritated and quite heartbroken at him for up and dissappearing for three days. When he shows up, its been a hundred fifty years for him (only that short time because he got lucky and bumped into a verser who had solved the 'how do you get home problem'), and three days for her, and she's not in the mood to listen...
Its a cross between dealing with MIB's and The Taming of the Shrew. Its a romance novel told from the viewpoint of the wife who finds her husband has changed radically and is now far more competent than he was.
So there's some ways to handle writing the Multiverser novel.
