The paper is devoted to the actual philologocal problem – the study of literary work’s boundaries, specifically – the research of thanatological beginnings in fiction. The specificity
of these components and their text typology, their functioning (from the creation of the so-called «reality effect» to the generation of the story intrigue) are analysed on the basis of works
of various writers who have used such introductions. Thanatological beginnings are defined as semantic-structural elements – in terms of plot and story, composition of the conflict, motif boundaries, changing of narrative temporal order, historical poetics, subjective narrative organization, etc. As a result, the question of the participation of these text elements in processes of story and genre generation is put, the problem of «overcoming» the tendency to complete the structure, peculiar to thanatological motifs, in modern artistic paradigms is handled.