Chapter one. What? Where else would you start? According to every publisher and agent I’ve met, most novels really start on chapter three or four. The first few chapters are all set-up or backstory which would improve the novel by being deleted. This kinda guys fast forward over porn film beginnings to the first blow job or insertion. Best improvement would be to scrap the whole book. Plus its author.

There are fashions in writing, just as there are in clothes. The modern trend, particularly for genre or YA fiction, but increasingly in literary fiction too, is to start the story with the main character on the first page, and to start with the inciting incident. No backstory before chapter three, and then pare it to the bone. "YA" most likely stands for young adult. There hardly is a brand of monkeys that are stupider than young adults. Except YA writers. Give them a dildo and it will keep them occupied for hours.

Have you ever watched American Idol or X factor at the audition stage? Then you'll know the way you can usually tell within five notes if the singer is actually able to sing and is likely to go through. It's the same with writing. Any writer who can't manage a decent opening is not likely to get much better a hundred pages on. Whining for a second chance because "I sing a lot better in the second verse" (or "The second chapter is really good") doesn't fool anyone. What an idiot. There are lots of books that start out slow but grow on you. But fuck you, you're just such an idiot that hardly has the patience to spell laboriously through the title. Right into the garbage can from the Amazon box if the cover does not please. Your kind had better just watch Netflix or HBO, or reruns of American Idiots and X Position.