write an opening that hooks your reader (or: how to raise hell and cause trouble)

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Rules, of course, are made to be broken.

Here are a few rules about how to open your novel:

DON'T open with description.

Description is static. Static means boring. It doesn't matter what you're describing: description is passive and inert and sits on the page.

You need to emotionally engage the reader and get them curious and worried. Description doesn't do that.

DO trust your reader's intelligence.

You don't need to kill the reader with backstory in order to establish your characters, and...