How Not to Write a Novel

MISHA GERICKE IS HOLDING her first 'Word Master Challenge’ blogfest and I am all over this one. I totally know how not to start a novel, any of my half-dozen or so actual attempts could be held up as an example. But instead of using one of them I decided for some original prose instead.
Without further adieu:
To say the winters in Minnesota are cold is to say that the summers in the Sahara are hot. Hot like the heat from a oven turned to broil – except the cold version of that. That’s what wint...