10 Ways Not to Begin Your Novel

(According to Me)

1. With your main character waking up.

2. With a long prologue telling the backstory of your epic fantasy.

3. With a fight sequence/grand battle where none of the characters have been introduced before.

4. With the death of a character we never got to care about.

5. With a bunch of names no one can pronounce.

6. With your character looking in a mirror to give her a chance to describe herself physically to the reader.

7. With the story of the main character’s birth.

8. With a long, descriptive passage.

9. With a teacher explaining how the world works.

10. With a section of the climax, which then requires half of the rest of the book to explain in flashback.