Morning routine that is mundane TO THE READER. Nobody cares how long your main character showers or what their favorite kind of cereal is. Only start your novel with your main character’s morning routine if it is something that isn’t routine to your reader. Does your MC have to steal their breakfast? Include that! Does your MC feed their dragon at the crack of dawn? That’s interesting! Do they spend way to long deciding what to wear? Nobody cares. That’s boring.
A dream. Readers will feel cheated when they read a bunch of interesting stuff only to find out none of it was real.
Excessive world building. Fantasy novels are especially prone to falling into this trap. Little bits of world building that are naturally woven into the narrative are fine. Info dumps are not. Remember, the purpose of the first chapter is to introduce the MC and get the reader invested in what will happen to them, not to give the reader a history lesson about a world they have no reason to care about yet.
Too long before the main conflict. While you don’t necessarily need to dive straight into the main conflict, you shouldn’t keep the reader waiting for it to start for too long. I suggest laying the groundwork for the main conflict in the first chapter and maybe hinting at it directly. That will help the plot get going at a good pace.
Without anything to ground the reader in what’s going on. The reader needs some time to get invested in the main character. While starting in medias res can work, you need to help your reader why they should care about what’s happening to the MC. Otherwise, you might as well be jingling keys in the reader’s face. Be especially careful about starting your novel with a chase scene or a battle since those can be disorienting and might not make it clear why the reader should be rooting for your MC specifically.
Without showing why your reader should care about the MC. Your MC should be one of the main things that keeps your reader hooked throughout the novel. If your reader doesn’t feel invested in them by the end of the first chapter, then there’s a good chance they won’t keep reading.
This reminds me of a party I went to last year. I was standing with some friends, chatting, and someone said something that indirectly implied that sexism exists. Some trivial recounting of the basic facts of daily life for most women. Something so mild, so uncontroversial, so mundane that I don’t even remember what it was.
Suddenly, this man standing on the outskirts of our conversational circle piped up with “actually, I think men are more discriminated against than women these days.”
All conversation died.
I turned to look at him and he had this smug, insufferable grin on his face, relishing this moment, expecting us to waste our time and energy refuting this ridiculous thing he had just said.
The Devil’s Advocate was among us.
And, in my mind, I saw the next 15+ minutes playing out. The parade of facts and statistics in a vain attempt to defend ourselves, our gender, and to prove that misogyny is real. The glib, snide denials from some shithead who is getting off on our pain and frustration. The Gish Gallop of bullshit that would take a whole evening to properly dismantle. It was depressing and overwhelming. I hated it. I had to kill it before it began.
So I looked him dead in the eye and I said “OK,“ shrugged, and just walked away.
Nothing I have ever said to another human being has ever been so crushing. As I walked away, I watched the smug grin vanish and confusion and anxiety set in. The rest of the group turned their backs to him and carried on as if he had never spoken – as if he was invisible. He was still staring at me when I walked over to another friend and told her what he had said. I pointed him out for her and made direct eye contact with him while we both laughed.
tl;dr: Don’t feed the troll. Let it perish, cold and hungry, in the wasteland of your indifference. It is weak and you are strong. Live your best life.
bullshit central 