Understanding my weird, wild first chapter
Every author is advised to have a great first chapter. Begin that with an excellent first sentence. Unless your work is nothing but a character study, include action. Violent action always works best, even if your work isn't a thriller (that slam-bang genre occupied by Jack Reacher and the like). Maybe you have your female character face a beating by a spouse. Maybe have a child cower in the corner against an unseen threat in a dream. I didn't do any of that in The Search For Circe (beyond having a great first chapter and an excellent first sentence, of course.) Action? Mental action is all, and there's lots of that. Let me present my case by explaining the impetus behind my choice of subject matter. I read a Stephen King article about the best things an author can do. The one that struck me the hardest was to write what YOU want to write. Don't think about other popular novels. Don't temper your work by what others might think about your choices. Make it your wo