Quote:
Originally Posted by Moejoe
Here are the opening paragraphs from two traditionally published books, to make my position much clearer (any choices I make here, can easily be transferred to the independently published)
It was a pleasure to burn.
~
Death, in this forsaken place, could come in many forms. Geologist Charles Brophy had endured the savage splendour of this terrain and yet nothing could prepare him for a fate as barbarous and unnatural as the one about to befall him.
~
Now, one of these is quite clearly brilliant and compelling, while the other is a bunch of old tosh and I wouldn't read beyond that first paragraph. Can you guess which? Anyone with half a brain can, and it's definitely not the second quoted paragraph.
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They both seem pretty iffy to me.
The first trying too hard. The second too trite.
But then most initial paragraphs of most novels are fairly unpromising imho.