I just remember being really annoyed with (for example) Inkheart, which rubs your face in I know something you don’t know for *way* to long at the beginning. Nearly made me quit the book.

I keep thinking on that last comment of KV’s. Half-agreeing, half-disagreeing! Most writing advice I’ve heard lately, regarding novel beginnings, flies in the face of it. Sure would like to hear him expound on that point.

That bit about “to heck with suspense” was fabulous (though another part of my mind wants to hear the opposite argument).

I gave my first dozen pages to a guy who swore both he was hooked from the first page — no we’re not related– and is convinced he knows how the story will end (I’m convinced this is impossible but he refuses to tell me his prediction, so I can’t check him).

I never considered before that both possibilities could be true.