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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25791
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25791
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

You submit what their submission guidelines tell you to submit, nothing more, nothing less, nothing different. If you don't follow the guidelines, they won't even look at you.

And the guidelines will always, always, always, want the first chapter if they want any chapters at all. No agent, no editor, no reader, is going to plow through a boring first chapter to get to the good stuff. Agents are in the business of making a living by selling books. They have no interest in representing books that won't sell. Books with boring first chapters don't sell.

The only thing you can do, to have any hope of getting an agent interesting in representing you, is to rewrite your first chapter so it is interesting. You may think that chapter one is full of essential stuff that you need to establish first in order to get to the good stuff. But that is not how storytelling works. You have not learned to be a storyteller until you have learned to establish the background as you need to while keeping the story interesting at all times.

Original score: 7