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Create engaging characters and put them in situations with high stakes. The characters in your first chapter (or prologue) don't even have to be main characters. They don't even have to survive t...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/26255 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/26255 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
Create engaging characters and put them in situations with high stakes. The characters in your first chapter (or prologue) don't even have to be main characters. They don't even have to _survive_ to the next chapter. But we have to care about them, and we have to want to find out what happens next. This also counts for villains: If you create a villain who commits a terrible act in the first chapter, we'll keep reading to make sure the villain gets punished.