✧ You do not have to start with action. You have to start with interest. I will read two whole pages about someone making soup if they’re muttering about killing a god while doing it.

✧Your first sentence doesn’t have to be deep, mysterious, or poetic. It can just be “The corpse wouldn't shut up,” or “The milk was cursed again.” Get (PLEASE) weird.

✧ Starting with a dream sequence is legal only if someone wakes up and says, “That’s the third time I’ve died in my sleep this week.”

✧ The point of Chapter One is not to explain the entire world. It’s to hook the reader and emotionally blackmail them into turning the page.

✧ Introduce ONE conflict. Not five. One delicious little problem to gnaw on. “Oh no, they’re late for their job at the magical DMV.” I’m in.

✧ You don’t have to name every person your character walks past. Save the lore dump for later. If you give me eight capitalized names and two empires in the first paragraph, I will cry.

✧ Dialogue is a great opener if it makes me ask a question. If someone says “Did you hide the body?” in the first line, I’m staying.

✧ First impressions matter. So if your MC’s first action is whining about something boring, I will throw them. Gently. Out a window.

AIDS did not "wipe out an entire generation." There are queer people who LIVED through that horrible time who are still ALIVE TODAY. Go TALK to them. Go make friends with that elder generation. Fucking LISTEN to what they have to say.

Stop sitting behind your fucking screen saying they all died so you can pretend they don't exist and you don't have to engage. They didn't.