New answers tagged structure
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If you must go with one of those, I would go with the first one. It just seems to go more smoothly. However, in order to PERFECT the sentence, you may want to try a different technique than similes. Either way it's really good. Hope this helps!
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In either case, there's something missing — or maybe it's because the sentence is out of context. Just to say someone washed his hands like a surgeon is insufficient; you need more detail. "He scrubbed his hands for over two minutes" or "thoroughly" or "with meticulous care" like a surgeon etc.
They do have different effects. The first one puts your ...
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I would have just commented, but I am too low for that at the moment.
I wanted to add that one reason for this format is the viewer can now focus on the relationships that are forming in the background. The humor of how House relates to his team, the drama of his drug abuse, the ups and downs of his romantic relationships -- all this develops because you ...
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Introducing your story like this is no problem, however if C is normally unrelated to the story you may consider the first chapter not being a de facto chapter and call it an introduction/prologue instead. It is a common characteristic of an introduction to introduce the plot via a side character. Normally this is a very short chapter comprising of one short ...
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If you're an analytical type (and if you do technical writing, I guess you are), Writing Fiction for Dummies could be a very good match for you. It was for me :)
If you want to "try before you buy", read http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/
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Questions about "what to write about" are off-topic. But your question can be also interpreted as "how to start a novel" and so I'm going to answer that one.
First a misconception on your side:
I know nothing about writing.
This sentence is only excusable as a citation. But your name is not John Snow. So forget about it, because writing this question ...
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You get certain liberties with the first chapter. Actually, I've seen this in a number of good published books. So, no, it's not odd.
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Nope, works fine. Starting from the POV of a minor character to establish the setting is no problem at all; in fact, that can be an interesting prologue, particularly if you're dealing with a mystery. It's sort of a sideways entrance into the story.
As an example, Susan Elia MacNeal has done this with all the books in her Maggie Hope mysteries. Mr. ...
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Introducing the protagonist later in the book is generally done when there's a large cast involved. In a situation like this, who the reader should consider the "main" character is less important.
While there are no rules about any of this, it's generally a good idea for the reader to be able to identify with the protagonist in some way. And making the ...
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Using lots of very short chapters creates an impression in the reader of very rapid pace and lots of movement. For some genres (such as Patterson's thrillers), this accelerated pace is exactly the effect that you want.
Having long chapters creates the opposite effect: it slows the pace down and gives the author time to expand more fully a given section or ...
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