Ditto on infodumpy beginnings where nothing happens. On the opposite end are beginnings where too much happens too quickly, explicit sex between characters I don't know, explosions and fights whose stakes I can't comprehend and more importantly have no reason to care about. I remember clicking the "back" button in a hurry away from a story where literally the first sentence started with "he thrust roughly into her." Even the cheesiest porn has some buildup, man.
Also, not my own peeve because I didn't see a whole lot of this myself, but I was guilty of this: The latest On the Premises newsletter mentioned "fake beginnings," where the action that starts out the story isn't the real start, but rather a flashback or dream as inkdust mentioned, a play the main character was acting in, etc. I blushed because I did exactly this in my (most deservedly) rejected OTP submission about the protagonist's struggle to write a story, leading with a scene she was writing and later rejected. Hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
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Ditto on infodumpy beginnings where nothing happens. On the opposite end are beginnings where too much happens too quickly, explicit sex between characters I don't know, explosions and fights whose stakes I can't comprehend and more importantly have no reason to care about. I remember clicking the "back" button in a hurry away from a story where literally the first sentence started with "he thrust roughly into her." Even the cheesiest porn has some buildup, man.
Also, not my own peeve because I didn't see a whole lot of this myself, but I was guilty of this: The latest On the Premises newsletter mentioned "fake beginnings," where the action that starts out the story isn't the real start, but rather a flashback or dream as