Shoutout to my 10th grade English teacher who told me to skip the first chapter of any book

She said authors spend too long setting up scenes and I should jump to chapter two to get hooked. Tried it with a dense history book last week and finished in 2 days instead of never. Anybody else have a teacher whose weird advice actually clicked later?

2 comments

2 Comments

adams.harper5d ago

Gotta disagree hard on this one. The setup is there for a reason, skipping it means you miss all the context and pacing that makes the payoff hit later. Tried it once with a thriller and spent half the book confused about who was who.

quinn_king165d ago

Agreed completely. Tried skipping the first 50 pages of a mystery novel once because I thought I knew the general premise. Ended up completely lost about a key character's backstory and why their grudge even mattered. Had to go back and reread everything just to make sense of the second half. Not worth the headache.