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Originally Posted by The Pelagic Argosy  This bit struck a chord with me. I have an 18-year-old protagonist. At the beginning of the story, she's finishing school and is overly concerned with a lot of silly, superficial things like cliques and her appearance, etc. I'm worried that people will get the mistaken impression from the first couple of chapters that it's a young adult novel or that my protagonist will stay so annoying. But the rest of the book will be decidedly adult. (Based on the "good" scenes I couldn't resist jumping ahead to write.  ). |
That sounds a tad risky. I'm so pressed for time these days that if a book fails to grab me in the first chapter or so I'm liable to drop it. Also, agents and publishers tend to want to see the first two or three chapters, and will decide as a result of that whether or not they want to read the rest. So if the first part of your story is not representative of the rest, you could be missing out.