It’s easy to start a story. Okay, it’s not that easy. But the fact that plenty of people start writing novels, only to abandon them after the first few chapters, suggests it can be much more of a challenge to finish one.
When we start reading a new novel, I guess it’s somewhat akin to meeting up for a first date, but it’s usually with a whole crowd of new people, rather than just the one. We’ve been attracted by what we’ve already seen and heard about the book. We might have read a few pages in a bookshop or online. We go on this literary date in a spirit of optimism, hoping we’ll enjoy ourselves: that the date will be a big success.