Recently, I sort of let writing first chapters consume my life. That was never the plan. I set forth to pen just twenty, but I had such fun that I couldn’t stop. The first volume debuted on February 21, 2024. Volume Ten hit the shelves on February 1, 2026. In two years, I wrote and published ten volumes of 20 First Chapters and two omnibuses collecting the series. This project contains multitudes. I spun these wondrous tales using 318,807 words. It took about four hours for each entry. That’s 808 hours on the writing end alone. 39 different genres can be found within.

The project is a case study in worldbuilding and character generation. Just the sheer number of names I had to conjure up alone is a real accomplishment. I truly think there are very few, if any, repetitions of names. Each entry drops readers into new and unique scenarios. It was thrilling to switch mental gears with every chapter explored. The result is that all ten volumes feature such wide-ranging diversity.

The last fifty years of pop culture inspired this project. Readers will find entries reminiscent of: Dawson’s Creek, eighties and nineties rom-coms, Back to the Future, Wonder, Traitors, Survivor, 80s werewolf movies, John Hughes films, the decade of the eighties, The Micronauts, Marvel and DC Comics, Hellboy, Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, The Maze Runner, Weekend at Bernie’s, Tim Burton, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Gremlins, classic vending machines, R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps, Swamp Thing, John Constantine, Hellboy, Dante’s Inferno, religion, Greek myths, Alien, Predator, Robert Heinlein, Andre Norton, Buffy and the gang, Scooby Doo, Poltergeist, Lovecraftian monstrosities, summer camps, Shrek, Lost, and so many others.

Each first chapter plays with verb tense and point of view to keep the readers on their toes. I

I’ll miss my weekly writing sessions with this project. It still stuns me that I was able to come up with a daring, new concept every time I sat down.

The types of stories I seemed to write the most about were: General Fantasy, Superheroes, Dragons, and Ghosts. General Fantasy bowed in with the most at 28 thrilling tales. Here is a complete list of the many genres that can be found in the series:

General Fantasy

Urban Fantasy

Rural Fantasy

Strange Towns and Stranger Mysteries

Time Travel

Multiversal Multiples Team Up

Invasion/End of the World

Superheroes

Staying With Relative/Having a Magic Adventure

Occult Investigator

Quirky Teens Battling the Supernatural

Ghosts, Demons, and the Undead

Post-Apocalyptic

Outer Space Adventure/Stranded On a Planet

Dragons

Magic School

Deities

Magical Familiars

Animal Tagalongs and Talking Animals

Trapped Someplace Strange

Meta-Fiction

Seeing the Future

Fairy Tales

Clones and Synthetic Life Stories

War Between Afterlife Factions

Lovecraftian Doomsday Behemoths

LitRPG

Robots

Stranger In a Strange Land

Scary Story

Post-Apocalyptic Magic Worlds

General Science Fiction

Mad Science

Realistic Fiction

Invisibility

Evil Artificial Intelligence

Alien Hunter

Switching Bodies

Real Life Romance

20 First Chapters is a testament to the creative spirit and how a creator can harness their boundless imagination. It’s gushing entertainment as well as a teaching tool for those who’ve caught the bug to pen their own stories. It’s being used in high schools to inspire budding writers.

I plan to really promote the heck out of this series! It’s a true gem. I sincerely hope you’ll hop on board. They can be read in any order. Buying the omnibuses gets you two bonus first chapters, but snatching up all the individual volumes gives you the covers, which served as the inspiration for the final first chapter in each.

Worlds of wonder await you. Embark at your own risk.