So, I should probably introduce myself first because I'm new to this website of forums. I'm Maggie, 18, and I've written three novels now but just haven't gotten them published. It's not that I'm unhappy with them but they just don't seem as good as I can do, so now I'm starting my next and hoping for the best. The novel is going to be about a girl named Diane; she's around the age of nineteen, definitely not older. She has a child in the first chapter of the novel named Bailey (a little girl.) Diane has had emotional issues in the past and just by the way she talks in the novel you can tell she's not all totally there. As the story goes on, the reader discovers that Diane is slowly turning her toddler into a serial killer. She forces her to do her dirty work, killing people who have wronged her in the past. The child is known to be evil, according to Diane, since the very beginning of the story. She thinks this because in the second chapter, after her newborn baby girl arrives home, she wakes up in the middle of the night to check on her. When she goes into Bailey's bedroom, she sees her sitting straight up, blood on her hands, and a dead bat on the floor. Instead of telling her parents she becomes afraid of Bailey and cleans up the mess so that no questions are asked. From there on out is when she starts having Bailey kill for her. If this was your novel, what are some ways in which you would start it? I'm at a lost for words and I keep tearing pages out because they don't sound right. Thank you very much for the suggestions!
First --- go try and get those first books published! Who knows! Second --- Maybe start with the babysitter and the bat scene. Sounds pretty interesting place to go from. Do we really need to have the birth and everything? Just a thought! GOOD LUCK!!!
I'm guessing you're not looking for "Once upon a time..." ? (Disclaimer: This is not a helpful post.) (Disclaimer 2: The above disclaimer is redundant.) (Disclaimer 3: Why are you still reading!? Haven't you got the gist of this post yet?)
Start wherever you like, but expect to chop off the beginning in revision. The important thing is to start.
I agree with Cogito. Start wherever - it doesn't matter much. You'll probably wind up changing the beginning later, anyway, most likely by cutting it.
Start with a scene that sets the tone of the whole story. It could even be a scene unrelated to the main plot line, or something that shows Diane's disturbed state of mind.
Intesting idea. You could start with a scene where the mother is chiding her son for something, but a few sentences in, the reader's expectations are turned on their head: the mother doesn't want her son to behave well, she wants him to do something violent or malicious.
It sounds as though the novel is leaning towards a darker side. I would start with the child and the mother doing something innocuous, like the mother making baby noises and "here comes the airplane!" while feeding her with a spoon that has Barney carved on it. Almost immediately after that, show the bat, or some other Enfant Terrible scene.
Yea, I wouldn't start immediatly with the bat scene personally. Does the mother suspect that there is something evil about her child before the bat occurance? If so, I'd maybe have it starting with the mother bringing her home, trying to do the usual things with her, such as feeding and holding her, but all along the mother is thinking that there is something not quite right. Maybe the mother has an ominous feeling about her child from the offset, which leads to the bat scene that night? Also, was the mother a murderer before she had the child, and she now uses her daughter to help her? Or did her daughter turn her into a murderer? If the latter, why? I'm just a little confused about your plot, but it seems quite interesting
