Hi! I'm not an experienced writer, though I've written fanfiction and RPs for years and I would finally like to start taking one of my stories I've been planning for about 2 and a half years seriously. It's gone through several overhauls, but I feel I'm nearing the point where the first arc is about ready to be written. The biggest roadblock in my way, however, is the very start. I keep trying to go over dozens of different ways I can try it but nothing feels right and I'm worried it will form into bad. So I hoped that maybe some fresh eyes and minds can help me out. (Apologies for spelling errors, trying to catch what I can but I haven't been sleeping well lately so please bear with me, haha.) The setting takes place in a high fantasy world where the weak and powerless are preyed on by monsters, the worst of which are Witches, who are girls turned into eldritch monsters after dabbling with magic. The main character is a strong and well-respected monster slayer... who dies at the very start of the story at the hands of a witch. The main character's name is never mentioned until the end of the story (he's called Ghost as a stand-in) and he never describes the way he looks because his body has been completely eviscerated. He is saved, however, by a young witch named Nyse, who manages to salvage his soul into the body small iron golem. (Golems are pretty a pretty integral part of the world but they're not particularly relevant to the very start of the story so I'll hold off on that.) Ghost learns he's been dead for *years* and the world is now worse off than it was when he left it. A coven of witches known as the "Seven" have used their magic to subjugate the rest of the world. The monster slayer's guilds have been demolished and any slayers willing to stand up to them have been killed, much like Ghost himself. Worried for the fate of his loved ones and comrades, he puts his pride aside and works alongside the witch who saved him. They join forces, gain allies, fight some witches. Basically a good ol' monster-hunting story. The reason I'm struggling so hard with finding a way to start it is that it's imperative to the story that Ghosts' appearance, name, death, and killer is to be a mystery that will gradually reveal itself as the story goes on. He was taken by surprise and never saw (much less even remember) the face of his attacker. He's just as confused as the reader is supposed to be. The problem that comes with this approach is that I'm not sure how to start it without revealing exactly what happened. I want it to be told in a first-person perspective, but trying to figure out the exact point to start without giving anything away in the first chapter. Sorry for the garbled mess, I hope it was at least intelligible. I would appreciate any opinions or suggestions on how to remedy this. If you have questions regarding the characters and plot for more context, I'm happy to oblige. Thank you so much for reading!
Well, that is tricky. My first gut instinct reading this was just have him have amnesia. He wakes up in the iron golemn body and his head is blank because something messed up, but then his life as a monster slayer trickles back slowly and eventually he realizes he's been dead this whole time and also the world has gone to shit. But if you don't want to go the amnesia route you might want to start in the middle where Ghost already knows everything, his death, the fate of his loved ones, and is freshly allied with the witch etc, -- but the readers don't. Yet through reading and context clues, they slowly unravel the mystery of what happened to him. It's more of a risk plunging into the deep end like that but that just gets the action started faster. Sorry, if these aren't helpful but these are the two I could think up.
It kind of depends on how much of a secret everything needs to be. Amnesia helps keep all of his past a secret. But it's also a bit of a cliche that could make your story seem boring. So first I'll say, if you give away nothing in the first chapter, very few people will want to read your story. In order to set up a mystery the reader needs to know that there is a mystery to figure out. I'd say, from my perspective the best starting point would be after Nyse revives him, since it gives some flexibility on how much or little to reveal.
I'd say start with him getting killed. If someone stabs you, there's a high chance you won't a) realise that the hit has been fatal and furthermore b) that you even got stabbed. And a high pressure fight is a jumble of images and you only remember very few impressions anyway. Just as illustration, in my last self defense course we simulated knife attacks, one on one. Afterwards I got asked how many times I got stabbed. I couldn't say. I remember one, from the setup of the scenario two or three would have been very likely, but it could as easily have been four. The trainer said he saw three times. To my mind that suggests that in the fight for his life, Ghost can easily get 'killed' by magical/physical means and he won't realise that he's received fatal wounds if the fight is sufficient high pressure. He might even run for his life after dispatching his attacker, only to stumble and fade to grey - and die, though of course he won't realise. He would simply think he'd gone unconscious. Same as with bleeding wounds. I grant the fight scene is tricky to write, but I think manageable. Good luck
Aaah, thanks for the replies guys! Hng. Amnesia. I toyed around with amnesia in a couple of my prior idea drafts for him, but ultimately I decided against it for a couple of reasons. I feel like amnesia would lessen the impact of what happens to Ghost. His deal is that he is basically supposed to be the best at what he does and comes from a long line of slayers. Personality-wise, it makes him appear arrogant and elitist at times. So in terms of death, you'd expect someone like that to go out in a cool flashy fight under a rainstorm, but that's not what happens. His death is sudden and quick as if all of his former experience and history didn't mean a thing, and no one there to even realize he's dead. It straight up terrifies him. It's supposed to be a struggling and humbling experience for him to have to start over with nothing physically left from his former self but his memory (he does recover his old weapon, but not before the party's first witch confrontation). His monster-hunting experiences are sometimes the only thing that assures the main party's success during fights, not necessarily his strength. So I feel amnesia would just complicate the narrative I have going for his character in terms of development... if that makes any sense, haha. But I don't know, I'm not a huge fan of the amnesia trope, but I'm definitely open to opinions on the subject. I actually like the idea, but the problem with that is that Ghost's first confrontation with one of the Seven is actually very early on, during a time where he is most vulnerable. He's just been recently revived in a body that's not his own and isn't used to. And he and Nyse aren't entirely trusting of each other yet at this point. One of the major contributors as to why they even win the fight is because the witch they fight is the weakest of her coven. Ghost and Nyse meeting and learning to work together is important, so I don't want to risk skipping any important character development. Also please don't apologize! It's nice to get others' opinions on angles I wouldn't have otherwise thought to look at myself and I really appreciate any takes! Yes, you make a great point. I might have been just been banking on the hope that the main character being killed right at the beginning of the story would be enough to get people interested in the mystery behind it, but I'll definitely put more thought into how I can keep people invested. Appreciate it! Unfortunately, Ghost doesn't die in battle. He's basically ambushed and dies without realizing what's happened, which just adds insult to injury for Ghost because, in his mind, he couldn't even die an honorable death. Your experience with your self-defense course definitely gives me something to think about in terms of the death itself, though. The confusion of how sudden it can be and what even happened makes it feel somehow sadder. I'm struggling to decide if it would be best to have him die instantly or to somehow maybe put a spin on what you suggested when it comes to trying to get away from an unknown enemy that's attacking him. Ghost is kind of stubborn and arrogant, though, I'm unsure he'd realize how much danger he's actually in until after its too late.
