the story is about a girl whose friends are each killed by two serial killers. the main character, anna leese, is a 13 year old girl she has several friends, the first friend is killed by being shot. they are all in middle school. I was wondering where the story should take place, and how the community will react.
Firstly, are you sure you want to write about serial killers? Why are you writing this story centred around two people being killed by two different serial killers? I'd gladly help you with this as I made a study of serial killings when I was younger. Once I know why I can help you with the reaction of the community, as there are aspects of serial killings a lot of people overlook in the name of quick storytelling. As for where, well at the age of your character... her school, or the town she lives in? Oh, also why have you chosen to write a character so young?
well... there are actually several characters who die, not just two. I made them that young because middle school students are my target audience, because we can make stories that we wont have to make sure not to use too complicated story lines and we wont make the book too easy for high school students. this book is essentially a mystery/crime realistic fiction, with multiple points of view, and the majority of characters are actually written by different people to change the voice of the characters around. If you have a better age for the characters, feel free to give me a suggestion. Oh, and about the murders, all my friends wanted to do a murder/ mystery.XD
I do like the sound of this, however, one thing troubles me: multiple points-of-view. You could pull the same story off without switching to different characters every chapter or other chapter. I'm just concerned the premiss of the story will be lost through alternating characters. I may be wrong, of course. As for where it should be set the prospect of the weeks leading into summer break and through summer break (perhaps even starting at summer camp) is not so unrealistic. As far as the community you could even go as far as having the hot headed sheriff who refuses the situation and outside help - eventually leading to a curfew. As far as the serial killers go, are they working together? If not then you'd probably have some calamitous situation near the end of the story because you'd imagine one serial killer would want all the limelight. And of course if they're both targeting the same demographic ... well .... the streets will run with their blood, right?
One thing to keep in mind is that serial killers are rare (much rarer than murder mysteries make out). The probability of two unrelated serial killers in one town is a bit farfetched. You may want to figure out some connection between the two, to make it seem like less of a coincidence.
Serial killers are complicated things, there is a specific way they act and their overall psychology is pretty interesting stuff, if you want to have lots of people killed try a spree killer, they are indiscriminate with their targets and often kill just for the hell of it, thus you don't have to work too hard on the killings and can focus on the rest of the story. If you just want a murder mystery with multiple killers you don't have to use serial killers, in fact serial killers are very rare and often solitary creatures. They usually have very specific targets (like middle aged red haired men with dogs or something equally specific) and specific methods, I can dig up my old criminal psychology books if you need more information on how they work and that. If the victims all look alike then you could use a serial killler, but if hey're just random you might want to think about spree killings, grudges, jilted ex lovers, etc etc etc. But then I have been known to miss the focus of the story, what is the focus in this case? Is it on the community? The crimes? The victims?
oh, i said that way i won't have to try hard to make it understandable, i was basically saying that middle to high school students would understand my writting more.
