A Killer beginning!

How about starting with her trip home, with the mysterious letter in hand?

You could start it with her already home, looking at her friend in a coffin. Have your MC wish she had paid more attention to the letter when she received it.

That's if, of course, you wanted the friend killed off.

The letter. I would find it difficult to believe her friend didn't text message or email her, so the letter isn't plausible unless it's a period piece before the technology era of cell phones and internet.

Second, I think the suspense of learning someone is out to kill the protagonist is worked in many stories from various "discovery" avenues that are sometimes over used.

Suspense is learning by mistake sometimes the danger we face. So, might not the protagonist have some incidents prior to learning what her friend suspects? And how does this friend come into such knowledge will also have an impact on the story development.

My MC gets a letter from her best friend telling her she thinks someone in town is trying to kill her, how not to believe what she hears, and that she needs my MC to come home before it's too late.

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Just a few thoughts.

Best writing,

Yeah, now your using the tools of writing suspense. The letter, I believe, went out long ago as a means "device" for communicating potential danger to a friend or loved one.

A lost letter is not the same thing and wouldn't work for "immediate" threats to personal safety.

Did she die immediately after making the call? Did the friend become a victim the protagonist learns about by accident?

I like asking these types of questions and coming up with plausible answers by either events that happen or through some chance encounter.

Ask lots of questions and the story begins to unfold by what you can answer as a reader would expect.

SusyB said:

It's not a timepiece, I just like the idea of best friends writing letters to each other down the years. But now that you have me thinking it, the friend could leave the MC a very disturbing cell phone message where it's cut up, can't hear it well, tons of static. Something like that.......

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I think that's been done many times, phone problems delaying important revealings etc. Of course you could write it in a nice, different way, and it would also let you show the MC's doubts and train of thought. On the other hand I like the idea of the MC beside the coffin as an opening scene; that way you could insert something about the insane-sounding e-mails she had received and how she regretted not taking them seriously - and it would get you faster into the story.

Another idea would be to start with a strong opening line, a quotation from the friend's letter/e-mail/message - something like this:

'They're trying to kill me'.
The words kept buzzing in her head as she walked to work that beautiful Monday morning.

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Or something like that - it's the first example I could think of, but I bet you could twist it into something less cliche and with more impact. Anyway, if you choose to open with the message, you probably shouldn't insert too much exposition; as I understand it, the real action begins when the MC arrives in the friend's town. You decide whether you want your opening to be flashy and quick or more thoughtful to set up the scene. Good luck anyway .

My suggestion is not an easy one. But I suggest you write this letter for a strt so you can find a start, then after the letter if the next logical step is for the MC's friend to come home or try to, then write that as your opening. You mmay write more than one opening but just keep writing. It is a horrible feeling to write the opening and read it back only to say "Phew! That stinks!" I have done it on two novels I'm working on, one of which had five rewritten openings, but in the end my opening slide a good walk down the storyline and I used third person POV. It improved so much that I was no longer stuck figuring out where the story was to begin. So just jump in and DO IT!

On the opening with travel--I think Rachel Vater basically begged folks not to do this.
Don't worry about explaining all of your backstory right away. Trust yourself and your readers. Sprinkle instead of dump.

Start in a scene. Don't start with your MC en route to a scene. So start at the funeral. Or start with her having to see the body for herself, or have her start in an awkward moment where she's having to interact with the suspected killer.

Here's a thought. If her friend died, wouldn't she come home anyway? Why does she need the letter to get her there. Just have her come home for the memorial, etc...but then have her find the letter or note (basically the clue) in her dead friend's belongings, or have it offered to her by a parent or police officer, who would be asking her if she knew the meaning of it...

SuzyB said:

It's a big murder mystery, basically. My MC comes home to finish what her dead best friend began.

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After all these years? The story line needs some work from what little I read. If she (protagonist) was previously threaten then why wait so many years?

Wouldn't she call the police or at least tell her family? Why did she suddenly decide to return home after so long? Is the threat still valid after so long a time away?

See the questions I have don't have answers that make me (reader) want to follow this mystery. Although it could be quite interesting.

Best wishes,

SuzyB said:

BUUUUUUUUUUUT, there is so much I need to explain to the readers about my MC. Should I open at the funeral, my MC thinking back about the phone calls, the letters, everything she received from her best friend.....then also explain her past later? Because my MC has such a long, and disturbing past I kind of, sort of need to weave that in around the beginning somehow....of why she suddenly had the guts to come home after all these years......

It's a big murder mystery, basically. My MC comes home to finish what her dead best friend began.

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Watch how much back story you stick into the beginning. Often it's there more for the writer than the reader. Better to weave back story in fluidly, because I'd almost guarantee we don't need your MC's background at the beginning. Let the reason for her disappearance from town and subsequent reappearance be yet another slowly revealing mystery in the book. A subplot.

What if you started with her dressing for the funeral, interweaving her mundane concerns over what to wear with flashes of the email/cell phone message she received. Just a (very rough) example to illustrate what I'm talking about:

Am I supposed to wear black? Aunt Margaret didn't wear black to Uncle Marty's funeral. She pushed the black skirt back into the closet.I think it's too short for a funeral anyway.

"...think someone's trying to kill me."

The blue dress should be okay. Not too short.

"I don't know who, but I'm being followed. And I keep seeing things, outside my window."

God, look at these shoes. Where's the polish? She lifted a rumpled t-shirt from her dresser to look for the bottle, pushing aside loose change, the broken hairclip she never got around to throwing away, and her cell phone.

"I'm not crazy, [MC's name]. Please, you have to help me. Call me."

Her phone. She stared at it for a long moment, the polish forgotten. If she'd called her back, if she'd just taken the message seriously. Maybe [dead character] would still be alive.

Super - now you can try writing it. Good luck.

I agree about using cell, text, etc. instead of letters, considering your characters' ages and time period. While the notion of letters are great -- and they are great literary devices -- it has been done to death (so to speak) and also out of date. If your characters are 55, with email or cell phones, then it may work. Otherwise, it just sounds forced.

Also, be careful about opening with funerals, etc. -- again, that has to be done to death (pun intended). This whole "death brings us back to the past" deal. So if you're going to do it, try something original or different.

I do agree totally with the no backstory dumping or dull travel/funeral openings. ^__^

Random brainstorm babbling:

The letter idea could work if the deceased character for some reason preferred the good old fashioned notion of putting important things "in writing". Maybe it helped them to clarify ideas or express their thoughts better if they wrote things down first.

Maybe this paper trail idea can play an important part later? Maybe the friend wrote something that can point clues to the killer(s) but it was very innocuous at the time.

I didn't know if I had the nerve to view her body. It was my fault she was in that coffin.

just write the story.

My suggestion is to write the story. Consider it a very detailed outline. Then write it.

Once on paper, you can find the beginning by looking for the point where the story begins to run. I often write and find the beginning several pages, even several chapters in. I still need to write the front stuff to get myself up to speed, but the reader only needs to begin reading where the plot is defined and working furiously to entertain.

'My MC gets a letter from her best friend telling her she thinks someone in town is trying to kill her, how not to believe what she hears, and that she needs my MC to come home before it's too late.' ~ homina homina homina. who's doing huh to wha?

'I know it's the "better" idea to start off with a little action/suspense/drama scene so after my MC gets this letter she automatically thinks of the worse, that her friend is not crazy, and she needs to go home right away.' ~ were this a sandra bullock movie, it'd start off showing how hard-working and/or talented she is at something, then illustrate how lonely she is. she would have one ambiguously gay best friend. this person will die after warning her of something. usually she'll fall in love with the guy trying to kill her or his brother who's got a bigger... heart.

kry has inspired me: her friend is dead, the MC is at the funeral, eyeing people suspiciously. well, you know how coffins these daze have little momento drawers filled with concert ticket stubs, beer pull tabs, a pack of cigs for the road and a horseshoe? the MC sees a letter in the drawer, looks around, and pockets the thing. as she reads it in the bathroom, it's a confession saying, 'dude, i'm sorry i killed you.'

then again, i'm a graverobber at heart.

and it wouldn't be her friend, it'd be her ex-fiance, and the dude's wife her ex-best friend. that or the MC was the 'other woman.' that's good impetus to get the hell out of dodge if it's a small town (both actually work well together, as the MC has some shady past to atone for). (from a bad horror movie standpoint, the MC is diagnosed with a mental disorder/suffering from some trauma, and returns from the mental hospital as an extremely attractive, well-tanned and toned young adult (as most mental hospitals have work-out rooms and tanning beds, not to mention salon facilities ~ i mean, the *last* thing a crazy person needs is a bad haircut), then the townsfolk looks at her and shuns her until she proves that the ghosts of the past are real.

but, yeah, steal that letter from his coffin. there's a kick ass twist. i might have mentioned before how much i rule, so i know these things naturally. anyhoo, then the women have to work together. i'm not saying there *has* to be a hot lesbian sex scene, just sayin' that's an option.... (maybe the wife killed him and she's setting her friend up to take the fall. man, you people should pay me for this stuff.)

and i loathe that whole garbled message thing. always have. worse is a complete message that's cryptic. 'they're trying to kill me.' who wouldn't name names here? the worst of the worst is how some juniour sleuth outwits a team of international highly trained assassins.

herein lies the interesting difference between fiction and scripts. in a movie, cliche as it may be, you might really want her pulling into town, passing the 'welcome to mayberry, population 437,' sign. the car she's driving is an indication of her success or lack thereof. sometimes she's doing something in the car that indicates her character. there's sometimes a cheesy voice over where the young actress is being hugely serious. to be 'serious,' there may be scars on her wrist indicating a suicide attempt.

that's bad enough in a movie, but having to read junk like that, i dunno, it's just hack writing, imo. honestly, funerals are okay with me because they're such a good, and most importantly, valid reason to drag someone back from the nether regions. where you skip family reunions and gift exchanges for x-mas, you don't miss a funeral.

alternately, she could steal the dead person's cell phone out of the little momento drawer. then, finding some weird stuff on it, she checks her dead friend's mail every day to find the phone bill listing all the calls made. the thing i cringe at constantly is someone hopping on a computer and everything in the world is right there. worse is when there's something needing a password and the person thinks about it and after a couple of tries figures it out because she knows her friend oh-so-well. gimme a break. i can barely remember my own passwords let alone figure someone else's out.

as an aside, ever notice how every single horror movie now has to make some excuse for why the cell phone doesn't work?

So many great suggestions here, but how about putting someone at the coffin with her, someone who won't let her alone, from whom she has to hide the message, her feelings, her knowledge. Often the addition of a dialog offers an external backboard for feelings and fears, so they don't all have to be internalized. The second character could also play into your backstory with some finesse on your part. Also creates added tension.

It's a great story idea.