How should I start this story?

Question

I am writing a story with this idea:

A girl is bored and decides to write a story, so she goes and asks a neighbour for an idea. The neighbour says she should write a murder mystery. So the girl goes home and begins to write the story in longhand. She bases the story in her home town. After writing three chapters of the story, she writes it on her computer and then goes to bed. The next morning, she sees the newspaper about a murder, which is strangely like the story she is writing...

I am still considering if she will have MPD.

But how should I start off the story?

Thanks!

Answer 1

the girl is getting the paper and sees the headline, she is worried, but shakes it off. she writes a few more chapters of her book and the following days, they happen. after the 6th chapter she is scared and convinced that  the murders is just a coincidence.

or , you can start it by her getting questioned by the police about the murder(s) and she is telling the detective what happened, so she is starting from the beginning. you know you start the story with the ending sort of and make the main character "retell" the story but with details.

Answer 2

Something like;

   The August sun scorched the brittle, discolored grass that surrounded me as I lay in my backyard.  School was still a month away and I was already out of things to do. How was I suppose to take another month of lying around doing nothing. Everyone seemed to be on vacation now so there wasn't any chance of escaping the sadness that radiated from my home, from my mother. I knew that their marriage was in trouble, but what was I suppose to do about it? I never imagined that he would leave. Didn't they promise to always be together? Didn't they promise to remained married until death embraced one of them? I tried to avoid the question that I really wanted answered but to no avail. It made it's way to the front of my mind. Didn't they love me? Didn't they care that their constant fighting was probably affecting me worst of all? No. As long as they were able to yell, they didn't care that I had spent the long summer nights crying myself to sleep. They didn't care that even in sleep I couldn't avoid the memories of them yelling, of dad slamming his fist on the table, of the tears that fell down mom's cheeks.

     Don't think about it, I told myself constantly. You deal with that too much anyway. What was I suppose to do though? Ignore my life? Ignore reality? Not likely. What I needed was something to distract me. Something, or somewhere I could escape to. Instantly, the thought of a book came to mind, but I had already read all the books that filled the many shelves lining my bedroom window. What I wanted was a new place to go. A new adventure to read.

    I scowled to myself. I didn't have the money to buy a new book, much less the space to put it, and the library was to far away to bike. I could ask mom to drive me, but I didn't feel like seeing her tear-stained face at the moment.

    I sat up and sighed as the grass crackled beneath me. There had to be something I could do, but what? I picked up a small twig that was laying beside me and began to scratch absentmindedly at the dirt. I continued to attempt to think of a solution to my predicament when I looked down. I had carved two words into the earth; Why me?

   My face fell to my knees, one tear fell down my cheek. One tear, that was all I would allow. All I could allow without breking down. Angrily wipping the tear from my face, eracing all evidence that it had ever existed, I began fiddiling with the twig. It had a sharper point than most. It would be nice for writing if it were a pencil.

    It was then that I thought of my solution.

Answer 3

I'd go with a dark stormy day to set of the atmosphere of the story. Like your main character is sitting at home stuck inside due to the rain and the neighbor calls to talk to her mom about something and maybe the neighbor asks what she is up to or something along that matter..

Answer 4

She should awake from a nap and as she realizes that she is wasting her free time, she decides to write a story. Just my opinion of a good into. Hope I could help!

Answer 5

Sounds similar to a story by R.L. Stine about a kid that writes a story using his typewriter and it begins to actually happen. But if you had her have MPD that would be really interesting! (I was a nursing student in high school and psych really interests me).

Depending on her age I would start it off during the summer and have her friends gone on vacations. Or you could have it that she has just moved to the country with her parents (or parent) and she doesn't know anyone and nobody lives near her but her neighbor that tells her to write a murder story. And if you have it set in her hometown she may be able to go back to visit a friend? Sorry if those ideas aren't all that great. I'm tired.

Good luck!!!

Answer 6

That sounds really exciting. You could try starting out the book with the girl trying to sleep in the middle of the night, but she can't because she has writing a story on her mind. then skip ahead to the next morning (weekend) and she can't decide what she wants the story to be about, and she is in her room at her desk. Then she goes over to her neighbor and . . .  

Answer 7

Start by just telling the reader about this girl.  What's her name, how old, what are her interests, etc.  Set up her character first.  Perhaps she is troubled and her psychiatrist or a close friend (maybe even the neighbor) tells her to get these strange thoughts out of her head by writing them down..

The coincidences start off small...she writes about a dog getting run over and the next day sees a dog lying in the middle of the road outside her house.  At this point she doesn't even suspect that her writing caused it.  As her writing goes on, she starts to notice things...sudden storms when she writes about a stormy day, seeing a bad person in town die of a heart attack after a character based on them does in her writing...

But when she starts to realize, she tries to make things happen.  She writes about her mother winning the lottery, but no win.  She writes herself a good grade but gets a D.

You could go two ways here...either it's only the bad things she writes that come true, or things only come true if she is so lost in the writing that she doesn't realize what she's putting on paper.  You could even have an inner battle where she knows what she has to write to make something happen, but knows she can't be thinking about it.  I picture the neighbor helping her here (ever read/see Pet Semetery?  I picture a neighbor like the guy across the street from the author and his kids who tells them the history of the town and cemetery).

Hope this gives you some ideas to work with.  Use what you like, ignore what you don't.

Answer 8

the girl could be sighing in her room, sitting at her desk, looking bored and has a paper and pencil in hand

which gives her the idea to start making a story but doesnt know what  

hows that?