START WHERE IT ALL BEGINS TO FALL APART

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

Starting the story in the right place isn’t always easy. Usually an idea of a crime hits my conscious like a slap in the face – forcefully, but probably with good reasoning behind the sting. A germ of the idea has probably been simmering like a stew on a potboiler in a back room – out of sight, but the aroma filters through once in a while and eventually makes me want to try a taste of writing that story.

Discovering the climax more often than knowing the beginning lines make me excited to begin a new story. In mysteries, it’s a good thing for the writer to know up front whodunnit. The why and how are close behind, but the story’s opening isn’t always the first thing this writer undertakes. (Sometimes, I have a title in mind, sometimes not.)

As to every “rule,” there is a disclaimer. Occasionally, the character filters through initially, but usually those stories turn out not to be of the mystery genre. It’s rare, but a few times I’ve had a vague idea at the inception that this may be the beginning of a series character.

At a writer’s conference, I once overheard a writer making a pitch to an editor about his new series character. The editor asked, “How do you know there will be a series until you’ve sold the first book?”

Ouch.

He was probably correct, but the poor author was crushed as he’d already embarked on book two in the series. I have no idea whether he ever sold the first book much less the second and if that particular “series” ever emerged into the three-book deal he envisioned. I hope he did continue with the second book while trying to sell the first to a publisher. The editor surely had reasons for his comment, but history proves many editors turn down many great manuscripts before the right publishers find interest. Think of those who rejected John Grisham. You know they’re dying inside every time they see his handsome face on another best-seller in the bookstore.

To me, if the story is compelling mostly due to the main character, I would think the readers would want to know more about her. Many of us follow Melodie Johnson Howe’s Diana Poole series through short stories and I was pleased to hear she’s writing a novel starring the actress-turned-sleuth Diana. JLW already knows I am not-so-secretly in love with Alan Treviscoe and I am waiting somewhat impatiently for Rob Lopresti to write another story with his retired prison guard we encountered in his Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine’s April 2008 cover story.

How do you know when the character deserves his own series? Perhaps when he wakes you from a sound sleep mingling ideas for crimes with your dreams.

Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight series, says she dreamt the first book and then just wrote it.

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard that scenario. Personally, I haven’t dreamed an entire book yet, but more than a few characters have been birthed during my slumber. I wish I knew what Meyer ate before bed to give her those kind of dreams – you know, the million dollar ones. So far, pepperoni pizza isn’t doing it for me.

J. K. Rowling was riding on a train and thought: What if there was a boy wizard, only he didn’t know he was a wizard?

I do receive many What if? ideas while driving, but so far not a multi-million dollar idea like that (or is Rowling a billionaire now?)

I keep plodding along, taking advantage of those moments – whether lucid or not – where I grab onto an idea or a character or a scenario and make it into a story I end up enjoying.

Where to start? Never at the beginning, sometimes at the end, but more likely as not, right smack in the middle of the whole messy scene where it hits the fan. Somehow, that’s just right.