I want to start writing a mystery novel but i dont know how to start!!!?

Question

Hello my name is miera iam 17 years old i want to start a mystery novel but i dont know where to begin i know what i want to write about but i just dont know where to begin can someone help me out i know people probably think iam dumb becuz i want to start a book but dont know how to begin.

do you think at 17 i should come out with a mystery book or a children book if i do a children book it would be easier right can someone help me with the begining of the children book.

Maybe if you knew the title you someone could help me the title will be called "escape" its going to be about a young girl who was all alone and while she we was in high school she got picked on so as she layed in bed she had a plan but i dont know what esle to write i dont want to make it a horror story becuz people might think iam crazy you feel me the girl had two personailties.

Answer 1

Beginning must be from :
There were three men who killed a monk. That monk was not enough famous and had a very unusual locket with his photo on it. He said, " My locket is having many powers, it likes me very much and no one can survive having it accept me."
Now write what will happen next?
Good Luck

If you are successful in your work then give me 10 points
and..................
If you all like my imagination then give me a "thumbs-up" and help me in increasing my points

Answer 2

I would start with figuring out what your mystery is going to be. Like, the Mayor of ... Shelbyville killed ... the ice-cream truck driver ... because ... he had and affair with his wife and teh ice-cream man knew.

Now, that's a shoddy plot, but you get the idea.

Next, I would do some /storyboarding/. No, not with all the pictures (though you can if you want). This is just planning out you events of the story. Plus, it means when you get a new idea, you can see how it would fit into the story.

Once you have how your story's gonna go, start writing! I'd have someone, like a teacher or an aunt or uncle who won't play favorites, proof-read each chapter as you go so you can get constructive criticism.

And there you go!

Happy writing!

Answer 3

Just start writing and don't worry about grammar, punctutation, and spelling.
Don't worry if your story doesn't make sense, because you can always change it later.

Just start writing.
You have an idea of your plot and perhaps your characters, so just start writing that and then you can add to the story later, or delete portions or change portions.
You are the creator and in full control of what you write!

You're not under a time limit and do not have a deadline, so just start writing and enjoy yourself!

You don't even need to start at the beginning if you can't figure that out yet, but once you begin the process of writing your story, things will fall into place!

Just write and don't worry about anything.
Writing for pleasure is a good and healthy hobby!

Enjoy it!

Answer 4

I would start with the "mystery" itself. What I mean; is what is the thing that is hidden from the view of others? If it is a murder then you need to figure out who it is that you want to be murdered, where, why and by whom. After you have decided this you will have to figure out what crucial piece of evidence leads your protagonist to solve the mystery and how it is uncovered. In a way you'll have to work backwards from the solution of the mystery to the beginning.

Answer 5

It does not value something different than various time! It takes an incredible quantity of attempt to discover an agent, a writer, and you will need an editor. the belief does not value something so basically commence typing. the author's industry is a reliable e book to point you interior the main suitable path to discover someplace to industry your e book. What you may desire to do initially is that in case you're writing the e book, placed up a financial ruin or 2 with a question letter to potential brokers. reliable success and happy writing.

Answer 6

hi there - you alreadty have a mystery in your hands for starters. so first solve your mstery then you will know the mystery about which you are supposed to write. if u want to know where to begin, i suggest, you go to the very beginning and start, keep writing till everyone knows that the "driver did it". haha

Answer 7

"It was a dark, stormy night" is probably not the way to go. Just start with a main character doing something. Describe how he/she is doing it. Then describe the character and go from there.

Answer 8

Murder!

Answer 9

I think those who are telling you to "just start writing" are unfairly giving you an answer that is not possible for many writers because those who are able to "just start writing" subconsciously understand the structure of Story through reading other stories. You can do this too and read a lot of books before you can begin. But that's unreasonable if you want to begin writing now. So, I recommend you discover what those who believe anyone can "just start writing" know subconsciously about storytelling. After all, we wouldn't tell someone who wants to create a symphony to "just put notes on paper" or someone who wants to paint a portrait to "just start painting it". Artists learn about their craft to maximize their talent. Most writers do this subconsciously through reading and mimicking the structure (there is really only one story, the quest) -- and it takes time to learn how to do this. But other writers, particularly the premier storytellers of our day, scriptwriters, still learn the process of storytelling that schools used to teach before the 1960s, before they switched to literary analysis, in film schools. The most popular text that is used in film schools in Robert McKee's "Story". You can buy it on Amazon.

I suspect you don't want to take a few years to subconsciously learn how to write a story by reading so I recommend you take some time to discover this by reading tutorials on websites and also buy the book I recommended when you get the opportunity.

Concerning whether you should write children's stories or not because of your age, your age has nothing to do with it. Children's stories are not easier than popular fiction. But we should be honest, the best storytellers are those who have life experience which is why you will notice most popular writers are in their 40s at least (the reasons why the minimum age to be US president is 35!) and have a large storehouse of stories they can draw from. But don't let this stop you by any means! There are LOTS of exceptions to this. Just understand that there's a reason for it and it's part of my explaination that I wrote below.

To get you started, below is the process that will show you how a story begins from idea to germination. Then, once you grasp this you can learn how to turn a seedling of a story into a rose bush.

To find a topic to tell a meaningful story, you must have something to say. There are two things that I believe are important:

1) Controlling Idea (another word for theme)
2) Premise

The controlling idea is the meaning of your story. The premise is what happens.

For example, when you ask someone who just watched or read "Lord of the Rings" what it's about, they'll probably say something like, "it's an epic story about a hobbit who is given a huge responsibility to take a magical ring into a mountain to destroy it and save the world and elves and men unite to....etc..". That's simply the premise. What the story is *really* about is "we are truly free when we risk and sacrifice ourselves." That is the controlling idea of the story. Of course, we can debate if that is the true controlling idea but I'm only giving you my interpretation and illustrating the difference between what a story is really about and what happens in a story.

Now you can apply this understanding to your own idea. But first you need to come up with a premise.

Finding a premise is accomplished through research and asking yourself "what if" for any situation. If you read the news, you can find many ideas if you simply ask yourself "what if" as you read through it.

For example, I randomly selected a news article on Yahoo News:
Survivors recall horror of flu pandemic

As I'm reading through each line, I'm thinking about story ideas and asking "what if". For example, I read this line:

>> The flu swept through the nation's capital, which had attracted thousands of soldiers and war workers.

Now I'm asking myself, 'what if someone built a virus and orchestrated a large event so they could infect everyone in it to inflict the most damage?'

That's a start, but sounds a bit cliche, but that's okay. Let your mind race and you'll then ask "what if" upon "what if". What if the person accidently released the virus and kept silent while everyone around them died? What if the event was organized by a force where people are called to gather in one location but everyone made excuses for going there without realizing they were being forced -- only a supernatural force could do that -- and the reason is the supernatural force wanted to end the human race? hehe...this gets into some horror or science-fiction if that's your bag. But you can see the magic "what if" at work.

Let's choose the supernatural 'what if' as the premise in this example. We still need the controlling idea. This is what is the heart of your story -- the story you need to tell. Fine stories have deep meaning and make people think.

The controlling idea is found within our story. It's not a single word; it's not going to be about "viruses" nor "aliens". A controlling idea generates itself from your story. As you try to discover your controlling idea, you will also begin to understand the story that you want to tell, that says, "life is like this!"

The controlling idea will be a sentence that tells us how and why life changes from one condition of existence to another. This change will show up in the climax of the last act of your story.

So, how do you know your controlling idea before you've even written your story?

This is where you want to think about what happens in your story and then work up to the last climax. It's going to be rough, but if it's satisfying, you can work with it and develop around it.

Using the premise that people are being supernaturally led to gather in one location, we need to come up with a protagonist. I'm going to use a "what if" and ask 'what if the protagonist is also under this supernatural spell?' That will make it more interesting because it will provide deeper conflict. Not only will he have to try to save the world but also get out the spell himself perhaps.

Some more questions: What is this spell? What is so attractive to force these people to gather without them even knowing they're being forced? Now this is starting to get rich. We know a lot of people do things they don't want because they're manipulated. Cults are famous for doing this. Charismatic leaders and propaganda are also effective. People are manipulated in many ways that many fail to see they're being manipulated. And those who best manipulate do it without you knowing. Life is like that! Now I'm starting to find my controlling idea.

So, how can my protagonist fit into this? My controlling idea is a sentence, it's not simply "manipulation". So, I start with something -- it's better than nothing: "Evil prevails when we fail to examine our conscious and instead follow others" or "Compassion prevails in humans only when we follow our conscious". Whichever we choose, it must be clear in the last-climax of the last act of your story.

As you build your story, you work to that last act. Many writers paste that controlling idea onto the computer monitor and filter everything they write through it. Your characters may go in different directions, but this controlling idea is your guide.

Concerning the setting, you can place this story in a different dimension, in a different time, or on a different planet. That will change the dynamics of the story but it won't change your controlling idea and that is where the power of your story exists.

We've now simply found your idea. Now we need to discuss how to flesh it out and make it into a novel so you don't stop it in the middle.

For the setting let's place this premise 50 years into the future on Earth. All stories are made up of beginnings, middles, and endings. Each scene is also made up of begginings, middles, and endings. Each scene provides conflict and change, and moves the story forward.

Almost every single story is based on a quest where your protagonist chases a desire. So, we need to think about your character's object of desire. In the premise that I've created, the supernatural force is manipulating people to gather in one location so it can infect them with a virus. Because I think this force is intelligent and sly, it's not going to be identical for every peson and is going to feed on the weakness of every individual. I think the best object of desire for the protagonist is going to be his pursuit of power within his sphere of influence. So, let's say he's an oceanographer (I pulled that out of nowhere). He would become famous and influential if he made an important discover -- perhaps a discovery that can save lives such as tsumani detection technology (but in 50 years in the future we could make a more futuristic device). This is what he wants -- power. The force provides him the opportunity to seek this object and eventually he's going to have to go to this one location where the force intends to infect him. Now we have a lot more what ifs' to ask. As you can see, we're starting a great outline of the story and fleshing it out.

But we need to get back to the controlling idea.

I like up-endings so I want him to become redeemed in the end. I think his pride is too great and his pursuit of power is evil. His idea of saving lives is a great idea, but his reasoning is not -- he's doing it to gain influence, not to help people -- this makes him conflicted and provides excellent dimension. This force is going to manipulate his desire. But I am also going to add a subconscious desire to this. I want it so that he really doesn't want power...he simply doesn't recognize that the work he does already helps to save lives by adding to the research of others who are trying to find effective tsunami detection devices. He'll end up realizing this in the end. And this matches my controlling idea: "Evil prevails when we fail to examine our conscious and instead follow others." His pursuit of power only leads him into trouble as he follows others in trying to please them. But we still have to deal with this supernatural force that is manipulating everyone. Do we make our protagonist one who defeats the force, or do we make him lose by it. Either way, we must know the controlling idea clearly at the end no matter what he does.

Although I went off in a science-fiction direction, the controlling idea I discovered can exist in any genre and any setting. So, do lots of "what ifs" and reflect upon your controlling idea and outline your story to flesh it out. I hope my illustration can help.

I believe all this information is related to finding your idea to tell a meaningful story and get you started.

Concerning you wanting to write mystery, what I wrote above will help you tremendously in that process because writing mystery almost always means you have a fairly complete idea of the ending before you begin. In the tutorial I wrote above, you should know at least an idea of your ending and however close you want to follow it is up to you, but if you're writing mystery, it's a trick of the trade -- you start at the ending.