Writing a story. I want some views on how people (characters) would react to this event??

Question

A girl has always known she has had an aunt, but who died before she was born. She slowly finds out that she actually went missing when she was seventeen and her (the main girl's) mother was sixteen. She visiting her grandparents for the summer and that is how she finds out. This is her first time to ever go to her mother's hometown and her mother refuses to go with her. Her dad stays with her mom, so she goes alone. My question just asks how would you think the Grandmother, Grandfather, and her mother felt about her aunt going missing so long ago.

I figured her mother would have been the most torminted because they were so close in age and were best friends. In the story she left fro the city and met the girls dad right after high school.

Basically how would a mother react to her seventeen year old daughter going missing in such a small town? Father? Sister? Town?

I just need some outside views! Thank you so much!

I am NOT asking what you think of the story. It's not really the story it is the subplot. I'm asking how YOU would think someone would react to having a member of their family gone missing

Answer 1

The smaller the town the more suspicious the mother would be of everyone around. Unlike a big city where any of millions could be responsible for her daughter's disappearance, in a small town the odds of it being someone you know, or your daughter knew, is much higher.

I think the mother would be suspect of everyone, making the disappearance of her daughter even more painful with the thought that it was someone she knew or trusted that may have harmed her.

So it is no wonder she doesn't want to return.

Father, sister, town may all look at each other with suspicion and doubt how well they really knew the people of their community. This could cause a rift in a once solid and trusting community.

Sounds like an interesting story. Good luck.

Answer 2

It's been suggested that the short story might be your genre and that's a possibility but if you want to write a novel you can. Several people have said to plot out the whole book before you write and I suppose that could be a good thing. I could never do that, however, I do know how I want the story to end when I start but seldom have any idea of how I'm going to get there. The great mystery novelist, Tony Hillerman said that when he started his first novel he outlined the whole book very carefully before he started writing. When he finished it, it was nothing like the outline so he never did that again! One of the things that is necessary is to have an idea of how a novel is structured. Take a book that you enjoyed, in a genre you want to write, and read it again. As you do, think about how many problems the protagonist faces, How many people she or he meets that help or hinder the path to completion of the story and think about the fact that you will need to do some of that same sort of thing for your story. A really great book that will help you because it helps define the functions of all the characters that appear in the story is Christopher Vogler's The Writer's Journey. Beyond that there are a lot of books on how to write a novel from which you can get some ideas. None of them will work completely for you because you're not exactly like that writer. One of the most important things is to put your events in an order that will keep building suspense right up to the climax. As a writer I know says, to succeed in writing you need talent, luck and perseverance and if you have enough of the latter, you only need one of the first two. Good luck and keep writing.

Answer 3

You are approaching the problem totally backwards. If you have done serious character studies of these people and really fleshed them out you will know how they will respond. Answer me this - if this happened to your best friend, would you know how she would react? Of course you would. You have to know your characters like your best friends. It is your job as their creator to know how they will react in situations. That is what writers do.

Secondly, you are forgetting about the legal aspects. If a kid from a small town disappears, she is going to be searched for by the cops - presumed dead or harmed. And it is always the family who are the immediate suspects. Minors don't just walk away from towns and the cops ignore it. Your plot needs some serious tweaking.

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They're, Their, There - Three Different Words.

Careful or you may wind up in my next novel.

Pax - C

Answer 4

It is not something I would usually read but i think that it has potential. Good luck with it!!!