Charity Marie Blogs!

Where to Start?

I'm struggling with a writing dilemma. I'm working on my three book series, Angel Deveron, and struggling to find my starting point. I've written a number of possibilities but they feel very slow. So do I start with the inciting event, in which a child dies, or do I build up to it first with some mundane but conflict-filled events? I'm torn and unsure which way is best. If I don't set up the characters, will the rest make sense? But if I do it the other way, will people care? I feel like the inciting event is the best hook but it will likely take a couple chapters to get there.

Current plot:

1) Angel and her husband have a fight before bed about her returning to work and him wanting another baby. Angel doesn't want another baby.

2) Earl Jameson's garden where he's fighting to get aphids off his tomato plants. Sets up the theme of "getting rid of bad bugs" but might be too obscure for people to "get it". Earl fails to get all the plants cleaned due to doctor's appointment and plans to come back.

3) Angel wakes up to her husband groping her, gets angry, makes breakfast. Conflict is it's very tense with Angel refusing to talk to her husband and focusing all her attention on son.

The plot continues for a little while as Angel starts her new job, gets conflicted over missing time with her husband and son, has doubts about returning to work. Then people start dying. Those conflicts then feeds directly into Angel's emotional reaction - anger, guilt, regret.

Max Griffin 🏳️‍🌈 northernwrites 🌕 HuntersMoon Charlie ~ Whata SpoonStealer Elle - on hiatus JayNaNoOhNo What do ya'll think?

One of my concerns is I want this to be in a thriller category but that doesn't seem like a very thrilling beginning to me. But I do need to introduce all these characters somehow before characters start dying or no one will care about them.

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