Getting It Right on Page One

A couple of weeks ago I began a working on a new mystery featuring a series character who has shown up in a number of short stories. The opening scene told the reader everything she needed to know and moved the story forward, but I wasn't happy with it. I kept writing scene after scene, exploring the characters and pleased with the ideas that came to me as I was writing farther into the story. I kept notes, deepened the characters and complicated the plot. But still, though I could feel the story was developing the way I wanted it to, I wasn't happy. I made more notes.

When a story idea feels like a good one to me, little pieces of the plot, snippets of dialogue, visuals show up waiting to be put in place. I don't try to force the ideas to come, sitting down and deciding this is the motive or that is the backstory. I let the ideas unfold. It's a slow process in the beginning but I pick up speed once I have the basic idea. The problem I was having was with the beginning--the scene that tells you what's going to come sooner or later, the promise and the expectations. I trust my process and I trust my ideas.

We've had wonderfully warm days lately, so my midday walk with the dog is especially enjoyable. A few days ago as we strolled down a quiet side street a helicopter flew overhead. This isn't terribly unusual here. Occasionally a news copter shows up and we all wonder what's been going on. I looked up and watched it hover and move on, not in any great hurry, as though the pilot were looking or perhaps teaching someone how to fly. Watching the copter from below as it flew nearly directly overhead I thought it looked like a tadpole. And just at that moment I had the opening of my new mystery--a young woman racing to get home before curfew who sees a copter flying overhead and stops to wonder why.

I won't tell the rest of the opening, but I knew I had it right by the the scene that took shape in that minute and the eagerness I felt to get to my computer and get to work. Because I had things I had to do at the end of the dog walk, I couldn't go back to work, but the idea stayed warm and grew warmer, with little details coming along to vivify the moment when the main character looks up and sees the copter overhead.

Because of the actions of the main character in the new opening scene, some of what I've already written needs to be recast. This is not unexpected, and I already know how I'll change a few things, adding and deleting. But the relief and excitement at having found the perfect opening for this tale is buoying. It feels like a different mystery now, and it is.

I need this kind of energy to keep the story flowing so the writing, the construction of the story, doesn't start to feel mechanical. The total narrative now has a somewhat different arc from my original intent, but the new one is much better. My desk is now littered with notes, a map of my fictional town, and research tidbits to work into the story. The month of November promises to be productive.