This is a character story. It is the story of a girl who is a monster but who does not want to be. This becomes mainly an internal struggle, so by the MICE formula, this story begins at the point at which Kiara (that's her name) wants her life to change and ends when such a change happens or she becomes satisfied with the way things are.

The trouble is that Kiara wants her life to change from the moment she becomes a monster. This would predict starting the story with her first kill and fulfilling the promise of that beginning (how much she hates herself for having committed murder) by either finding some way to stop killing people or get to the point where she's ok with it.

But....I want the reader to sympathize with Kiara. I want them to like her and hate that the wolrd gave her such an impossible dilemna. I feel that this might not happen if my first chapter opens with her killing someone, as that is entirely unsympathetic. I originally thought of starting with the death of her father, as this is an inherently sympathetic event. But by this time she already pretty much hates who she is and what she's doing.

You might want to dig a little deeper and determine what it is about her character that she needs to change. If the story is simply girl becomes monster/girl hates being monster/girl finds a way to stop being monster (or accepts being monster), it seems pretty shallow to me. After all, just about anyone would want not to be a monster, and would do just about anything to end it. There is no internal conflict in that story.

But, from the little I know about you, I know you're a better writer than that, so focus in on the internal conflict. What does she want vs. what does she need or really wants? What does she have to change about herself--her goals, her outlook, her way of working with the world. What does she need to do to solve her real problem?

Once you've pinpointed that, you can work backward and determine when that conflict reared its ugly head. That's when I would suggest you start the story--when, during the course of her daily life, the internal conflict started to bother her, when the notion that she should do something else came into her head. Then, when she turns into the monster, this will amplify the internal conflict and raise the stakes for her to resolve it.

That's at least one place to start.

As far as I know, starting the story when she becomes a monster might be a fine beginning. Or maybe not. You're the only one who knows that, Christine, seeing as you're the only one who really knows the story you're going to tell. It's not a shallow plot unless you write it in a shallow way.

Now, consider this. Killing people is not entirely unsympathetic; WANTING to kill people is. You could write the scene of her killing somebody and portray how she feels about it as she's doing it, so that the reader realizes she doesn't want to and that it's beyond her control. Potentially, that scene could win my sympathy more than any other scene I could think of.

Ever read "Crime and Punishment?" If not, you really need to; it's a fantastic book. In the opening scene, Raskolnikov, the main character, walks through the streets contemplating how he's going to murder a helpless old lady. An unsympathetic thing to do? Clearly, but Dostoyevsky makes it clear that he is somehow imbalanced and that it is somehow beyond his control. You don't find out exactly WHAT is going on in his head until later, but it's clear that he has problems, and you actually feel sorry for him instead of hating him (as you normally would someone who is planning to murder a helpless old lady.)

Ever watch "Heat?" (The one from the 90s with Deniro and Pacino, not the 70s one with Burt Reynolds). Deniro is a bank robber, and a very cold character. In the opening sequence, he commands his team in robbing an armored truck, during which robbery the guards are all murdered, some at Deniro's command. The movie turns him into a sympathetic character, even though if you knew him in real life instead of in a story, you would fear and hate hime because he's, well, evil.

Point 1: Like with Deniro in "Heat," readers have a MUCH higher threshold for forgiving evil acts in a story than they would in real life. You just have to give them a good enough reason.

Point 2: To paraphrase Ender, once you understand your enemy, you begin to love him (or her). Once the reader understands your character who is doing wicked things, they will love him (or her). Like Raskolnikov in "Crime and Punishment."

quote:

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The trouble is that Kiara wants her life to change from the moment she becomes a monster.

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This is an event story, not a character story. Something went wrong, something changed that put the whole world out of kilter, nothing will be right again until it is 'fixed'. Pure event story.

Could there also be sort of a second relevation of her hating being a monster? A decision point when she sees a way to evaide/make palitable this curse after suffering the affliction for some time? It's not the very begining of being a monster, but it is a begining of change.
Then you don't start with the intital killing incidents, although that might not work at all with the structure you are invisioning for the novel.

I see the answer is in the way I look at MICE. M-I-C-and-E are components, not exclusive terms. Saying that a story "is" an event story is shorthand for saying that it is more about events than it is characters, ideas, or milieu. Who says you can't have equal amounts of "C" and "E"?

My proposed solution to the "equal amounts" case is to engineer the story so that the character's desire to change and the problem occur close enough together that I don't have to choose between them for the beginning.

For those unfamiliar with that, here's an explanation that is both readable and enjoyable!

Shroedinger's Cat: A Fun Quantum Physics Experiment You Can Do In Your Spare Time

I'm sure many of you already know these ideas, but since they may be helpful in a situation like Nano, Here's all the stages, with some notation by me:

1. Ordinary World (pre-monster)
2. Call to Adventure (she becomes a monster)
3. Refusal of the Call (inner turmoil and conflict)
4. Meeting with the Mentor (another of her kind or scientist or wizard, perhaps)
5. Crossing the First Threshold (first episode of killing)
6. Tests, Allies, Enemies (more killing, figuring out her way, internal and physical struggle)
7. Approach to the Inmost Cave
8. Ordeal
9. Reward
10. The Road Back
11. Resurrection (we or somebody thinks she's dead)
12. Return with Boon

The Writer's Journey, by Christopher Vogler, is one of the most helpful books I've ever read concerning the nuts and bolts of putting together the story. His Hero's Journey follows Joseph Campbell's (the greatest mythologist of the 20th century). The steps above don't necessarily go in any order: mentors, allies, enemies, friends may of course pop up nearly anywhere. Crossing the first threshold may happen early or later.

Before anyone cries "Formula!" let me say that these elements are always found to some degree in any good story, just like the MICE elements are always found in any good story. They are tools to help you with what you've already got. Only a bad writer would use them formulaically. Good writers are conscious of what goes into their craft, and to me, tools such as these help maintain that "craft consciousness."

Hope you find this helpful.