Help! I am stuck. I'm not normally stuck and it's bugging me. The longest short story I've written is about 6000 words and flashback has never been a problem for me as I've had a limited number of characters.

Now, with this crime serial I'm doing which could be between 9-17000 words there are obviously going to be more characters and more back stories. I want to start (have started actually) at the scene of the crime. Body discovered, inspector at the scene, rookie PC throwing up at the sight. Obviously, the next step is to discover whodunnit. I have already a cast of characters, several red herrings and a perpetrator. There's also some love interest - lots of love interest.

What's the technique of involving all these characters and gradually weaving their stories? Never had writers' block before and it's doing my head in!

Do I have to start where I've started? I'm pretty convinced I do.

Oddly, I've just been studying the opening chapter of Ian Rankin's 'The Falls' because I wanted to learn from a Master Storyteller how to handle an opener.

In case you don't have it, he opens with a line of dialogue between Rebus and the Main Suspect, then a brief description of the MS that reveals alot about his state of mind, one more line of dialogue R & MS. IR then rolls out alot of backstory and intersperses it with occasional, brief bouts of dialogue between Rebus and the MS to keep hooking us to the present until we have the jist of what we need know before continuing with the story.

It's slightly different, but maybe something similar could work?

Hope this is helpful

Andrea

Flashback in detective stories works well as dialogue - you can have A telling B what C discovered last week - which as Anj says, keeps the narrative hitched to the present.

Would it work to sketch out the structure? It would be chapters if it was a novel, but I guess sections or episodes with a long-short-story. What I do, which may not suit you, is to have chapters/episodes down the page, and one or more column for the forward march of the main characters.You could then track in another column what is revealed of the circumstances of the crime. That way, you'd know what facts people knew at what stage (even more than one column if it's ever crucial that some know and some don't), and have a feel for how to structure the discoveries/revelations so you get a satisfying denoument. You could put in a column for the progress of the love-affair, too, if you really want to be thorough!

Emma