Several ideas for same story.

[Addison]

I'm not really sure how to describe this head ache. (Besides annoying) I have a story and it's the same characters, same setting, same conflicts all rising to the same climax and resolution. But my imagination keeps proposing new ideas for a beginning. In all cases my protag has lost at least one parent to either: law, death, divorce or such. Trying to put them all together is insane. Seriously, my mom caught me muttering to myself about it.

I've written them all, re-read them all. I've read some block-busting techniques, one of which is to write down the important parts (the parts you like) on index cards or sticky notes and arranging them in order. Has this worked for anyone? I'm going to try it but I'm just curious. Any other tips to getting opposing beginnings sorted out would also be helpful.

 

[saellys]

With regards to the index cards or sticky notes, if you'd rather work with something less tangible, Trello.com is a sort of bulletin board thing where you create "cards" and then rearrange them any way you please. I made a fluid outline (just brief summaries of scenes, no numbers or letters) after my co-writers and I finished our first draft, to help keep track of scenes we want to add in the second and where they ought to go relative to what we already had. It's been pretty handy.

As for your main problem, all I can do is tell you which idea I find most compelling. If your protagonist has lost their parent to law, it means that parent isn't an influence on your protagonist's life, but they might have a chance of returning someday, perhaps irrevocably changed. Smells like conflict to me. That can also be blended with the divorce angle. I'd find some mix of the two much more interesting than the My Parents are DEAD trope.

Good luck! It's a thorny problem, and I hope an answer presents itself soon!

 

[Chilari]

Oh god get out now.

Seriously. Put it aside for a while and let your subconscious mind work it out by itself.

I had a story like that, except it was the ending that kept changing. I had two different main routes I could pick (happy or tragic ending) and for each about three different ways of getting there. Key revelations at different points in the story, that sort of thing. I just couldn't settle on one ending. I wanted both: I wanted my characters to sort things out and live happily ever after, but I also wanted them to destroy one another and themselves in their vendetta.

I tore myself apart writing scene after scene, each successive scene written from a different version. I was never happy with any of it, because I wanted it all. I spent a year doing this; two years on the story in total, but the second year just going from one ending to the next. I spent entire days distracted by it so that all I was thinking was about this story, ignoring lecturers, letting my eyes glaze over when looking at cross sections of pottery under a microscope, and all the time this one tune I had irrevocably associated with the story through listening to it on repeat when writing.

A year and a half ago I gave up. I realised how much of my energy it was consuming and I just decided no; I had more important things to worry about, like my clinically depressed fiance and my masters dissertation, not to mention the last few assignments for my masters degree. It is one of the manuscripts that will never be revived, because of the difficulties it caused me. Even now I'm not quite fully recovered; I can't listen to the track that I associated with that story even though it's a beautiful track and used to be on my "bed time" playlist on my phone (I need music at bed time to get to sleep); last time I put on the wrong bed time playlist, the one with that track, Reverie, in it, I had nightmares all night and the worst night's sleep in years; now I stick to my nice safe LOTR bed time playlist.

Since I put the story aside I've not got further than a few thousand words into any story I've started. So I've decided to focus on reading lots and, if I must write, to write short stories or fanfiction until I'm ready for a new novel.

Now, it might be different with a beginning than with the ending (well, basically the whole second half of the book), but my advice is, don't let it drag you in too deep, because if you get too hung up on doing all possible versions you might not escape. I don't mean to scare you; you're a different person and your issue is with a different part of your story, so it could well end up completely differently to what happened with me. It might well be that someone else has a trick that'll help, or the right words to help you think differently about it and come to a solution, and I really hope that is the case. Good luck.