How should I end this story?
If my ideas sound sinister, it's just what I got from your beginning. As to the middle and end you seek... I've admitted before that I don't get middles well. But I can come up with ideas.
The technique you might try is the one where you write a word in the middle of a piece of paper, something you want to expand upon, and then draw lil lines out from it and write whatever comes into your head, no dwelling on any and no stopping until the paper is full. This just gets you out of a rut if you're finding you can't seem to find a direction from where you are. It also yields a lot of good ideas.
Change all you like. Nothing is set in stone until the story is in print.
The pusher is a fellow student and the District Attorney's daughter. She thinks that since her father is the D.A. then she'll get away with anything. She is wrong, oh so very wrong. Her father makes her go to jail for what she'd done.
As for direction, Emily just wants to be accepted, and is a nonviolent person. Rose is a friend catcher, and befriends many of the other students. Overall, their relationship with one another evolved greatly since the day Emily stepped into Rose's house at the beginning of the summer. At Thanksgiving, it is revealed that they are indeed related, with Emily being the older of the two, by a minute and a half.
So is it a situation where Emily grows through the process of having to prove to everyone what was done to her sister was deliberate? Because I'm seeing a set-up, and a conclusion, a certain amount of motivation that suggests you know more, plenty of conflict to get you going on a plot, but not rising action. And believe me, I struggle with rising action too. I was griping a while ago about my ability to make characters, premises, scenes, dialogue, even endings, but act II conflict, not so much. I'm finally getting somewhere with mine, slowly. And I've found the best thing is to just do the old fashioned brainstorm. I find it a lot of fun, too... The idea that just about anything could happen inspires numerous possibilities, and following the ideas that pique my interest moves me through the block. But I'm writing fantasy/sci fi (hence the ghostly triplet idea I tossed out). I'm also not sure how serious mine will be, whereas yours seems very serious indeed.
But that's my suggestion; Emily has to try to establish who did it, or whether it was an accident. That said, you'd be getting into mystery writing with that, even if it's more of a Columbo style where we already knew who did it. And I am the last person who should help write a mystery! Good luck. If you need more ideas, try the brainstorm or another, since yours is a historical fiction: research. I made a lot of progress with another story (I have a long series planned and work separate volumes at random in order to keep the facts consistent across the timeline) researching early U.S. mental institutions (bath anyone?) and the history of the treatment of shell-shock in WWI soldiers (they told them not to think about it! Dang.).
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But that's my suggestion; Emily has to try to establish who did it, or whether it was an accident. That said, you'd be getting into mystery writing with that, even if it's more of a Columbo style where we already knew who did it. And I am the last person who should help write a mystery! Good luck. If you need more ideas, try the brainstorm or another, since yours is a historical fiction: research. I made a lot of progress with another story (I have a long series planned and work separate volumes at random in order to keep the facts consistent across the timeline) researching early U.S. mental institutions (bath anyone?) and the history of the treatment of shell-shock in WWI soldiers (they told them not to think about it! Dang.).
Millicent King, the person who perpetrated the crime has no friends, and she's jealous of both Emily and Rose for having so many. Emily becomes a bigger person by standing up to Millicent before finally turning her in.