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Happy Storyteller Saturday!

Today I'll send two questions (which are connected):

Question 1 - Imagine that your characters enter a magic labyrinth that shows them their biggest dream (s) come true. What do they see? Is their dream something they can achieve in real life?

Question 2 - In the same labyrinth, your characters enter a room that puts them face to face with (an illusion of) the person they hate the most or their worst fear. How do they react? Are they able to put up a fight against the illusion or do they need to be rescued? How do they feel in the aftermath of the confrontation?

Happy last week's STS! I love the questions that make me think more deeply about my characters, and this is definitely one of them, so thank you! It took so long because I wanted to do a thorough job and find snippets to illustrate my points (because people seem to like those, I guess!)

Both my characters from Good Slaves Never Break the Rules, despite coming from wildly different backgrounds, dream of surprisingly similar things, and they both have to do with putting their fractured families back together.

Below the cut for snippets and mild spoilers for Ch. 6 onward.

Sadly, [Name redacted] can't go back in time to save his mother from dying or his sister from being sold, or to know and have a relationship with his father (which is something he's never admitted to dreaming of, but deep down he does), or for that matter, to have been born into a different life altogether where he'd actually have any chance of being able to do any of those things, so I would say, no, his dream is not really achievable. Within the course of the story, he finds other things to dream of that may be achievable, but they're not his BIGGEST dream.

From Ch. 5

There was a storm cloud forming in his amber-gold eyes. “You’re going to argue with me about this? I couldn’t even—” He turned away suddenly.

Louisa's goal at the beginning of the story was just to make it through university and her o-chem course in particular, but we soon find out that that's really just a byproduct of her attempts to cope with her dysfunctional family and make it on her own so she doesn't have to be dependent on them, or worse, some awful guy (Corey) she's only with because of his money. Thankfully for her, that is achievable, but if she had to choose, she'd rather heal them and bring them all back to the way they were. And thankfully, they're all still alive, so I suppose that's also achievable theoretically, but it's definitely not something she can do all on her own (which she comes to learn).

From Ch. 19

"...And I thought if I had just tried harder, just said something different, I could have made things okay, but I tried and tried and — “

Fears?

For [redacted], his loved ones dying/being tortured right in front of him and not being able to do anything about it. If that were to manifest as a person, I'm almost sure it would be in the form of the evil, sociopathic son of his first owner who basically ruined his entire life in the course of a month. And yes, it would be difficult, but of course he would fight back!

From Ch. 20

It was the fear behind her eyes, much as she tried to hide it; the fear that he once again had failed to prevent. Fearful, sullied, violated, terrorized, discarded, just like everything that had ever been precious to him. Maybe the streak could never be broken.

For Louisa, I had to think about it. My first thought was being trapped -- not physically, although that might be part of it, but just that feeling of a lack of choice and/or options. But then, her conscience also haunts her, especially because she feels she has blood on her hands from living in an evil, corrupt system for so long and doing nothing about it. So maybe "inertia" would be the best way of describing it. Not being able to grow -- to be forever condemned by the past and forced to repeat it or never being able to atone for it. Idk, maybe her fear would manifest in the form of Corey, because when she looks at him, she sees the person she's afraid of being or could have become. 😂 Fight back? She's already started.

From Ch. 25

She made a promise, then and there. If she ever got out of this room, she would do nothing but good, for the rest of her life. Wherever she found to do it, whether she owed it or not. And if she didn't get out? Well, that was just doing penance in a different way.