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[Prompt] May 19 – The Quest

This week’s prompts are inspired by ‘plot patterns’ from James Scott Bell’s Plot & Structure.

Today your hero is restless. S/he can’t simply live the way everyone else does. Your hero needs to go on a quest.

Whether this quest (and what they seek) is literal or figurative, make sure the goal is something absolutely critical to their survival, and the obstacles huge.

(In a short story you may only be able to give them one obstacle as the set-piece but you can use the action & dialogue to

  • Imply a whole lot about who they are,
  • Explain why they are here and
  • Show the scale of the quest before and after this point,

If you pay attention to doing this, you’ll end up with a complete  story, not just a trailer for a novel

Send Your Character On A Quest

Go!

4 thoughts on “[Prompt] May 19 – The Quest”

  1. Great prompt – I was a little afraid it would demand a larger word count, but I think I did alright.
    I enjoyed basing my ‘fantasy’ world heavily on Native American culture (added a photo prompt for my story) – and gave my girl a quest to purify herself of the soul of her brother who died while in the womb with her (twins). 😀

    1. Heh. I know a quest is a little ambitious for a short story, but it doesn’t have to be an epic quest. It could be a quest for the last bottle of milk in town when they’ve just predicted a hurricane….

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