Personal and Heroic Sacrifices

[Chessie2]

^My heroine's actually planning on leaving to find answers, not staying,

That's really good! Sounds like an adventure. Yes, this is what you want. She must search for answers on her own and slowly change towards the right decision for the greater good (at least, if that's how you want to write it).

Yeah, I had change in my WIP but this thread has really made me deeply analyze the role of sacrifice. I had an idea of sacrifice, but after this thread I realize where the weaknesses are and why it was bugging me so much.

From within. Within.

If you'll allow me to indulge for a moment, the hero in the Forest Lord (Omarion) is widowed and was very much in love with his wife. He remarries (enter the heroine) and struggles emotionally with his physical desires as well as remaining faithful and loyal to his dead wife. As we know, elves are loyal creatures. This is huge for him. He must produce an heir, which is actually a minimal part of the story but enough that he understands his responsibility as a husband. Anyway, there's a big problem going on in their city of a magical nature. No one can resolve the issue. There is, however, a solution to save the lives of the citizens. For that he needs the heroine. He starts out by using her, giving her what she wants (a relationship) in order to pursue this bigger goal. What ends up happening is he slowly loses the values he once thought/held dear. Being faithful to dead wife starts to become being faithful to his living wife. He struggles big time with betrayal of his beliefs and the memory of his deceased spouse. The conflict ends up happening when he realizes he's fallen in love with the heroine but she discovers he's been using her and never intended on actually giving her his heart. He sacrifices himself for his people but ends up sacrificing himself for HER and just doesn't know it until it's too late. Her thing is an entirely different matter altogether.

 

[Heliotrope]

That's really good! Sounds like an adventure. Yes, this is what you want. She must search for answers on her own and slowly change towards the right decision for the greater good (at least, if that's how you want to write it).


From within. Within.

If you'll allow me to indulge for a moment, the hero in the Forest Lord (Omarion) is widowed and was very much in love with his wife. He remarries (enter the heroine) and struggles emotionally with his physical desires as well as remaining faithful and loyal to his dead wife. As we know, elves are loyal creatures. This is huge for him. He must produce an heir, which is actually a minimal part of the story but enough that he understands his responsibility as a husband. Anyway, there's a big problem going on in their city of a magical nature. No one can resolve the issue. There is, however, a solution to save the lives of the citizens. For that he needs the heroine. He starts out by using her, giving her what she wants (a relationship) in order to pursue this bigger goal. What ends up happening is he slowly loses the values he once thought/held dear. Being faithful to dead wife starts to become being faithful to his living wife. He struggles big time with betrayal of his beliefs and the memory of his deceased spouse. The conflict ends up happening when he realizes he's fallen in love with the heroine but she discovers he's been using her and never intended on actually giving her his heart. He sacrifices himself for his people but ends up sacrificing himself for HER and just doesn't know it until it's too late. Her thing is an entirely different matter altogether.

*sigh* Getting some major feels right now.

I actually just bookmarked that post. I love that we can do that now. It had so much useful stuff in it. Thank you so much for sharing Chessie!

 

[Chessie2]

*sigh* Getting some major feels right now.

Lol it's taken me months to figure out that conflict. Literally feeling my way through the plot then backtracking, setting the novel aside to write something else, coming back to it and feeling it out more, backtracking and writing something else...etc. Finally it just came to me one day. From within. It had to come from him and her conflict comes from her (she has issues being second wife). Anyway, don't know if that example helped anyone. When the conflict is interior it drives exterior plot quite a lot.

 

[Nimue]

That's really good! Sounds like an adventure. Yes, this is what you want. She must search for answers on her own and slowly change towards the right decision for the greater good (at least, if that's how you want to write it).


From within. Within.

If you'll allow me to indulge for a moment, the hero in the Forest Lord (Omarion) is widowed and was very much in love with his wife. He remarries (enter the heroine) and struggles emotionally with his physical desires as well as remaining faithful and loyal to his dead wife. As we know, elves are loyal creatures. This is huge for him. He must produce an heir, which is actually a minimal part of the story but enough that he understands his responsibility as a husband. Anyway, there's a big problem going on in their city of a magical nature. No one can resolve the issue. There is, however, a solution to save the lives of the citizens. For that he needs the heroine. He starts out by using her, giving her what she wants (a relationship) in order to pursue this bigger goal. What ends up happening is he slowly loses the values he once thought/held dear. Being faithful to dead wife starts to become being faithful to his living wife. He struggles big time with betrayal of his beliefs and the memory of his deceased spouse. The conflict ends up happening when he realizes he's fallen in love with the heroine but she discovers he's been using her and never intended on actually giving her his heart. He sacrifices himself for his people but ends up sacrificing himself for HER and just doesn't know it until it's too late. Her thing is an entirely different matter altogether.

Oh, you know I like hearing about this story... It’s not clear though, what he ends up sacrificing? Is it a choice between her and his people, or between her and the memory of his dead wife alone? If that’s not too deep/spoilery to share.

 

[Heliotrope]

yeah, I added above that I bookmarked that post. It was super helpful. My novel has been on the back burner for months because I just couldn't get a handle on that inner conflict and how it leads to change. I've been dabbling in other, random, way less interesting stuff, but I kept coming back to my novel with fresh eyes. I'm finally breaking through now, but it has taken some time and your post just really solidified for me what was missing.

 

[Chessie2]

Oh, you know I like hearing about this story... It’s not clear though, what he ends up sacrificing? Is it a choice between her and his people, or between her and the memory of his dead wife alone? If that’s not too deep/spoilery to share.

It's interior. What he sacrifices is vulnerability. Not wanting to be hurt again, not wanting to betray the memory of his dead wife, not wanting to give himself physically to another woman are all ways he's holding himself back from relationship, from being vulnerable. But vulnerable is what Elenaril needs and also what he needs. Vulnerability is what allows for a healthy, loving relationship. It's the key to honoring the covenant of marriage (which is a common thread in all my stories and ultimately what you could define as my brand).

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

My heroine is currently asking big questions about love and life. It's like she learning a whole new way of thinking [in a way, she is]. I'm still working on giving her something/someone to live for, though. There's only three beings that she is actually close to: her two guardian spirits, and her mother.

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

Nearly 5,000 words into the story, the heroine is finally setting off on her adventure.

 

[Nimue]

It's interior. What he sacrifices is vulnerability. Not wanting to be hurt again, not wanting to betray the memory of his dead wife, not wanting to give himself physically to another woman are all ways he's holding himself back from relationship, from being vulnerable. But vulnerable is what Elenaril needs and also what he needs. Vulnerability is what allows for a healthy, loving relationship. It's the key to honoring the covenant of marriage (which is a common thread in all my stories and ultimately what you could define as my brand).

This is one of those classic romance arcs that speaks to human nature and the nature of relationship. I’ve no doubt it will create a compelling story.

My heroine is currently asking big questions about love and life. It's like she learning a whole new way of thinking [in a way, she is]. I'm still working on giving her something/someone to live for, though. There's only three beings that she is actually close to: her two guardian spirits, and her mother.

Perhaps the desire to be with these people is enough, if they’re given strong characters. But there are other possibilities, like a deep love of art, of exploring the world, something she’s not willing to give up. However, the more human and identifiable you make these desires, the farther the reader will go with the character. Love and family are the strongest motivations for that reason.

There’s another place in my story that I’ve been struggling with, and it’s something I hesitate to post on this forum, but maybe if I bury it in this thread and ask you guys... In the plot I described, one of the earlier sacrifices the heroine makes is her own unborn child. I have searched and searched for a different place to take the storyline, but nothing fits thematically in the same way. It’s midsummer, and the offering to the Goddess-as-Mother is the first fruits of summer given up to the earth...twisted by those who cast the curse when they sacrificed the unborn child of an unwilling mother. Only a sacrifice of the same strength can undo it, but it must be willing. This brings up issues of family, her character flaw being self-isolation, and the aftermath tightens the hero and heroine’s difficult relationship. They would want to have a child if circumstances were different. The heroine has only lately realized she’s pregnant, and the thing is that she doesn’t feel that she can have this child regardless—it would be under the same curse that its father is under, which she is trying to lift with these sacrifices. As the village greenwitch, she has access to abortifacients. It isn’t the ending of the pregnancy that bothers me, but the idea of getting something out of it, magical or otherwise... I would try my best to write this in a serious and sensitive way, but is this completely in poor taste? Is this something you could never read in a million years? I’ve gone over it so many times in my head that I no longer know what to think...

 

[Heliotrope]

Yeah, like Chessie's story, the "tangible" thing doesn't necessarily have to be a person, it could be an ideal connected to a dead person. The old "my mother instilled in me insert ideal here trope" is an old and worn one, but it's one example of how you might use a dead mother as a tangible reason for not sacrificing herself. Maybe her mother always believed finding another way... maybe the heroine has a personal memory of her mother always working so hard to make ends meet for the family, even when they thought there was no possible way. Maybe she has a singular memory of a bad winter (getting very close to cliche territory but this is merely for example lol) and the family is starving and they were dangerously close to having to split up and go to a workhouse or something equivalent in your world. But the mother refused. No. Splitting up is not an option. Walking away from this is not an option. There is always another way. And she found one.

You get the idea. There is a deep ideal instilled in the MC. A tangible one. A real life memory that she clings to about her dead mother and that ideal is what drives her to make a different choice than the others.

 

[Heliotrope]

It isn’t the ending of the pregnancy that bothers me, but the idea of getting something out of it, magical or otherwise... I would try my best to write this in a serious and sensitive way, but is this completely in poor taste? Is this something you could never read in a million years? I’ve gone over it so many times in my head that I no longer know what to think...

it is an uncomfortable for sure, but not poor taste IMO. I actually really like that it is so controversial and points to the severity of this curse and the stakes that are necessary to undo it. I read a quote once (and I really don't want to start an anti-abortion/pro-life debate) that went along the lines of:

"If you had to choose between saving the life of one living five year old, or a hundred frozen foetus' which would you pick?"

I mean seriously. Tough choice. But tough choices make good fiction.

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

^^^It doesn't seem tasteless at all to me.

^^That's a neat idea. Though her mother's still alive and accompanying her on her 'quest', as it were, and her mother is a single parent family [literally].

 

[Heliotrope]

Ok, well then there is her personal reason to stay? Maybe her mother needs her in some way?

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

Well, there's the fact that without her, her mother would be all alone. [The MC actually considers this in my latest scene.]

 

[Heliotrope]

But why does her mother need her to go? It is a necessity. If the mother could just go and the book would have the same result, then what is the point of the MC?

This is how all the early drafts of my chapters look lol. Thought. Question. Bit of dialogue. Bit of expo. More questions.

Example:

She can’t go to the cops, or her dad will be charged for kidnapping and theft. She has to investigate herself. This is where the journalist part comes in. Put your investigator hat on and start searching. The first place to the search would be the museum.

For the first time I realized that I couldn’t stand by and watch my life like it was a TV. I couldn’t tie up my hair and turn my chin a certain way like the reporters on the screen and pretend that everything happening around me was merely news. Something to be reported on but nothing I actually had to be involved in.

Ok good. I like that.

Unless she HAS To make the choice to go to school. What would force her to go to school? Equipment? There is something at the school she needs? Kade. She needs him to do as much investigating as he can on Mary Read and her missing baby.

Ok, so then she has to know in advance his skills with a computer. Move that scene up a bit? To chapter two? Or it could happen after class? When she gets in the fight with Jacob? – Possibility.

Ok, so she goes to the school to find Kade and ask him to investigate while she goes to the museum. Why would he do it for her? What could she use as leverage?

But they get caught, and thankfully Mary is right there, waiting for her....

It is constant for me.

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

If the MC doesn't leave the village, she will be [forcibly] taken and sacrificed by her grandparents. If her mother doesn't leave the village, she would likely be chosen as a desperate substitute.

 

[Heliotrope]

And if they both leave who will take their place?

 

[Nimue]

it is an uncomfortable for sure, but not poor taste IMO. I actually really like that it is so controversial and points to the severity of this curse and the stakes that are necessary to undo it. I read a quote once (and I really don't want to start an anti-abortion/pro-life debate) that went along the lines of:

"If you had to choose between saving the life of one living five year old, or a hundred frozen foetus' which would you pick?"

I mean seriously. Tough choice. But tough choices make good fiction.

Thanks Helio, that makes me feel a little better... I don’t want to get into the politics either, as for one thing the pre-medieval concept of pregnancy is complex and different from our own, and as this happens prior to her quickening the heroine views it more as the potential for life rather than a life. But she feels the loss strongly afterwards, the death of the possibility of a family. She was raised alone by her beloved adoptive mother, and realizes at this point after years of dreading pregnancy that she wants to have that same relationship one day with a child of her own. I really want to be respectful to real-world experiences and at the same time be true to this character and her worldview.

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

No one will. It's explained why it can only be members of the MC's family early in the story. As a result, a massive hunt will begin once their absence is discovered.

 

[Heliotrope]

Yeah, I don't think she every really needs to get over it. It was a sucky choice. It's a sucky choice for all women put in that position. It's not ever going to be okay. I think so long as you address that you are good.