Trailofstardust
Minstrel
"Tale of two queens" is my YA fantasy retelling of "The Book of Esther", featuring Vashti and Esther as dual protagonists and POV characters.
In my story, Vashti's arc starts after she lost her position and banished from court. She moves into her personal estate and mopes for a while, but then she remembers the tales told by her friend, a concubine, of her life among the amazons, an all-female tribe who live outside the empire's borders. This gives Vashti the motivation to leave her old life behind to join the amazons, and she succeeds and ends up becoming the adopted daughter of the amazon queen Tomyris.
Then she starts her quest to take revenge on Ahuasuerus for having abused her throughout their marriage. She receives an offer from a djinn imprisoned inside a cave to find a way to free her in return for helping her with the revenge, and so Vashti sets out to find whatever she needs to free the djinn.
While writing and brainstorming I realized a major problem with Vashti's storyline I've envisioned so far: there is no main antagonist who acts as the driving force. While Esther has Haman and Ahuasuerus as antagonists she has to overcome, there is no reason for anyone from Vashti's old life to care about her after she leaves the royal court.
While Vashti is on her journey she gets a raven companion, which comes in handy after she learns of the new queen and feeling sympathy, uses the raven to send messages back and forth between them. But otherwise my vision is that Vashti and Esther's storylines run parallel and they don't meet in person until near the end.
When I first conceived of my story I envisioned a fairy-tale-like tone, similar to the story-cycles from "1000 and 1 Nights" such as Sinbad or the Odyssey where the hero has fantastical adventures in magical realms, encountering monsters and witnessing supernatural phenomena in an episodic structure.
But after I decided I want my story to lean more towards the YA genre, the format of disconnected episodic adventures don't really work anymore, and I need a central villain for a coherent character arc and storyline.
I want to ask for help in conceiving of an antagonist who could drive Vashti's arc.
In my story, Vashti's arc starts after she lost her position and banished from court. She moves into her personal estate and mopes for a while, but then she remembers the tales told by her friend, a concubine, of her life among the amazons, an all-female tribe who live outside the empire's borders. This gives Vashti the motivation to leave her old life behind to join the amazons, and she succeeds and ends up becoming the adopted daughter of the amazon queen Tomyris.
Then she starts her quest to take revenge on Ahuasuerus for having abused her throughout their marriage. She receives an offer from a djinn imprisoned inside a cave to find a way to free her in return for helping her with the revenge, and so Vashti sets out to find whatever she needs to free the djinn.
While writing and brainstorming I realized a major problem with Vashti's storyline I've envisioned so far: there is no main antagonist who acts as the driving force. While Esther has Haman and Ahuasuerus as antagonists she has to overcome, there is no reason for anyone from Vashti's old life to care about her after she leaves the royal court.
While Vashti is on her journey she gets a raven companion, which comes in handy after she learns of the new queen and feeling sympathy, uses the raven to send messages back and forth between them. But otherwise my vision is that Vashti and Esther's storylines run parallel and they don't meet in person until near the end.
When I first conceived of my story I envisioned a fairy-tale-like tone, similar to the story-cycles from "1000 and 1 Nights" such as Sinbad or the Odyssey where the hero has fantastical adventures in magical realms, encountering monsters and witnessing supernatural phenomena in an episodic structure.
But after I decided I want my story to lean more towards the YA genre, the format of disconnected episodic adventures don't really work anymore, and I need a central villain for a coherent character arc and storyline.
I want to ask for help in conceiving of an antagonist who could drive Vashti's arc.
Myth Weaver
