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In a book I’m currently correcting, I have two characters who have to go on a journey to find some armor. There are some tests along the way…don’t leave the path, that sort of thing. But at one point they have to pass though a swamp. Right now I just have them both struck with a irrational fear and they have to resist leaving the path, but I’ve not been satisfied with it for awhile and want to give them a better ‘testing’. Any ideas?
INTJ - Inhumane. No-feelings. Terrible. Judgment and doom on everyone.
Could there be some creature that lives in the swamp? Like a giant snake; who they know lives in the swamp and few who enter come out alive. That way it’s not an irrational fear about a swamp, but about something inside the swamp.
The problem with that is that I have another book where two characters have to pass though a swamp and fight a swamp serpent, and I want to make both testings different. I suppose one way would be to take out the swamp completely and replace it with forest, mountains, or something else, though I still am not sure what sort of test I’d do then…
INTJ - Inhumane. No-feelings. Terrible. Judgment and doom on everyone.
What if there were things in the mist— illusions— that tried to get them off the path? Like the voice of a child crying for help, or the screams of a woman in distress, or a weeping baby? Things that would appeal to their heart and make them jump out to save something without thinking, but in the end are not really there.
Of course there could always be the one fork in the road where the correct path is barely visible and looks really difficult and there are all sorts of creepy noises over there, while the wrong path looks like a very pleasant walk.
Then you could also have booby traps that would ensnare one of them and the other would have to work very hard to get him free while al sorts of very scary howling and gargling noises are surrounding him on every side.
And then you could have them meet some really weird but friendly swamp creature who could give them bad advice that would lead them astray.
You could also steal Bunyan’s “enchanted grounds” scenario.
🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢
Hmm, illusions could work. Perhaps a few, some begging for help, others trying to lure off the path with riches and others giving with what seems good advice (by twisting the words of the instructions, though that would mean I’d need more instructions…but that way I could have a path that goes to the center of the swamp…) And in the end, they could figure out all the faces were really from the same enemy.
INTJ - Inhumane. No-feelings. Terrible. Judgment and doom on everyone.
Yes. I like that too.
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