Writing Corners

12 June 2010 | Filed Under Updates 

I’ve written myself into a corner.

Stupid corner.

I’m turning to you, my readers, for help. Here’s the sitch:

As you may know, Prince Calder, the main character of The Narrator, is trying to rescue a princess. The narrator doesn’t want him to. He wants the prince to stay in this town to deal with some ghosts. Refusing, Calder tries to leave town.

Originally, I was going to have people come up to him begging for help, and a torrential storm, and so on. Then I remembered: I’d basically turned the guy into a ghost! So if people saw him, they definitely wouldn’t be begging for help, and a storm couldn’t possibly hurt him.

Hello Corner. How are you?

So readers, what do you think? What obstacles could try to stop a “ghost” from leaving town? No idea is too stupid!

Comments

7 Responses to “Writing Corners”

  1. Lauren on June 12th, 2010 10:10 am

    Aren’t ghosts like, sometimes tied to physical objects on Earth? Which they then “haunt” until somebody frees them. So technically the ghost can’t leave a certain radius of the object, dwelling etc.?

    First thing that came to me.

  2. Jenn on June 12th, 2010 1:42 pm

    Ooh, nice! I can use that at his last attempt, when Calder confronts the narrator. Pennington can be like, “oops, I just tied you to that building over there, now you have to stay here forever!” That’d be perfect!

  3. Miss Ann on June 12th, 2010 5:59 pm

    Ghosts are indeed sometimes tied to locations, but through some connection in the ghosts’s past. I don’t htink they can be tied posthumously. SO – you suddenly have a whole new avenue to go back and exploe why he can’t leave when he tries to…..

  4. Jenn on June 13th, 2010 7:13 am

    Makes sense. If a haunted house was moved, would the ghost follow? Wonder if people have tried that to get rid of ghosts.

  5. Dan on June 13th, 2010 2:01 pm

    The narrator can do whatever malicious thing it wants! Have a wandering group of priests come in the same gate he’s leaving and Turn Undead. Or maybe they’re already in the city, hunting some other ghost, and have a spirit-repelling enchantment on the gates.

  6. Jenn on June 13th, 2010 2:20 pm

    Ooh, good idea! I actually do have someone in the city hunting ghosts, so that could totally work. The second one, not the Turn Undead – this isn’t D&D, darn it! ;)

    Thanks everyone! All good ideas! And I even managed to turn the “begging for help” ploy into a useful one by making someone NEED help rather than ask him specifically for it.

    Prince Calder will ne’er escape!

  7. Dan on June 16th, 2010 11:32 pm

    Turn Undead, Exorcise, Do The Undead Hokey Pokey, Do The Undead Time Warp… you got the point :p

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    Hi, I'm Jenn, new grad student and old YA fantasy writer. I've long dreamed of being a novelist, and I bet you have too. I hope you find my blog helpful, inspiring, and maybe just a little bit fun. (But not too much fun. Writing is serious business, you know.)

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