All right, creative and beautiful people, help me brainstorm things a medieval bully would do. Victim: Young miller's daughter in a small medieval-fantasy town Bully: Boy who is 3 years older than the girl and lives down the road Situation: Girl lacks confidence and doubts herself as a young adult bc asshat bully was always putting her down and telling her she'd never amount to anything. I'm writing a scene where my young adult MC is talking to her mentor about why she lacks confidence, and I'm having trouble coming up with specific things the bully would have done or said to her as children that would cause her lack of confidence, that she can tell her mentor about. Any ideas?
I feel that bullying her to reduce her self-esteem may be too sophisticated a plot for the scheming villain to count on. What if she joins the people she’s not supposed to join, just to escape? What if he triggers her to fight back, turning passivity into action when what’s wanted is passivity? As an alternative, what if he bullies someone else, someone that she feels she needs to stick around to protect?
So in my mind, there's probably some stuff going on in her home life too. Maybe her parents are just more distant/neglectful and that's one reason the bully makes such an impact. Maybe they also supported a mindset that supported his message. One day you'll get married have kids and be just like all the other women maybe? (If you want to make it bad, they've arranged her marriage to said bully and that could kick off a 'run away' plot like ChickenFreak suggested.) I don't know if you need specificity here though. I'd imagine stuff like 'he was always telling me how worthless I was, how I'd never amount to anything, pushing me around' covers it well enough.
Taking a completely different tack, this is where research can be a big help. The dynamics of society were very different in medieval times from what they are now. Consider what her day would actually be like without a bully. And what his would be like if he weren't one. Also give both of them specific personalities, even if 'his' personality isn't central to the story. I have no doubt 'bullies' existed in medieval times, but they won't be slamming somebody's locker door shut just as they ratchet through the combination to open it, or passing embarrassing pictures around on social media. Figure out what these people did during the day, what was expected of them, what was frowned-upon, etc. And then work with what you find out. I'm sure that the reality of what would have happened will be interesting indeed. And rich fodder for your writing.
Back in the day, the miller also collected tythes and taxes for the church/landowner, and he had a monopoly on a vital process. It is quite on the cards that the miller would be a bit hated for doing that crap (I'd bloody hate him, class traitor etc etc) that would give scope for all sorts of shit being heaped on the head of poor whimsical daughter as she skip through the buttercup meadows twining daisy chains in her perfect blonde hair and singing right wing Aryan songs. Or something like that.
