I’m writing a dual POV YA Fantasy. A lot of the story has come together naturally, except the shared goal. Character (A) is a witch in hiding, and character (B) is the Heir to a witch-hunting throne. What shared goal can I give them that will drive them together throughout most of the book? I’ve toyed with the idea of a Fate forming between them (a type of magic that tethers a witch to a person, place, or thing with a prophecy to solve.) that somehow ruins everything and prevents them from reaching their personal goals. So they must work together through a lengthy and complicated spell to reverse the Fate. but I’m struggling to make this idea work in my book, and I have no idea if it sucks, and feel like some other shared goal would work a lot more seamlessly. I’d love to hear you guys ideas, improvements, etc. Any help would be appreciated.
Are they going to face a common enemy? Who's your villain or what's your big obstacle? I like this tether idea. It reminds me of the movie -- I forget the name -- where the guy and girl get handcuffed to each other at a music festival, I think it was. I didn't see it. It's good because it forces them together, and I could see some comedy and maybe some good tension building coming out of being stuck like that, but it still doesn't give them a shared goal. If you know both their main goals, it might be easier to mesh or entangle their arcs. Then again, it could be as simple as the two of them being magically tied together and begrudgingly working together to solve it so they can get away from each other, but by the time they do break the spell, they don't hate each other anymore. People can grow on each other without a major goal in common. I mean, it's not much of a story if neither has a serious arc, but maybe after they learn to like each other, they can turn their attention to whatever your big obstacle is.
The whole dynamic low-key reminds me of Molly and Oliver in the Disney series "The Ghost and Molly McGee". For context in case you've never watched it, Molly McGee is a human girl who has the ability to talk to ghosts and befriends them, while Oliver is a boy she likes, but his family is all ghost-hunters
