Hi, I'm having trouble with a plot detail. A young maiden named Gwen is given the gift of foresight (she can see into the future) by an old seer named Enya. They develop a rapport as Gwen learns about being a seer from Enya. Later, Gwen borrows a valuable compass from Enya. Somebody steals the compass while Gwen is out of the house - but Enya doesn't believe it was stolen. Enya believes Gwen simply isn't giving it back and is keeping it for herself. In a fury Enya places a curse on Gwen. Because of the curse nobody will belive Gwen's predictions or take her advice. This torments Gwen because if people would listen to her predictions and advice they could be helped. How can the curse be broken? How can Gwen get people to trust her predictions and take her advice? Help ._.
Well there could be hundreds of ways to go about ending it. Have you not thought of any methods at all? I would assume you have had some ideas and discounted some? If you haven't come up with any, are you going to base the cure on how the curse was done? Was it just a case of the person doing the curse speaking some words, or did they have to do some sort of ritual to do the curse? Knowing how the curse was done can give ideas on how to best break it, but to be honest the sky is the limit on options for stopping it. They could just need to speak the curse words in reverse, or have to collect dozens of hard to find items that you then have to chuck into a fire at the solstice while dancing naked around it. So really it comes down to how hard you want to make it to cure, and how much of the book you want to take up with doing this one thing. You could also look up rituals on the web and that might give you some ideas as well.
erebh - good question! Another question - if Enya is a seer and therefore also have foresight, surely she would also see this before it happens and would know it's the truth? Also, it makes no sense that Enya would rather believe Gwen won't return the compass than to believe that it was stolen. It sounds too forced and it's an obvious device to make your story work. I'd change this detail personally, it's not believable. Your key in how the curse could break might lie in who stole the compass, and why, in the first place. And is there someone out there who didn't want Gwen to succeed, or wanted revenge on Enya, perhaps? Use existing elements in your story, but I'm afraid we can't be resolving this one for you. You're the writer, figuring out these dilemmas is part of your job as a storyteller!
I agree that the reason for the curse is unconvincing, unless Gwen is depicted as a very foolish and childishly malicious person. Then it might be convincing, but as a reader I would still find it annoying to spend all that time with the MC developing a rapport with a foolish and childishly malicious person.
These are the kinds of important plot developments that you should figure out on your own. While I don't really consider it cheating if you ask for somebody on a forum to do your brainwork for you, I think (and I mean no offense by this) it's a little cheap. Regardless, I don't have a solution to the question, but in order to discover one, you need to have some set parameters on how curses, magic, all these kinds of special powers work in the sphere of reality that is your book. Whenever KaTrian and I write magic into a story, we have a long list of rules about what can and can't be done with it, how it works, what makes it work, all that jazz. Of course, since magic isn't real, you just have to come up with all the parameters, rules, regulations etc. by yourself, but we find it's a good idea to make the rules fairly strict, or you'll risk making your characters so powerful, they'd overcome any obstacle with relative ease, and since books generally benefit from suspense caused by adversity, having none might hurt your story (or if you do make them struggle with some obstacle, it will feel forced).
