Mission. Quest. Thing.

Grace from Fictionally tagged me with this “Author’s Quest” tag. It sounded so entertaining that I was hoping that at the bottom of her post she’d tag me, and she did! Thank you, Grace!

I’ll be using my recently finished fantasy novel to answer these questions.

1. There you are in the middle of writing one of your favorite stories. Suddenly, a portal materializes before you, and a note is tossed through. You read it and discover that it is a plea for aid from one of your favorite characters—you know, the comic relief one. You leap through the portal (who cares about danger?) and meet your character. Your reaction? (Explain who this character is first.)
Meeting Lord Volum is not exactly who I’d have preferred to meet. . . . (Insert emoticon with tongue sticking out.) He’s a flirt, stupid, and only mildly entertaining. Why would he call for help? Who knows. . .probably some mindless expedition he’s decided to set out on is collapsing because he doesn’t have the ability to lead it well.

2. Wow. Things really are a disaster. The story is taking a life of its own. Worst of all, your awesome hero/heroine has fallen in love with the completely wrong character. How do you convince them that your match is really the best person for them?Seriously? Seriously? So that’s why Reuel was distracted from Volum’s outrageous games and couldn’t run to fix them, so I had to! I don’t know how I could convince him to love who I’d like him to—he doesn’t listen to me very well. But that’s completely out of his character! Maybe he needs a character fix. But how can I do that from inside this world? I decide to send an urgent letter to Becca Anne on the other side, telling her to hack into my computer to fix this sudden personality change. The result? World’s back to normal again, that’s all.

3. Oops. You just got captured by the villain. But you can handle this, right? After all, you created their nefarious mind. What’s your plan? Do you exploit his weakness or do you take advantage of your knowledge of his lair to escape?So maybe I did create Owraith son of none, but I’m scared to death of him nevertheless. I know he’ll never let me escape, and I know he has only one weakness—he thinks too much like another character of mine, who I happen to know very, very well. But the problem with that is that we’ll just play endless mind games. So I sit there for a while and think of what I should do.

4. Unfortunately, your awesome hero/heroine just got captured too. . .and they’re wounded. Rats. You can’t just leave them, can you? And they’re feeling pretty discouraged. What would you say to encourage them?Reuel’s always had a pretty big head. . .I figure if I talk him up enough he’ll be encouraged and will help me get out. He is, after all, way smarter than I am, and even if he’s wounded, his constitution is strong. And he’s an excellent swordsman. It’s probably more fortunate that he’s captured with me than outside waiting to rescue me (if he would even try to).

5. Great job. You practically just promised your character a happy ending. But can you guarantee it? You’re in the story now, and you might never have written your hero/heroine into such peril. But wait a second. . .you are the author! So what if the story isn’t going how you thought? Make a new happy ending! Do you single-handedly rescue your hero/heroine or do the other heroes/heroines come and save the day?Once I’ve finally figured out how to implement my “author”ity in this world, I allow my other heroes to come in and save the day. Either way, I kinda did have a big hand in it. . .I am, after all, the author. . . .

6. Woohoo! You’re free! And things are shaping up. Maybe not the way you had written it, but hey, maybe you got a new perspective on the story! Now. . .you have to say goodbye to your characters. Do you hug them goodbye? Give them something to remember you by? Give an inspirational speech, telling them what you love about them and what hopes you have for their future?I give them all hugs and tell them how much I love them, even if they don’t love me in return, and then I figure out how to open portals between worlds whenever I’d like so that I can go back and forth when I need to.

And I tell Volum to stop, for heaven’s sake, sending notes about dorky things.

(Can you find the two movie quotes in this post?)