45 Master Characters (51 page)

Come up with different ways for her to feel safe, to gain that false sense of security.

This is the best stage to use some suspense. The hero feels safe, but the reader doesn't have to believe she's safe.

Try a foreshadowing device to hint that things will be falling apart again soon.

The villain can seem defeated at this point, but give him a way out.

Like Innana, she can think she's there to help someone else through his pain, not realizing the only way out now is through her own pain and she won't have anyone there to hold her hand.

Stage 6: Death — All Is Lost

Sarah hears the footsteps coming closer and closer. All her weapons are gone. She backs herself into a corner and curls up as a large figure approaches, taunting her.

The air smells putrid, the dirt muddy. Why did she come here? There's no hope now. “I give up. I can't do this.” She lies on her side and closes her eyes. She doesn't have any strength left to fight.

All of a sudden the villain comes back and everything does an about-face. She thought it was all over, that she could go back to her life a new person, but now things are starting all over again. This stage is like a reversal, and it ends with a dark moment where all seems lost. The villain can still be societal — a woman pushed down is expected to remain down so others can feel good about rescuing her. She isn't supported when she tries to stand on her own.

The villain isn't laughing anymore. He feels threatened by her accomplishments and means to destroy her. He sees that her inner turmoil is doing half of the job for him. All he needs to do is give her a push, cut her down and strengthen her weaknesses. He throws an additional betrayal at her or causes her to feel stupid like a nonperson.

She is captured, humiliated, tossed around and left to die. It's over. She failed at her journey and accepts defeat. She wanders confused about the turn of events and can't understand where everything went wrong. She can't see the gifts that await her on the other side.

If her husband left her, this is when she sees him with the other woman and loses something else at the same time — a job, house, money.

If she was attacked, this is when she faces her attacker and the stakes are raised to where he's set free.

If she was passed over at work, this is when the promotion has been given to someone else. They fabricate information in her file to make her look bad so they can fire her.

She finds herself not only trampled on but also humiliated, all her resources cut off from her.

She is betrayed again.

She may face a literal death experience.

Stage 4, the Descent, showed more of her inner conflict and turmoil. This stage shows her outer plot-driven conflict with the villain. Little Red Riding Hood faced the wolf in the forest, and she now must face the fact that he ate her grandmother and is waiting to eat her, too.

This is a great place to add a supporting character to make the situation even worse for the hero.

Many novels with female protagonists end here, especially those of Virginia Woolf and Edith Wharton. The hero of their time tried to flaunt convention and go against society but was so unsupported she could never make it successfully out of this stage. There was no one to come to her aid or to agree with her. She either chose death, was ostracized or went back to her old life a martyr.