My 90 day challenge novel is a “training” mentor/mentee relationship to learn and “perfect” the craft of on- stage storytelling. (Loosely based on the novel Tuesdays with Morrie.) I am not looking to make the relationship between the mentor-mentee difficult. The only conflict is within the mind of the mentee, “Can I or Can’t I be a professional storyteller.
Will this be enough?
Roxanne Strutz
Hey Roxanne. Great question.
No, it would be very difficult to make that work.
Tuesdays with Morrie has more to it than that, and it has the added asset of being non-fiction.
It sounds like your project is fictional (I could be wrong!). But regardless, that single question would struggle to hold the reader’s attention. Maybe if the writing was absolutely slam-bang top notch, you could eek by, but even then, that would be very tough.
What else is going on in your characters’ lives?
The conflict doesn’t need to be between the mentor/mentee. They can very much be on the same team!
But which one is the protagonist? What else is going on with him/her? What makes this question important? Why does it matter? If one of them is saying “you can be a professional storyteller” who else in the protagonist’s life is saying “no, that’s stupid”? What makes this question bigger and more important than just the protagonist’s own personal satisfaction?
The premise you have can definitely work and can be your driving conflict. But my encouragement is to get curious about your characters, and expand beyond that single question.
