The mysterious mentor, the hero's best friend, a cast of stock characters to pad out the story. Have fun or not and pick one with a twist. -- Knitnan
[AN: If you're inserting stock characters to pad out a story, you're writing wrong. Also please read this thing at the top of my prompts topic. Y'all should know me enough by now that I always pick a twist.]
Imagine, if you will, that there is a space in which everything unwritten, unthought-of, and unconceived yet in the creative ether can exist. Call it... Waitspace. It is a place where things waiting to become an imagined thing exist in a nebulous vapour. The more an idea is reached for, the more it becomes a personality. Just one at a time, though.
There are physical qualities, like Enormous Bosom. There are more nebulous concepts, like Obligatory Stupid Guard. There's the entire cast of the Hero's Journey. All of them are waiting, once again, to be made Real. They're waiting for a scriptwriter, for an artist, for an author, for a game designer... For someone to use their archetype, their memetic pattern, their base as the launching point for a character.
They wait, and they do not leave. If their pattern sparks something, they become just that little bit more solid. If their pattern is neglected, they fade. Some patterns are no longer needed nor wanted - like the Burden Child. It lingers in a narrative of a select few, but it is hardly used for creative efforts any more. The people who use that one tend to be the opposite of creative. Do not be sad for that personotrope. It is merely an idea. There are bad ideas.
Besides, this is all just a mental exercise. No such reality exists. Except, of course, when we make you imagine it into reality. In the malleable and infinite plane of concepts, some of the more common ones can exist as people, and have... something approaching a real conversation.
For instance, Burden Child has once more sought the arms of the Perfect Mother. One of the few personified tropes who can withstand the Burden Child's inherently frightening nature. Mysterious Mentor watches on, with their face concealed in a shadowed hood.
"I hate anti-vaxxers," Burden Child sobbed. "They made me a monster."
"You're not a monster," soothed Perfect Mother. "Those mean people don't know how to love you properly."
"I wish the people who used me could learn that," sighed Burden Child.
Mysterious Mentor spoke. "You suffer now only to become great, later," they insisted. "Your destiny is at hand." Nobody paid attention to them. They were always coming out with nonsense like that.
Surprising Sage drifted by and said, "If you were loved instead of mis-used, your very essence would change. You would cease to be who you are."
"That's a good thing," said the miserable Burden.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Emdaduljs]
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