Module Two - Rewriting Your Backstory: The Lost Manuscript of You!
A Heroine's Adventure Beta Product
Adventure Quest™ - Rewrite Your Backstory: The Lost Manuscript of You
Module Two
Excavating Key Stories & Identifying the Ghostwriters
Track the plot hijackers and false narrators
Remember that moment when you realized the villain in your favorite story wasn't who you thought it was? That the "helpful" character had been manipulating the plot all along, feeding the heroine lies disguised as wisdom?
How about the Wizard himself! Poor wee Dorothy spends the entire story believing this booming, intimidating figure has all the power and all the answers. Turns out he's just a doofy, old guy behind a curtain, manipulating everyone with smoke and mirrors (could he really be that clumsy?) The wizard convinced Dorothy she needed his help to get home, but we know the truth... "She had the power all along." That Wizard is the classic "helpful authority figure" who was actually just feeding Dorothy lies about her own capabilities, and she believed them. Exactly like we do.
Shall we hunt for doofy wizards in our own stories?
Because those chapter maps you created in Module 1? Believe me when I say they're riddled with ghostwriters. Invisible, sneaky co-authors you never hired, who've been whispering scripts into your story for decades. And unlike the villains in most novels, these ghostwriters wear very familiar faces.
They're your third-grade teacher who said you weren't "good at math." Your mother, who sighed, "Lisa, you're so dramatic," every time you expressed big feelings. Your high school guidance counselor, who steered you toward "practical" instead of passionate. The family dinner table, where someone casually mentioned to a guest that you were "the responsible one," or "the artistic one," or "the difficult one."
Every comment. Every role that other people assigned to you that you never signed up for. Every casual definition of who you are became a thin story that you've been telling yourself ever since.
And here's the sucky thing that's given you twenty years of IBS, a half a bottle a night wine habit, or a persistent nudge toward casual violence (Don't worry. I know you've never actually punch the DMV clerk in the nose): you've been so loyal to their version of you that you never questioned whether it was actually true.