How could Elani defeat the Lich if Marlena is so much more powerful?
Here are a few ideas:
- Marlena could weaken it, giving Elani time to recover, but then be badly hurt. Then Elani could have just enough strength to finish it off.
- Marlena could be fighting it and losing, when Elani spots a weakness of the Lich and takes advantage of it. This would have to be foreshadowed in some way. Possibly coming out of all that book learning, but I'm not sure why Marlena herself wouldn't know this.
- Elani could have some power that even Marlena didn't know about, such as the ability to absorb a magical draining attack of the Lich. Marlena finds her near death, beats back the Lich while suffering terribly, and in the meantime Elani's power is growing dramatically. She then explodes into action.
Koryna, Nice or Not?
I'll put your comments here in italics to separate them from my answers.
You're correct. Elani and Koryna are friends. You're basically suggesting I rewrite Koryna to be Elani's adversary, without Elani knowing this. It would mean that she (Koryna) can't root for Elani during the Scrying Mirror scene, and that she won't be eager to rescue Elani.
I suppose my suggestion is that they're
not friends. Though perhaps they could become so in time.
Koryna could act as I suggest without being wholly bad. If she has some negative character traits such as self-importance, or snobbishness, she could still be nice deep down but begin the story as an antagonist to Elani. It gives her character somewhere to go during the tale, a way to develop.
She could look down on Elani for all sorts of reasons, but still root for her in the Scrying Mirror scene. Just because you don't think well of someone doesn't mean that you want them to get hurt, or that you wouldn't try to rescue them. That would tell us that she isn't all bad, too.
I don't understand your suggestion with regard to setting up Koryna for a fall. She and Marlena had expected Elani to be chosen as assistant, but instead Koryna gets that position. Koryna now believes she will be next Ayreia, despite she herself thinking Elani to be the better choice.
(Not so nice) Koryna may secretly believe so deep down inside, but her character flaws shout that down. She tells herself that Marlena
and the goddess couldn't possibly be wrong, so she must be better than Elani. That feeds into her sense of self-importance. Other people defer to her because of it, and this makes her even more big-headed. Her own nagging doubts would just make her lash out at Elani even more. Perhaps Elani doesn't even understand what makes Koryna hate her so?
Why would the goddess first choose Koryna as an assistant, and then switch to Elani as Ayreia? The story was set up to point out that Ariana had chosen Elani as Ayreia almost twenty years ago, without anybody knowing; not even Elani herself.
For the reasons that you already give now in the story. To test Elani, to forge her. To make her work. Without this, Elani wouldn't have become the woman she has. Does this mean that there's something in Elani's past that we need to know? Was she lazy once?
In short, Koryna never "lost" the Ayreia position; she was set up to believe she might become the Ayreia, only to find out that Ariana had planned for her to be the Ayreia's assistant (first, Marlena, later Elani) all along.
It's the finding out that's the 'fall' I refer to.
- 'Not so nice' Koryna goes into Marlena's office fuming about that clumsy Elani bashing into her in the corridor.
- She gets into a bit of a heated argument with Marlena, expecting Marlena to take her side.
- Marlena reveals that the goddess commanded her to choose Koryna as assistant even though Elani was clearly the better choice.
- The bottom therefore drops out of Koryna's world. Marlena doesn't think she's the best.
This puts Koryna into some nice turmoil herself, for you to play with. If she's not the best, maybe she's not going to be Ayreia? How can that woman be better than her, especially given [insert reason for snobbishness here]?
This is also the reason why Koryna and Elani are friends. The goddess knows everything. As I have her in mind as a character in other stories, she would never appoint someone to be Ayreia and give her an enemy as assistant.
You could have a lot of fun developing this friendship from a very unpromising start, though, and it would feel much richer because of it. The goddess would know how it will eventually turn out.
From Glade to Graveyard
The trouble with placing a reference to the Shannara video game is that it won't mean anything to anyone who hasn't played the game, but could feel like plagiarism to anyone who has. It also has the same problem as the "I'm a healer, not a fighter!" line, which is that anyone who gets the reference is immediately snapped out of your story, breaking the flow that you're working hard to create.
So, by all means include the glade and the locket if they advance the plot, but not otherwise. Yes, moving on and into the graveyard is good. A graveyard's always more promising for a story than a glade!
Now the suggestion about visiting her parents' graves is excellent. I immediately want to know more. She's only 26, why did they both die so young? Does she visit them often? If so, and she's going there for comfort why didn't she go straight there rather than the glade? If not, what is it about her emotional stress that makes her decide to go to the graveyard
now?
Long time in Marlena's room
Actually, it's struck me that Koryna was on her way there with a stack of papers, and she's Marlena's assistant. If they had a pile of work to do, they could plausibly still be doing it much later on.
Note that if it is dark in the forest or graveyard when they do the scry, then when Marlena looks out of the window just before, the sun should already have set.
Dialogue Suggestions
I'll tackle this in another post later on.