So I'm in the process of writing a very symbolic story where two siblings are trapped in a different world looking for their dad. The twist is that everyone in this world are the deceased from Earth, and each of the 5 characters they meet represent one of the 5 stages of grief as the children themselves are going through these stages. I'm having trouble deciding how each of these characters or groups represent the stages (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance). Does anyone have any ideas as to how I fix this?
I need help with this too so I’ma stalk this.
I legit can’t help at all but it’s an amazing idea.
Mind if i throw my opinion in?
Your opinion would be much appreciated :3
I’m not good at stuff like this, but there’s a very similar concept of this in a movie called The Babadook. It’s about a mother and her child being haunted by a strange monster, which sort of symbolizes the stages of grief. It also has to do with the mothers husband dying, but I think you’d understand it more if you watched it. Who knows, it might help you out a bit. Just a warning, it’s pretty scary.
I mean it is Spooktober. I hate horror movies, so I'll watch an analysis of it instead. Thanks for the reference!
You’re welcome, and if you ever do wanna just try a horror movie, I’d definitely recommend The Babadook!
If it helps, the first group they meet is a town called Charlottetown. All of the residents seem very confused and lethargic, getting a spur to do something then forgetting and sitting back down. They try and ask the residents if they've seen their dad but to no avail. They finally get the location of the mayors office, so they go there. The mayor is the only one doing something, rushing around filing things and muttering about how they need to recover from the flood. Upon talking to the mayor they realize all of these people are dead, and the mayor flips out and is like no you can't tell them! I haven't really decided how they get to this point yet, but they leave the town with the knowledge that they have to find the old man of the woods (the name is in progress) in order to get home, and that their dad is dead like all the people in this land, moving them out of the stage of denial.
Each character could go through the same trials but they react to them in their personalities. So say they come to a dead end, denial would keep trying to get their way through the dead end, anger would get angry (so shocking I know) and would blame someone else completely, Bargaining would try bargain their way out of the situation and so on so forth. But hear me out on this one, maybe each character come to their demise because of their symbol, except for Acceptance. Like Denial could lose their old life as they dedicated their entire life to finding their dad, never giving up and somehow working themselves to death. Anger could lash out at the wrong people, ( this one is going a bit out their) Bargaining could sell their soul to the devil and end up in the pits of hell and depression begins to hate themselves so much, blaming themselves for everything and resort to something bad like alcohol, drugs or suicide. Acceptance however would be able to pass all of these challenges to either find their dad, or realise they can't and live a happy life. but idk its just a thought
They could get really mad and attack the old man of the woods as the stage of anger and the old man eventually points them to a merchant who represents the bargaining stage as a start. Idk tho
