Sarah, a shy twenty-something librarian on her first trip to Europe, never saw it coming. While in Greece she was taking some photos of a ruined temple that she didn’t recognize, a slip on a stone made her fall down a mysterious hole that made her end up in a world never seen before, where she discovers that she has been chosen to pass a series of tests that will put her sensuality and eroticism to the test… if she succeeds, because if not she will be eliminated… Can she do it? And what will be the final prize?
6 Responses
Is Sarah the only one being tested? Or is this more of a contest where she is being measured against either other spirited away mortals, or against other mythological creatures like say female centaurs, Satyress, dryads etc.
Should the grand prize be put forth up front or left to the end, where for the most of the story she’s compelled only by self preservation.
I could see a few prize options
1) immortal life as consort of a god
2) given powers and sent back to earth to revitalize the worship of these ancient gods on earth as a high priestess
3) given powers and sent back to earth to become a superhero, maybe go something like Shazam, where she calls out some acronym of a number of goddesses names where each gives an aspect of power
4) she is actually a goddess herself, punished to be born as a mortal with no memory of her immortal life and this is her trail to see if she can reclaim her godhood
5) allowed to choose between returning to her mortal life or staying with the gods and all the sensual pleasures that are found in their realm
The idea is that in each test that she passes from the gods she obtains a beauty trait (long silky hair, big breasts, beautiful body, sexy dress…) until the end she becomes an apprentice of the goddess (I had thought of Aphrodite)
There would also be an epilogue where in a conspiracy between Aphrodite and Hera the two ended up dying and she becomes the new wife of Zeus and new goddess of love (I always like that at the end of these stories someone takes the big prize)
That’s my idea
I wouldn’t consider becoming the wife of Zeus as much of a prize given his known tendancy to cheat on his wife with mortals.
There is also still leaves the gods motivations other then perhaps to ward off boredom as to why they would hold such a contest and give out prizes up in the air. as well as perhaps setting this story concept more apart from ‘The God’s Labyrinth” Which I believe has a similar concept of god’s trails and transformations, including outfits.
If you want to keep the lead supplanting a known goddess the way to go may be to start with a bet between two goddesses on whether a mortal could complete the trails, with stakes like the loser becomes mortal making the Sarah her replacement. In which case I could see Hera helping Sarah so she can bid goodbye to dealing with Zeus preferring to be mortal then to keep being married to him by losing the bet. That makes Sarah winning still be a conspiracy as you seem to want but one where the grand prize isn’t as great as it perhaps seems.
Either that or Sarah becomes a god but the purpose was to foist the job of interacting with mortals something the older gods are tired of or to out of touch with, like what’s internet? sort of mind set, while they continue to lay around Olympus and chill. So all Sarah won was basically a godly internship, where she does all the work and gets none of the credit.
I do this about her being Zeus’ wife because, as I’ve said, in these stories my fantasies always include someone taking the big prize in terms of power, beauty… returning to normality and back again. This is something I’ve never liked for these things.
I haven’t really defined the epilogue yet… I chose the conspiracy because in mythologies the gods are always at war and jealous and that is something that would bring it closer to the original source.
True but there is also a fair bit of myth of gifts from the gods being double edged, Pandora was a gift and we know she opened the box, Adphrodite gave Helen of Troy to Paris sparking the Trogan war, you get the idea. Their is the concept of the prize the gods offer and what the main character themselves views as the ultimate prize to perhaps consider as well. Is the prospect of living amongs ancient gods on Olympus as basically the newest face better then being a god among mortals, helping out her mortal friends and family etc.
If you just want to pair the lead with a god, why not pair her with a goddess instead? That would make more sense if the goddesses were looking to make themselves an ideal female lover perhaps.
If you go by the lore her being sent back could be a way for the gods to hide the evidence as it were, after all Ares at some point got a promise from the gods not to interfere with mortals any more after he won a war with the other gods, his motivation was because the gods kept intervening in mortal wars that he liked to spark so he figured no gods interfering and mortal nature would give him all of the conflict he could ever want to watch.
I understand…I will keep that in mind if they contact me to produce the story
Thanks