This is the question set that came along with the Premise assignment. Enjoy.
1) Who is your protagonist?
Hanalia — The Guardian over Llevaeh. She was raised by her parents until she was thirteen, which is the pre-determined age for each person to become mature enough to take over as Guardian of Llevaeh. After she becomes the Guardian, she must personally process the souls of her parents to grant them reincarnation abilities. She spends ten years ruling over Llevaeh when war breaks out on Earth, and suddenly a vast number of souls arrive in Llevaeh for processing. Most of this goes smoothly, but right at the beginning of the processing of this mass number, one slips through the cracks while adjustments are being made to the system to accomodate such a large number. Hanalia takes on responsibility for this one soul, Damerian. Through tending to him, she develops an ability to love and care for him. After a realization that she cannot give him the ability to reincarnate– which he wants– she realizes that the only way to give him this ability is to give her own self to be killed and then processed with him, and leave Llevaeh. First, she must have a child to raise until the age of maturity, so she must convince Damerian to have sex with her. Right now, I'm uncertain as to how this will play out, but either way, she will have to learn to cope with emotions she has not dealt with before.
2) What is his/her main conflict or goal?
Hanalia's main struggle is learning how to handle emotions and feelings she wasn't even aware of and has never learned how to deal with, and most importantly, deciding what sacrifices she is willing to make for her child and/or Damerian.
3) What does she/he most want? Why?
She wants to be able to give Damerian what makes him the happiest, the ability to be reincarnated and go back to life on Earth and have a "second chance".
4) What subplots or plot layers come immediately to mind?
Hanalia learning what love is.
Hanalia learning how to handle emotions she knows nothing about.
Hanalia choosing between her child and Damerian.
5) Who are important secondary/supporting characters? What are their main problems, conflicts, and/or goals? What do they want?
Hanalia's daughter (Celestia) will come into play in a major way later on in the book; and Hanalia will be raising her as she was raised, but will also not be able to raise her without giving her the ability to love. This will bring up complications with Celestia, who, being raised with love and compassion, may not be able to fully handle the processing of the souls that will occur. Hanalia's parents will be mentioned periodically throughout the book, not only in explaining some of the reason for Hanalia's development emotionally, but also in explaining some of the culture of Llevaeh. Mardienk is Halania's "right-hand man" who delivers the orders from her and keeps a closer eye on things than she has the ability to. He is a processed soul, but waived his right to reincarnation to be able to assist each human in his or her Guardianship. He is a bit power-hungry, and will attempt to influence Hanalia into making a decision that benefits himself the most.
6) Who is your antagonist? What are his/her conflicts and goals? What does she/he most want? How do they conflict with your protagonist's?
Damerian is a soul whose processing went…wrong. He is still, technically, dead, but unlike the other souls, he hasn't been stripped of any mental functions or emotions. As a result, he is traumatized by what he sees in Llevaeh, and wants nothing more than to be reincarnated so he can go to Earth, completely having his mind erased of anything he witnessed in Llevaeh, and starting anew.
