October Novel Prep Challenge

Why does the painting do this? Does it have its own motivations, or is it truly an inanimate object? If it has its own motives, it's your antagonist. If it's inanimate, then I think the antagonist sounds like human greed.

Here are some ideas (just thinking out loud, here):

* Evil Painting:
Does the painting win or lose? Does it achieve its objective? What IS its objective? Is it trying to incite chaos? Get someone in particular to steal it? Create a deliberate conflict between your MC and the would-be thieves? If so, what does the painting try first, second, third? I could envision progressively more serious events... first, maybe just a break-in, and some things are broken. Second, maybe an injury - to the person trying to obtain the painting, to the MC, or maybe both. Third, a hospitalization or fatality. Your MC loses something very important to him/her. In your MC's quest to keep the painting, all these bad things keep happening, until finally, the level of loss is so great (didn't you say there's a love story in here?) that he/she gives up the fight. He/she hands over the painting (or otherwise does its will) or destroys the painting (out of anger and vengeance.) The painting won't want to be destroyed and will fight, so that might create more chaos for the MC, more grief and loss, which is apropos because that's what anger and vengeance usually bring us.

* Human Greed:
Actually, the series of events above works well for this theme, too, except that it's not so supernatural - no paintings resisting destruction. Instead, the competing characters who all want the painting for themselves are resisting its destruction. In fact, maybe someone backs off because the painting is so important to him/her that he/she is willing to give up his/her desire for the painting just to ensure its survival (kind of a King Solomon's Test sort of situation), and that character, formerly one incarnate example of your antagonistic human greed, is now an ally to your protagonist. This would probably be your priest or someone pre-disposed to "doing the right thing." The tables turn in the protagonist's favor, and perhaps they both agree that it's causing too heartache and plot to make it vanish, locking it away somewhere safe.

Feel free to nab any of these ideas, piggyback on them, grab a single word and mind map from there, discard altogether, or brainstorm out loud back at the group.

Regards,
Michelle