Build-A-Quest Workshop

Week 3's assignment: an interactive attraction for Lit Land. My preliminary proposal, the one with the obstacle course and the mirrored helmets, didn't clear the Word World legal department, so that idea is being revised into Existential Golf: part part putt-putt course, part house of mirrors, part sculpture gallery (the mirrors are behind the sculptures, because existence always precedes essence). The development team believes this attraction would do better as the centerpiece of the yet-to-be-drafted Plato's Academy, the philosophy zone scheduled to be added to Word World during construction phase 2, (or possibly phase 3, depending on how the Conservation Commission hearing goes). In the meantime, Literature Land visitors get to act out in

Choose-Your-Own-Monomyth-Adventure

That's right, at this attraction, every Word World guest gets the chance to create his/her very own Hero's Journey! It all starts in the queue, a Minoan-style labyrinth, where the waiting crowd receives background information, advice, and pep talks from a series of animatronic Joseph Campbell clones. The visitor (we need a proto instance, like Wende's Monica - we'll call him Humphrey) then enters a small, individual chamber, where he receives a Call to Adventure, in the form of booming voice from the heavens, burning bush, or telegram.

Assuming Humphrey doesn't refuse the call (in which case, he's spit back out onto Main Street Lit Land, where the librarian-esque employees proceed to torment and humiliate him until he runs back to CYOMA to recant his foolishness and meet his destiny) he selects his preferred supernatural father figure and magical weapon/nugget of wisdom from an appealing variety of options on display, and and crosses the threshold into the new world world of his adventure.

Humphrey enters his Road of Trials, which forms the bulk of the CYOMA quest. This consists of a series of five increasingly difficult challenges - after each is successfully completed, he gets to choose the next from three options. The challenges offered depend upon the nature of Humphrey's Call to Adventure, but could include:

• Battle of wits with an archnemisis.
  
• Resisting the seductress.
• Surviving shipwreck.
• Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle.
• Feeding lunch to three toddlers. With ear infections.

If Humphrey succeeds in completing his challenges, he processes to an inner chamber, where he is presented with his boon, in the form of tokens redeemable at the Lit Land bookstore (not a gift shop...though it does sell Tolstoy action figures and Charles Dickens pencil sharpeners alongside the specially-for-Word World hardcover editions of all the books referenced in Lit Land). He is then returned to the outside world with glory and fanfare and the admonition to use his triumph for the good of humanity, rather than becoming disillusioned with the rest of the park.