Dealing with the Devil

Hey guys. I've been trying to write this thing inspired by Goethe's Faust, but I have no idea how to do this.

I mean, I have the first one-and-a-half chapters plus ideas for all the main characters, but I don't know how I want it to go or end.

Here's the main premise: Five souls make contracts with demons. They make mistakes, meet up, and try to find a way to save each other and themselves.

For specifics: The first does this because he's bored with life. The second does this out of a desire for/obsession with perfection. The third does this to regain his wasted youth. The fourth does this to dole out justice. The fifth does this to take her revenge on those who took away everything from her.

So, how do I make this flow? :)

Well, usually a story about a deal with the devil ends with most or all of the parties involved dead. So you should probably start picking up those death flags.

You could always go down the "Gardener" route. Get the continue off from the first chapters, try to picture what would happen after those events, and if you can, move along from there and really get a good feel for your characters and -with your premise especially- their mortality, that way there's a good chance that the ideas will come to you naturally. Do that, and the story could very well write itself.

Satan and his kin are sneaky little bastards. There will always be some loophole in the deal that makes it impossible for him to lose. He's also a big fan of unreadable fine print.

In the best stories, even a loophole of some kind is unnecessary - i.e. granting the Faust's request will allow them to accomplish the Mephistopheles-figure's true aims, and any trickery is simply a distraction to keep the mark from realising this. ^note Beethoven's Last Night is a converse example where Mephistopheles actually initiates the bargain with An Offer Beethoven Can't Refuse, but the trick is to make Beethoven believe that Mephistopheles actually has anything to bargain with, and the only trickery in the contract was slipped in by Twist of Fate to obstruct Mephistopheles, which is still all about the context of the bargain rather than the content.

(I have a sort of similar plotbunny, about a well-intentioned deist who arranged a Deal with the Devil invoked strictly for noble purposes and a penitent sinner who tried to Bargain with Heaven as a last hope that was unexpectedly granted, alongside various other non-empowered characters of assorted ideological perspectives, when they become involved in the emergency relief for a major natural disaster.)

hmm. interesting. thanks, guys. :)

You could arrange it so that the fourth and fifth wishers collide. His wish to enforce "justice" conflicts with her vengeance on those who wronged her. That gives you a tie in so they can meet up again when the time comes for the big finale.