Being a young person always comes with challenges - defining who you are and finding your place in the world, the pressures and responsibilities that come with transitioning from child to adult, gaining independence and redefining your relationship with your parents. Having a Spark doesn't make any of this easier.

The Struggle captures the biggest challenge your character is facing. When they came to SparkInYou.org this was probably on their mind as something they wanted support with. Struggles will often be related to your characters' Spark, but this is not required. Example struggles could be:

• I don't feel like I know who I am - I don't know what my passions are and what I want to do with my life
• When I came out as Sparked to my parents I was kicked out. I am living in University halls for now but that won't be possible forever
• I am continually bullied by Jason at school, and no one cares

Further examples of struggles can be found on the sample characters page.

The Struggle should be something that it isn't immediately obvious how to address - otherwise your character would have done it already. In fact, you won't be able to completely address your struggle without support from other members of the forum. This could be verbal support, or it could be more tangible. But this problem is too big to handle alone … you know that better than anyone.

Not all struggles will be perfectly solvable and wrapped up by the end of the game. As a GM team we'd like to make it possible for all of the characters to make meaningful progress - a sense that things can get better, even if there are still challenges ahead. There is no mechanised “reward” for solving your struggle, but a good action in the latter half of the game would be one that demonstrated progress made by your character. In such a turnsheet, tell us how your time on the forum has helped.

At the end of the game, in Eternity, you will have an action dedicated to your struggle - not struggles will be simply “solved”, but this action will provide a place to make more progress, suggest hope for the future, or reflect on how far you've come as appropriate. Of course, we hope many characters will make progress before then as well.