Blogs by David A. Schwinghammer
Rituals
8/20/2009 8:43:31 AM
Look for habits that have become rituals for your
protagonist, habits that have become almost obsessive/compulsive.
Ritual
People have certain rituals that mean more to them than their obvious purposes, such as gardening, fishing, knitting, or reading the morning horoscope. Then there are the obvious ones like reading the Bible or meditating. Whatever the activity, they tell you something about your character.
Arnie Vogel’s rituals
1. Smoking. Doesn’t seem much like a ritual, but Arnie never smoked until his dad told him to move out of the house after his high school graduation. His dad offered him a cigarette and he took it and he’s been smoking non-filtered cigarettes ever since, a kind of subconscious connection with the old man who also smoked unfiltered Luckies.
2. Shuffling cards. Arnie always carries a deck of cards. He doesn’t play solitaire, but he’s constantly shuffling the cards, trying to get as good as a professional dealer. He can make them walk like a yoyo.
3. Photography. Arnie has kept a photographic record of the places he’s been while working as a merchant marine. Arnie never went to college and the photos give him a sense of accomplishment that he doesn‘t have in his professional life. He can say to himself, “Look at where I’ve been,” when looking at a Norwegian fjord or the Brandenburg Gate.
4. Ice fishing. He almost drowned as a boy while ice fishing with his father, and ice fishing is like getting right back up on the horse after being bucked off.
Arnie’s dream next. When you give your character a dream, make sure it doesn’t solve any kind of conflict within the story (That would be a cliché). All the dream should do is tell you what is important to the character or what add something to your description of the character’s personality.
You might be able to break the rule about the dream not solving a conflict if your novel has psychic things happening all over the place. That way the reader can’t say, “Yeah right, that’s going to happen.” In most novels you always want to set a precedent, like planting a gun that your character is going to need earlier in the story. That way you’re not surprised to see it when it helps him get out of trouble. You’ve been screaming at him, “Get the gun out of the light stand, you big dummy!” when he faced with the knife-wielding intruder.
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