Narrative Threads
The photo to the right is one of my narrative threads. If I choose to pluck a particular thread in the fabric of my life and unravel, there you will find this slightly odd thread. The woman in the photo in my late grandmother, in her favorite Mets shirt. The candle is St. Jude. Yes, he the patron Saint of hopeless causes.
I was raised by an atheist and a lapsed Catholic. We weren't even Easter-Christmas hypocritical Catholics. We never, ever, ever, EVER went to church. Though for some reason, I DID go to C.C.D. classes and make my first communion and even confirmation. And for some even MORE bizarre reason, my father likes all grandchildren to be baptized just to cover all bases . . . you know, "just in case."
But all my life, it was my grandmother and grandfather who dragged me to church. I loathed it. In summer, when I would rather be doing ANYTHING else, we went to church. I usually had to wear a dress. It usually had crinoline, which itched. (I loathed dresses almost as much as church). In summer, church was too hot. (Old churches had no air conditioning.) In winter, it was either heated until you couldn't breathe or so drafty you shivered.
I remember my grandmother saying to me, when I was 20, "After all God has given me, it doesn't seem like much to ask to go to church to thank him each Sunday." So I would drive her. Even after her open heart surgery, when the 20 or so marble steps up to the church doors were too much for her and she had to rest halfway up, I took her. Perhaps that was where I REALLY learned to pray. ("Dear God, she is so fragile, PLEASE don't have her fall down these ridiculous marble steps and break a hip.")
I didn't become a Catholic. I have an aunt who likes to think I'm going to hell. But I have this strange habit of visiting Catholic churches. I just go and sit. If it's Saint Patrick's Cathedral, I light candles for my grandparents. And I sit and chat with them in my head. When things are beyond stressful in my life, I talk to the Mets picture and light a candle all day and chat with my grandmother, asking her to watch out for my kids or my family or if things are really bad . . . me. And I have her crucifix on the wall of my bedroom, this agonized Christ on it. Sometimes I feel like perhaps it should have gone to one of my Catholic cousins (you know, the ones who AREN'T going to hell), but lately, I think it's right that it's on my wall since it seems to fit with the thread. A theme, if you will, there running through so many memories, and yet having nothing to do with my life . . . and yet everything. I would never attend a mass, but I will light the candles, which I buy in the Hispanic section of my supermarket. It's ritual, I guess. It's solace.
So I woke up at four a.m., and I realized the new character in my proposal needs to have had a short stint in prison to complete his narrative thread. That if he is going to break the law (which he is), that has to be a thread I can see woven from childhood.
And I suppose that is why some characters feel authentic. And some do not. A narrative thread, to me, can have tiny stitches woven in bit and pieces. It can be subtle. But characters don't arrive in any book without a narrative thread to their back story. And I believe the best threads have their roots in a theme that can be followed over the course of their entire lives.
It's like the theme of redemption. Yes, I suppose there are people looking for redemption from one lone act of stupidity or lapse in judgment. But most people need redemption for a life. Threads of selfishness and greed or cruelty were probably first woven many years before. When Julian searches for redemption in Freudian Slip, it's for a life lived without a thought for others.
A narrative thread is different from plot. A plot is what occurs in the book. It's your storyline. But each character, each main character, has a narrative thread to their life that is a big picture examination of their journey into your novel and how they will blend their threads with the other characters and come out the other side.
A narrative thread isn't a trait, either. It's like a chef who can trace his love of cooking to a single pudding he made with his great-grandmother in childhood, who can then trace his life through recipes . . . through the people who praised his cooking, until with great clarity, he sees it as his destiny in some way.
My new character breaks the law. It's what he does because he doens't respect rules. And now there is a more complete narrative thread for him, one that I see with clarity.
So what is the narrative thread for your main character?
18 comments:
Sports is the narrative thread for my mc. I haven't dicovered the root of it yet--maybe a memory involving his father (who is absent from his life). Or, more likely, a memory involving his older brother (his father figure) after his father left.
Sports is like a religion to my mc.
But,the thread starts to unravel a bit during his time of need.
Super post. This is one I'll have to give a lot of thought to. I think it's going to boil down to some heartbreaking losses along the way.
I really need to learn to drink my coffee BEFORE I read your blog.
First, I lived in a house when first married and there was an attic. The master bedroom (it was just the biggest bedroom, not what one thinks of today as a master bedroom) had a door and behind the door were stairs and you could walk right up the attic. We walked up the stairs after moving in (no inspection, we rented)...and there was one of those lawn Mary's in the middle of the room.
We were a young married Jewish couple.
I looked at my husband and said, "I am not moving her. You know, just in case."
And Mary lived in our attic - and we left her there when we moved away.
As for my MC's narrative thread, I'd say, since I have never thought of it before, that she grew up in a traditional family she considered normal and always assumed she'd have a normal life. So the search and strive for normalcy permeates her life - and then she realizes she has the power to create her own normal.
Is that a narrative thread?
Thank you for making me think!
That's odd. At four this morning I was on the couch writing out my character's past, how it influences the current story, and where their motivations are.
Heather:
I think the greatest conflicts for characters come when their narrative thread is interrupted, so to speak.
E
Jude:
I think loss can be a narrative thread, sure . . . .
E
Amy:
I think the Mary thing is funny . . . .
:-)
E
P.S. I wonder what the new people think of Mary in the attic.
Richmond:
Wow . . . a fellow insomniac at 4:00 a.m.!
E
Become Jewish - there is no hell. ;-)
Narrative thread? Hm. More to think about today. Great post. (Go Mets!)
Sarah:
I'll ponder the Jewish alternative. LOL!
And I am a diehard Yankees fan, but I also would root for the Mets because of her. And I went to Game 6 against the BoSox when the Mets won. It was INSANE! And I got to come home and tell her all about it.
E,
I remember we laughed and shrugged our shoulders, agreeing the Mary stay-put. Can't have too many on our side now can we?
I don't even watch baseball any more, but I still have a soft spot for the Mets. I remember making and carrying a banner on banner day, wearing my Mets uniform and being there when they won the 1969 World Series. It was something I shared with my father.
I'm glad you got to tell her all about the game.
That's funny! My mom and dad NEVER, EVER went to church, but they dropped me off at the door every week for Sunday school and choir. After my dad died and she married Ang (Italian family), she insisted I become Catholic--get this, in case I married a Catholic and would have to become one!
Of course, I refused, and my priest said that he would back any of us up who didn't want to be confirmed. (I think it was reverse psychology that didn't pan out the way he'd hoped, LOL.)
Still, I love ritual and candles, so as soon as I left home, I started going to mass religiously. I still go, now and then.
Happy Labor Day! I like celebrating holidays that embrace everyone. No matter where we worship/worshiped (church, synagogue or mosque), most people have labored in some way.
My character has always photographed sunsets, something that began during childhood with his father, who viewed the sun's trek as some sort of celestial goal.
P.S. I have my mother's crucifix nailed by my bedroom door. As an unwilling agnostic I feel some hope in that cross. Weird, huh?
Natasha:
Oh, that's funny!
More rleigious family oddity. My father CONVERTED to Catholicism to marry my mother when she knew full well he was an atheist and she didn't believe a word of the crap they taught in the marriage classes.
And we found out in the wills of my father's uncle and aunt that they wanted to be buried NOT in a Russian Orthodox church . . . but a mosque. They were Russian Muslims.
E
kath:
Interesting . . . and I think it's always good to be hopeful. :-)
E
Violence, unfortunately, is Trinidad's narrative thread. From terrible acts committed by his parents and things done to his brother and the people he loves to his violence that happens right before the book starts. It's how he solves problems. And, fortunately for the rest of the world, it works for him in the end.
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