I call it a touchpoint. If you know another term for it, do tell. In the mildly-insane-aren't-we-all? world my characters inhabit, they must have that one thing that grounds them. A connection to a place or a person that renders them the most sane person on Earth. The same route to and from work traveled for twenty years. A mentally disabled brother. A cactus he stares at every morning at breakfast. Therein lies moments of clarity and truth and rightness the character experiences nowhere else. Moments that belong to everyone and no one. A shared burden the reader buys into because she has her touchpoints, too.
The protagonist in my novel The Night Caller flirts with insanity. He is an agoraphobic, broken soul who is an unreliable narrator, at best. If I would have left him at this, the reader would have gladly poured that cup of crazy down the sink. I had to find a way to get the reader on-board with him, root out a growing interest in his goals, take ownership of their alliance to him, for that is when the magic of a psychological suspense happens. His touchpoint is restoring wood. Not merely a carpenter's hand, but that of an artisan who appreciates the way things were, how good they can be again. He sands with small, purposeful strokes of clarity in his otherwise crumbling reality. He strives for the simplicity in the way things once were. Who hasn't longed for that at least once?
In one of my favorite Peter Abrahams novels, The Last of the Dixie Heroes, the protagonist descends into the sub-culture of Civil War reenactors who have lost touch with reality. His touchpoint? A son. Ultimately, his savior.
What are some of your favorite character's touchpoints?
2 comments:
Dostoevsky was in Switzerland and saw a painting of the dead Christ in the tomb. It is said he looked at it for hours. He apparently liked it so much that it became an important touchstone for Prince Lev in "The Idiot." Though it is only mentioned twice in the book the entire book takes one to a place where they decide on Lev and through that affiliation themselves stand. The line is multiple, religious, non, lust, love, orthodox or roman.
I find myself at times looking at the painting by Holbein and trying to decide the humanity or divinity of Christ as Dostoevsky did.
It is kind of brutal when you really look at it but then the death was a brutal death. The painting is Christ in the Tomb.
In Cold in the Light, I made "smells" a touchpoint for my villain. It really seemed to work, at least for me. One of the protagonists had the sounds of frogs adn water as an important element for her. I like the sensory touches I guess.
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