In last week’s entry in the Ghost Punchers series, I wrote about story rituals — those running gags and recurring scenarios that help root a story in its storyworld. However, I ended the entry with a dire, Yoda-like warning: “Tools for telling stories, the rituals are. If the rituals aren’t helping you tell stories, then just they are just useless filler. Get rid of them you must.”
Which raises the question, “Master Yoda, how do rituals help tell stories?”
…which I answer, as I often do, with a list.
Rituals help tell stories when they…
- Add Tension,
- Reveal Character, or
- Reveal Conflict.
Tension
Because of their recurring nature, rituals set certain expectations in both the audience and the characters. Tension arises when those expectations are subverted or forestalled. For example, let’s use last week’s rituals:
- The Horror: The audience knows something terrible is about to happen, but the clueless characters don’t. BAM! Instant tension.
- The Call: The call to ghost-punching adventure rarely comes with all the details. We have enough information to get the plot moving, but not so much that we know where it’s going. This uncertainty leads to tension.
- The Confrontation: This the showdown with the titular ghosts that need punching. As such, it’s got plenty of built-in tension regarding if the heroes will prevail, and how.
Character
Different people react to the same rituals in different ways. Seeing how folks react tell us quite a bit about them. For example…
- The Horror: Want to see what a person’s really like? Stick her in a hyper-stressful situation (such as, say, a ghost attack) and see how she reacts. I assure you, character will be revealed.
- The Call: How the ghost-punchers respond to the call tells us a lot about them as people. Are they dark heroes driven by guilt? Stoned slackers trying to earn tonight’s pizza money? Your mom?
- The Confrontation: Even if the outcome of the confrontation is a foregone conclusion, how the characters go about it tells us much about them. What sacrifices are they willing to make? What line do they refuse to cross?
Conflict
Rituals can highlight known conflicts, expose brand new ones, or provide an opportunity for established conflicts to be resolved. For example…
- The Horror: The whole point of this ritual is to reveal the conflict of ghosts vs. humanity.
- The Call: Yes, the call reveals the conflict hinted at in the horror, but it can also reveal conflicts between other characters. (“Is that the lady on Elm Street calling? Just hang up on her. She’s not haunted; she’s crazy. I don’t care if she’s your sister. She’s crazy!”)
- The Confrontation: While you might think this ritual is nothing but conflict, there’s always more conflict to be revealed. A fight’s a great time for people to stop being polite and start displaying the conflicts between them — or for the antagonists to show that the conflict is actually larger or more complex than the protagonists believed.
Story rituals can be powerful tools when you give some thought to how you use them. Even if all you need them to do is advance the plot to the next scene, with a little effort, you can also get them to help give your story and its characters a bit more depth.
