Does anybody have any tips or references I can go to for this? I'm writing a novel and the main character wants to be a catalyst; the story isn't about him and his journey, so much as the effects on everyone around him that come about simply because of him being there and being who he is. How would I go about doing this, and doing it well?
Ways to be a catalyst: By his behaviour: - He is a good listener. People use him as a sounding board and make important decisions as a result. - He is indiscreet and inadvertently reveals people's secrets and back-sniping comments. - He is a ****-stirring gossip. - He is a home-wrecking Lothario. - He is wise and gives good advice. - He is a hooligan who ruins businesses with vandalism, costs people their jobs and ruins relationships by beating people up. - He is a manipulative, blackmailing bastard who tries to turn every woman into a prostitute and con every man out of his money. - He is a charlatan who preaches nonsense about religion, health and business investments. By effortlessly influencing other people's behaviour: - He is famous and people try to impress him wherever he goes. - He has cancer or a disabling war wound. People admire and pity him and are shocked by his PTs mood wings. - He is gay, Muslim or a suspected paedophile and people want to persecute or cure him. - He is destitute. People argue amongst themselves over whether it's because he's lazy, has bad karma or there but for the grace of God go I. - He really looks like Jesus, Buddha or Santa and the sight of him makes people contemplate their Humanist values, coming to various conclusions. Perhaps you can write about his reputation; how he earned it, how it precedes him and provokes prejudices that he sometimes confirms or disproves. Use a detached, omniscient God-narrator. (Pretend Morgan Freeman's reading the audiobook.) Alternatively perhaps he is not a catalyst but a neurotic voyeur, fascinated by the minutiae of other people's lives so that the mundane appears tumultuous. He is not influencing people but your account of the changes in people's lives are centred on his observation of them.
