Novel Progress: a character's obsession

For Coursera's Creative Writing: Craft of Plot course, one of the assignments was to write a scene where a character is obsessed with an object so much that, given the choice of living without the object or keeping it and dying within 24 hours, the character would be torn over the decision.

Several of us in the class stumbled over the requirement that what the character desires most in the world is a physical object. The characters in my novel crave acceptance and other intangibles. My ah-ha moment was when I realized the object could be a symbol of something intangible.

With that realization, I placed my novel's main character in this scene:


“Place your hand on the door.”

Standing in the professor’s office, Zach rested his palm on the cold, blue glass surface. He appreciated her willingness to help him explore his paranormal talent but pointed out, “I’ve done this, like a million times before.”

“And this time you will do it right. From what you’ve told me, you’ve always stayed on the surface.”

“Well, yeah. If I push through the glass I’d hurt myself.”

“Not physically. Push with your mind.”

At first he simply read the surface memories he’d noticed before. The professor had touched the door today, embedding the thought that her office was a safe place for those with talents like Zach’s. But following her instructions over the next hour, he found layers of additional information. He staggered away from the onslaught. When he caught his breath, he activated his digital assistant and left a message for his dad. “I need Mom’s wedding ring. This time it's gonna work.”

Zach had tried on and off for years to gain information from the unadorned silver band his mother wore when she died, but all he'd been able to read was the pain of her final moments. When he went to college he chose to leave the ring behind, safe with his dad. Now with his additional training, when holding the ring he could see his mother's final minutes as she'd seen them, and he watched the scene over and over for clues. After a week of spending every waking hour reading the ring he passed out and woke in a healing center, with his dad pacing the floor by Zach’s bed.

“Your brain is overstimulated,” a healer explained. “If we don’t slow it down, you’ll slip into a coma and die tomorrow.”

Ignoring a splitting headache, Zach used his remaining hours of consciousness to tell his dad everything he’d learned from the ring. Each time he viewed the scene it became clearer, but he estimated he would need a few more days of work to focus on the opening moments and see the killer’s face.

A specialist arrived that night as Zach reached for the ring to try reading it one more time. “You’re half Prime?” she asked. When Zach nodded she explained his affliction was caused by the talent he’d inherited from his mother. “The healers on this world don’t have experience with your talent and the effects of it, but on Prime your condition is called Obsessive Bonding. You’ve read the same object so often you can’t stop replaying the images in your mind, even when you stop touching it. If we destroy the object, you’ll be cured.”

Keep reading it until he overloaded his mind, or give up his last hope of catching his mother’s killer? He clutched the ring, the edge digging into his fingers.

“We’ll find another way to get justice,” his father said. “Give me the ring.”

For years, solving the murder was all they talked about. “You sure?” Zach asked. “I’m close to identifying the killer.”

Mitch put his hand on Zach’s shoulder. “It’s time you learned you’re the most important thing in my life.”

This scene won't be in the novel, but the wedding ring was already in my notes as an important item to Zach. The professor character is part of the plot, as one of the allies Zach meets before the showdown with the bad guys.

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