Author Archives: dborys

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About dborys

Author of STREET STORIES suspense novels

ODS Story – The Antagonists

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Here are the remaining characters we came up with in the writing workshop I led at The Night Ministry’s Open Door Shelter (ODS). If you read closely, I think you will see how writing was an outlet for these homeless kids to vent some of the events in their own history.  For instance you will find references to pedophliia and homophobia which are issues street kids deal with every day.

See if you can find clues to their lives by reading below or clicking through to the description of the Protagonists and Symbolic Characters they developed.

Antagonists

RASHAMAN is a 32 year old man living in an apartment on the North Side. He works at Walgreens, has pedophilic longings and plays out his non-hardcore sexual fantasies on the weekend.

JOSE is the obstacle villain. His direct actions support and promote those of Magus, the true villain.

MAGUS is Lithuanian, dark, brooding, and in his 30’s. He is a genius, chemistry teacher at the college Brew goes to.  His hair is died silver and he wears black. He hates people and is extremely homophobic. His parents were killed when he was 7 and he was housed by foster parents, though he likes to say that he was raised by a dog named Sugar since the animal was the only one who cared for him or showed him love and protection. His foster mother beat him and locked him in the closet. He gets off on watching war movies, which fuels his true identity as a serial killer.

The dark forces are directly tied to MAGUS. The day he was born a key group of people in Africa committed mass suicide.

ODS Story – Symbolic Characters

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Here’s the second installment sharing the work of my homeless writing workshop from my days of volunteering with the Open Door Shelter at The Night Ministry. The first post which gave the background of the two main protagonists can be read here.

I was so pleased with the group as we worked to come up with these interesting characters.

Symbolic Characters

DUMOS is an Asian store clerk who is absolutely in love with the store. It is his life. He works 90 hours a week. The dairy is his favorite, though he likes fruits, too. At home he reads drug store flyers?? and organizes and restocks his cabinets (food stuffs).

DUMOS is also the gatekeeper to good in the mystical back story His obsessed world will be thrown out of whack by the race to beat the window of time offered to Brian and Brew. His actions are calculated by forces beyond him to provide windows of opportunity for success and an end to the cycle.

JOSE is a bicycling ice cream vendor. He is an immigrant who came to America 2 years ago. At night he drinks like there’s no tomorrow. He is unemployed in the winter and thinks people are stupid for buying his stuff. He has secret fantasies of being a drug or arms dealer, but is content with his simplified life and his fantasies.

JOSE  is also the Gatekeeper to evil. His actions (by direction of forces beyond himself) set up or complicate obstacles to success.

THE CATHOLIC GIRLS are symbolic of a higher power, but remain inactive, and vague though they appear in EVERY scene as a group. Can also be used individually, but never as a main character or plot participant.