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Okay, I'm working on a novel project with three main characters called Dusk Ryder Johnny and thought I'd put my three guys up on the chopping block. I want questions to be asked, flaws to be pointed out, anything that just doesn't look right to you. All places (towns, roads, buildings ect.) are real places and you may ask about them too.

Keep in mind that I am a very thorough, and that the profiles for each character are rather long. First up, my main guy, Johnny. One important thing to know, he is dead and spends the course of the novel being a ghost trapped inside a motorcycle.

Jonathan Michael Johenson

“Johnny”

Date of Birth: May 28th 1951
Date of Death: May 28th 1969
Age: 18

-Appearance-
Height- 6 foot even
Weight- 140 pounds
Build- Very skinny, almost malnourished. His right leg has no musculature whatsoever.
Hair- Shoulder length light blonde. Worn either slicked back into a DA, or loose depending on mood.
Eyes- Light Blue
Clothing- Generally found dressed like Marlon Brando in “The Wild One.” White t-shirt, leather jacket, rolled up jeans, and motorcycle boots.

-Personality-

Very outgoing and bold, Johnny doesn’t fear much. He’s become accustomed to the idea of dying, and wants to live life to its fullest. He has a great love of cars and motorcycles, and is also fairly intelligent.

-Life-

Johnny was born in Seattle to George and Pauline Johenson. As a young child, he was sick very often, with a cold or a fever or the flu. He managed to even catch chicken pox twice. During the Polio Epidemic, his parents kept him inside at all times, boiled all water before they used it, and watched the news religiously. When the polio vaccine was invented, they waited to see how effective it was before finally vaccinating Johnny in 1957. Unfortunately, it was for naught, as he developed Polio from the vaccine. (*A not unheard-of occurrence. The vaccine contained a dormant Polio strain, and many people caught Polio from it*)
The virus paralyzed him from the neck down, and Johnny spent four months in an iron lung to keep him breathing. He stayed in the hospital for another year and a half recovering. He got his strength back through physical therapy, learning to play piano and guitar to help with his dexterity. The virus had permanently paralyzed his right leg, however. He’d never be able to move it on his own again.

Growing up, Johnny had a difficult time adjusting to being handicapped. He could walk with the help of a set of braces and a cane, but not without a significant limp. (*In the 50’s and 60’s, handicapped people were not looked well upon. They had to adjust to normal life, rather than the world adjusting to assist them*) His parents decided to move north, out of the city, and settled in an old two-story farmhouse in Arlington. Close enough to the hospital in Seattle, far enough that Johnny could benefit from the “healing mountain air.”

Unfortunately for Johnny’s parents, Johnny’s second cousin, Lee, lived in Lake Stevens, the next town over. Lee came by to visit Johnny frequently, giving the young pre-teen rides on his motorcycle. Johnny found freedom riding on a motorcycle. To him, it was like flying, not being bound to the ground anymore by his awkward, crippled leg.

His sophomore year in High School, Johnny met Star, a beautiful cheerleader. Star was bored with the low-intellect farming boys that populated Arlington High School, and was drawn to Johnny. He was unique, a novelty with a quick mind and a fun sense of humor. Johnny suffered at the hands of several boys in school for daring to date a cheerleader, but he loved Star with all his heart.

For his sixteenth birthday, Lee gave him a 1953 Harley Hydra-Glide. It was an old police vehicle, bought at auction for barely a hundred dollars. Johnny immediately set to work disassembling the motorcycle, chopping it, to turn it into a chopper like none built before. He developed a grand plan as he worked; on the day he turned eighteen, he’d take Star and they’d ride off to see America on the motorcycle, named Dusk Ryder. Johnny had never left Western Washington, and Star avidly wanted to join the protests that were happening all over the US.

The day before Johnny’s birthday, he caught pneumonic plague. (*no laughing. Pneumonic Plague isn’t the most common of diseases, but cases still occur in the States even today, and it can kill someone within a day if left untreated*). He died the night of his birthday.

-Family-

Pauline- born to a Seattle logger and a seamstress, Pauline is a stay-at-home mother with nothing but concern for her sickly son. She dotes on him to the point of being overbearing, and deeply disapproves of the “motorcycle foolishness” he is engaging in. She wouldn’t stop him, though.

George- Originally from Oklahoma, his family migrated west during the Great Depression. Now he works at Boeing making aircraft, and doesn’t spend as much time at home as he wishes he could. He loves his family, though, and works very hard to pay Johnny’s medical bills without having to rely on the March of Dimes.

Lee- Pauline’s cousin, Lee is the black sheep of the family. He joined a motorcycle gang in the fifties, and has been partying and living it up ever since. He has a deep sense of family, though, and dotes on Johnny like he was his own son. His motorcycle gang has mellowed a bit over the years, and they all help Johnny build Dusk Ryder.

-After-life-

Johnny’s spirit didn’t move on after he died, instead it lay dormant in Dusk Ryder, waiting for someone to come along and reawaken him. Someone similar to Johnny in spirit who would embark on the Cross-country trip Johnny never had a chance to take. May 28th 2009, fourty years after his death, that person became Marc Thompson. He and Marc have an empathetic connection that causes emotions, and sometimes memories, to be shared between the two.

-Abilities-

Johnny’s body is now Dusk Ryder. He has complete control over the motorcycle, and can easily drive without a rider. He cannot do anything outside the normal laws of physics for a motorcycle, though, like jump rows of cars or drive abnormally fast or become intangible. He also can’t speak while in the motorcycle.

Johnny can project an image of himself up to 20 yards from his body. While in contact with Dusk Ryder, or when holding his cane, the image is completely solid. He has no body heat and does not breath or blink, but otherwise looks completely human. When not in contact with his cane, the image is slightly transparent, intangible, and his voice sounds flat, like it’s coming from an old TV set. If Johnny drops his cane, he cannot pick it back up without being in contact with his body. If he disappears or dematerializes for any reason, he always re-appears sitting on Dusk Ryder. No teleporting.

Johnny can also fully possess Marc, but only Marc and only when Marc has a hold of his cane. Drop the cane, Johnny is booted out and back to Dusk Ryder. Fun fact, the nerve damage from the Polio carries over when Johnny possesses Marc, forcing him to limp and use the cane. It is not so complete, though, that the leg is completely limp, only immobile and held stiffly straight.

And third, Wyatt. I'm still ironing out his character, and am not sure what I'm really doing with him yet.




Wyatt Runningwolf

“Wyatt”

Birthday: October 13th, 1990
Age: 19

-Appearance-
Height- 5’11”
Weight- 175 pounds
Build- Muscular, but not bulky. Looks well-built and gets a lot of time in doing heavy lifting.
Hair- Black. Worn tied back in a mid-back length braid.
Eyes- Dark Brown
Clothing- Usually found in a tank-top, a dirty pair of jeans, and thick worker boots. He’s often covered in grease smudges from working on engines. Wears a real wolf tail clipped to his back belt loop.

-Personality-

Easily excitable, outgoing, a real people person. Wyatt loves to meet different people, and also loves messing with people. Loves cars and motorcycles, and sincerely wishes that he had been born about thirty years earlier.

-Life-

Wyatt was born to Charlie Falcon at the tribal hospital on the North Carolina Cherokee reservation, then promptly abandoned. No one knows anything about who his father was, or where his mother went. He was adopted by Bill Runningwolf and his new wife Loretta, who were visiting Bill’s parents on the reservation at the time. They took Wyatt back to Washington with them, where they lived in a little house in Oso, a logging community just outside of Arlington.

Wyatt grew up being educated in a mixture of Washington history, Native American lore, and automobiles. He knew he was adopted, but never thought about his birth parents. The ones he had were plenty good enough.

Now in High School, Wyatt had come to discover some things about himself. The first was that he was asexual, something that conflicted him deeply. Homosexuality, or being bisexual, was becoming an accepted thing, but what about not feeling attraction to anybody at all. Slightly disturbed, Wyatt focused even more on his work repairing and restoring classic cars with his dad, often working in complete silence with nothing more than some curt instructions, the radio, and his own mind for company.

-Story Start-
Wyatt was paired with Marc for a chemistry project that necessitated working at home with your partner. He went to pick up Marc and saw Dusk Ryder parked in the back yard. A great lover of classic vehicles, Wyatt immediately went over to give the vehicle a complete once-over, discovering that many of Dusk Ryder’s tubing had deteriorated over the years, and that if Marc couldn’t figure out how to fix stuff like that, why Wyatt would be happy to show him how to work on an engine!

Wyatt is very good friends with Johnny, and feels it’s his duty to catch the ghost up on all the “culture” he missed on. Meaning a very long movie marathon that Marc is forced to sit in on. When the topic of a cross-country road trip comes up, Wyatt jumps at the opportunity, thinking it will be like the movie “Two-Lane Blacktop.”

-Vehicle-
Wyatt drives an Arctic White 1970 dodge Challenger, named K after the movie “Vanishing Point” (whose main character is named Kowalski) K ends up carrying most of the luggage during the trip.

-Family-

Bill- A full-blooded Cherokee born and raised in North Carolina. He met Loretta at the Gathering of the Nations Powwow and moved out to Washington to be with her. He can seem like a gruff person, and has a heavy southern accent, but really cares about his family. He works in Everett restoring classic cars and gives K to Wyatt as a graduation present.

Loretta- half Sauk-Suiattle, half Caucasian, born and raised in Darrington. She works as a Lushootseed (*native language of the Puget Sound tribes*) instructor for various local tribal schools.

Lucy- Wyatt’s younger sister by five years. She sticks close to her big brother and always wants to know what he’s doing at all times. Wyatt finds her extremely ann

Sweet, alright, questions I have to think about.

Yeah, it seems kind of cheesy for "unfinished business" but Johnny spent two years of his life pretty much doing nothing but working on Dusk Ryder. It takes a lot of time and effort to chop a motorcycle, especially back in the 60's before specialized equipment was available. To him, it's like a piece of art that he put all of his heart into. And the American Trip was his second big dream, to do everything he never had a chance to do.

Dusk Ryder was put in the barn by some friends of the family after the Johenson's died. (The property passed to a nephew of theirs who was too lazy to renovate and sell the old place) As older adults satisfied with the lives they had led, there was no reason for them to suddenly give up everything and leave. Johnny's spirit reacted perhaps not to Marc's current state of mind (because he's a sarcastic little b*****d) but to his potential. The fact that he lives a life he's not satisfied with and wants to get out.

Does that make any sense at all? I tend to over think things (as you can probably tell) but little details like "Why the hell did he pick Marc of all people?" never really occur to me.