How to haunt the narrative?

I’ve always known what I wanted to be when I grew up, even if I didn’t have a word for it. I want to write, but saying “I want to be a writer” never felt quite right. It’s more than that.

I have finally figured it out:

I want to haunt the narrative! 

Haunting the narrative is a literary term. It is used for a character whose presence in the story is sparse, even to the point you only see them once or twice if at all, but their actions have major consequences to the story.

They are characters whose actions reverberate throughout the plot, influencing events and characters long after they’re gone.

Let’s understand through some examples:

• James and Lily Potter from Harry Potter
  They are never really in the book. They have no dialogues. But their actions, their memories, their choices, move forward the entire plot and haunt the characters in Harry Potter throughout the series.

• Ned Stark from Game of Thrones
  His death propels the story forward and has a profound impact on the main characters and their actions throughout the series.

• Abhimanyu from Mahabharatha
  Abhimanyu haunts the narrative in Mahabharatha even before he’s born, and long after he’s dead.
  
  And this is exactly what I want to do.
  I want to create work that leaves a lingering impact, that reverberates through our zeitgeist for years to come. I want to be the butterfly who flaps her wings to cause the storm.
  This is how I want to haunt the narrative.
  
  There is a bit of a problem, though. I am not a fictional character. It is easy for a fictional character to haunt the narrative in a book or a movie with a single linear story.
  
  But, real life is not a single story, it’s a million of them, constantly happening parallel to each other.
  How do you haunt the narrative in all of them? How do you haunt the narrative in real life?
  
  Well, I have a plan. A detailed multi-step long-term plan.
  
  The first step: Reverse Engineering!
  

• Identify people who haunt our current narrative

• Go deep into their life stories and understand what they did and how they did it

• Select actionable things from their lives that I can emulate.
  

  
  Reader, I will need your help with the first step.
  
  Here are some people I think haunt our narrative currently:
  
  Aaron Schwartz, Alan Watts, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
  
  Who do YOU think haunts our narrative?
  
  Write to me with your nominations and your explanations and we’ll figure out the next steps!
  
  P.S: Yes, I’ll also explain my choices in the next one!
  
  Trying to Haunt the Narrative,
  Ghost