Fourth Wall and Catalysts

While I'm still struggling to get a living novel up and moving on Tumblr (ammutterings.tumblr.com), I have been attempting to ask a lot of questions and teach a little bit of literary theory.  Most recently, I've been talking about the Fourth Wall and Catalysts.  But, since I have only one follower on Tumblr, and perhaps a few here, why not  toss some of my questions out here to those who take a gander from time to time.

Catalysts are things in the plot that kick the conflict into high gear.  So out of the great myriad of catalysts that I can choose from, I need to select one that would reveal a character's nature as something greater than all others, or someone possibly threatening.

What would be a few great ideas for a catalyst to pique a female character's abilities?

The Fourth Wall is the idea that between the reader and the characters there's an invisible veil.  I was thinking that bringing the audience in to help decide the novel's path would be a good way to break that fourth wall.  However, upon thinking about it, that's not the case.  There's still a barrier up.

So...how could I break that fourth wall truly?

shamelessly grabbed from: http://iaanhughes.com/2010/06/03/breaking-glass/

A curious thought...

So I'm sitting at work today and I click over to turn on my Pandora music station.  And while I'm listening to one of my stations (originally began by simply looking for Imagine Dragons), I begin to notice something.  It's not really all that unusual but as the songs roll on from "Demons" to "Holland Road" from Mumford and Sons, then to "Paradise" by Coldplay, and then on to "Show Me What I'm Looking For" by Carolina Liar, my mind was slowly awakened to something.

It seems that the searching is still with us.  I don't usually like to get all religious and spiritual here, but perhaps it's time to call a butterfly a butterfly.

I grew up in the '80s and '90s with all the promises of casual sex without emotional attachment (now all but totally debunked) and rebellion to set us free.  But, now these bands that the youth are clinging to (and I enjoy listening to, too) seem to be searching for something higher that that which has been promised by the world.

Wow, shocker.  You mean this fractured version of paradise is actually not enough for the human soul?  Who would have thought?

Could this be a rising cultural back lash?

If I take five minutes to do a quick search on the backgrounds of these groups, it seems I'm not far off.  Mumford and Sons, Carolina Liar, Coldplay, and Imagine Dragons all have deep religious ties to Christianity in some way, even though they may be shying away from the label of "Christian Band" (something I can't blame them for as the term "Christian" alone carries a lot of negative imagery to non-Christians).  However, one of my favorite quotes of all time comes from C.S. Lewis about how the world doesn't need more "Good Christian books, but good Christians writing books."  In other words, who we are bleeds our message out into the world, and the world will absorb our message.

Just an interesting thought.  Could we be in seeing the start of the pendulum swing?