: Re: What is meant by "purposeful, habitual, and gratuitous" actions? In his "Characters" essay, Samuel R. Delany purports there are three types of actions to characters: "purposeful, habitual, and gratuitous."

@Megan928

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Purposeful actions are those performed with conscious thought and effort, and in the context of fiction, normally influence the plot. For example, if, in response to the King saying 'Holy crap, someone kidnapped my daughter', a strapping young farm boy says 'I'll rescue her' and proceeds to perform said task, that is an action performed with purpose, that is, it's purposeful.

Habitual action is a regularly performed action that often serves some purpose, but doesn't necessarily, and is usually there for flavour rather than moving the plot along in the context of fiction. An example would be going to work regularly (on the more purposeful side) or biting one's nails when nervous (on the more gratuitous side). Habitual actions can be either purposeful or gratuitous in nature; the recurring theme for them is that they're regularly repeated.

Finally, gratuitous action is spontaneous action that has no rhyme or reason to it. While sometimes this can lead to a major plot-turning event (like King Joffrey Baratheon's knee-jerk decision to go off-script and execute Ned Stark when everyone wanted him to be merely exiled in A Song of Ice and Fire), for the most part a plot will feel 'cheap' if it is resolved or moved forward with such actions. Instead, like habitual actions, they're largely there for flavour. Perhaps it's a bored office worker randomly deciding to graffiti a nearby desk when nobody's looking; it doesn't progress the plot, but shows he likes to rebel in really harmless ways, which demonstrates both impotence and a yearning for more with very little proper action.

I hope that this helps you.

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