Shaman

The shamans wore elaborate costumes of paint and feathers and shells, but this was just an old man. His skin was leather. His right eye was dark and piercing, his left eye was empty, and from the ruined socket a wisp of smoke trailed upward.  He wore nothing but a cord around his waist and rings of blue mud and white mud daubed on his left arm. He carried a flint-headed spear.

Plotting Tools

Snippets from Million Dollar Outlines:

• Timebomb: a time limit that seems realistic, puts extreme stress on the character, and has devastating consequences for failure.
• Dilemma: the character must choose between two (or more) unpleasant options, and deal with the consequences of his choice.  The choice usually happens early in the story to allow time for the consequences. 
• Crucible: a setting, condition, or relationship which forces characters to stay together despite rising tension between them. The setting might be that they're snowbound in a wilderness cabin, or on a small vessel between ports; a relationship might be with family members, co-religionists, or fellow soldiers; a condition might be that they both have the same disease, or are being hunted by the same mafia or detective. It may not be impossible to leave, but the cost will be high.
• Reversal: one character is winning, when suddenly his opponent snatches victory from defeat. Early in the story, a reversal usually goes against the protagonist, making it harder for him to win next time.  However, it could go against the villain, who had the hero on the ropes, only to be thwarted by a lucky shot; he withdraws, vowing to come back and crush the hero next time. At the end of the story, the hero often accomplishes a reversal to finally overthrow the bad guy.
• Revelations: an explanation for why a character feels and behaves the way he does.. The character may make the explanation himself, or another character may tell it, or it may be something deduced. 

How to Tell if a Character is Important

Taken from Million Dollar Outline:

• Viewpoint for the narrative
• Named
• Powerful enough to change the outcome of the story
• Shown as suffering extreme pain, especially emotional pain
• Extremely likable
• Shown as struggling to do the right thing

Essence vs Identity

Million Dollar Outlines quotes Michael Hauge as saying "he has never seen a movie or read a book that worked where "the question of the protagonist's identity" doesn't com up. In short, questions like 'Who am I?', 'What am I?', and 'Why am I this way?' are at the core of every great work."
From another source, I heard this note from a Hauge seminar: In the beginning of most successful films, you see the protagonist in his everyday Identity, just fitting in, going about their regular life. Wesley (Princess Bride) is a farm boy; Korben Dallas (Fifth Element is a cab driver; Thomas Anderson (Matrix) is a programmer; James Edwards (Men in Black) is a cop. And then something happens--they meet someone, or learn something, which speaks to his Essence. At that point, the protagonist has to make a decision: is he going to hide within his Identity, or show his Essence? The Identity is safe, but unfulfilled; the Essence is unsafe, but fulfilled.
What conflicts arise because the protagonist, or other characters, doubt him, and what must he do to prove he is worthy to hold the role he must take?

Seeing a ghost

It can be quite a shock, when you see a ghost.
 I was standing at my window, peering out through the lace of first frost. Moonlight dappled the streets. I could get glimpses of the Other World, and the shadows of people moving like a silent river below me. Watching them flow, I noticed one young woman, translucent. She turned one way, hesitated, turned around, stumbled a few steps, stopped, looked up. I imagined I could see her tears; a trick of the moonlight. It felt as if she were looking at me, but of course she wasn't; my window was dark and she couldn't see through it. I wished I could go out and do something to help her--but what? I could offer guidance or comfort, but she wouldn't be able to hear me. So, unable to help, I simply watched. Eventually she was carried away on the tide of moving souls, and I lost track of her.
 There were others out there, with the passions of their life showing strongly, that I could pick them out of the masses. Raging or pained or staggering drunk or bouncing giddy with excitement or grieving. This woman having loveless sex with strangers out of desperate loneliness. That man, worn and lined by care, but forgetting it as he cheered for his team. The teenage girl glowing with first love. The warrior, eyes dark and wary. The new pilot, exultant with first flight. The pretty, unhappy woman in a slave collar. The single mother too proud to ask for help. All of them beyond my ability to touch, to hear, to reach.
 In a flash of realization, I understood that the people I saw were living; that I was the one who was silent and distant. I looked at my reflection, and saw.
It can be quite a shock, when you see a ghost.

Niven's Fifth Law

"If you've nothing to say, say it any way you like. Stylistic innovations, contorted story lines or none, exotic or genderless pronouns, internal inconsistencies, the recipe for preparing your lover as a cannibal banquet: feel free. 
If what you have to say is important and/or difficult to follow, use the simplest language possible. If the reader doesn't get it then, let it not be your fault."

Writing plan

After reading innumerable books on plot, character, how to put together a story, and all that, I've come up with this plan:

• Determine the general setting--"space opera", "sword and sorcery"
• Determine the "Hell Yeah" moment--the moment at which, if your novel becomes a movie, everyone in the theater will cheer. Example: the outmatched hero suddenly turns out to have powerful allies
• Decide why this needs to happen right now, rather than when we're in a better position. 
• Work out who does this to whom. Examples: a lone smuggler to the police fleet; a dispossessed king to an orcish army. NOTE: the do-er has to be the hero, not some deus ex machina or other third party.
• Work out the details of why the bad guy was trying to do this. Example: stop the smuggler from getting news out; capture the city where he thinks the McGuffin is.
• Work out how the hero gets to be in a position to pull off this stunt. Examples: he's found the barbarian fleet himself; he's the king who inherited an oath from the ghosts.
• And you end up with Serenity leading the Reavers into the Alliance fleet, or the Galaxyquest ship drags the mines into the Big Bad ship, or Aragorn leaps out of the corsair ship and the ghost army materializes before the orcs

Examples of "hell yeah" moments:

• Lone hero with bomb gets close and destroys monster. Star Wars, Monster Hunter International, A Hymn Before Battle
• Types of Hell Yes moments
• More examples from TV Tropes