The Ordinary World: How Much and How Ordinary?
By Donald Maass | February 6, 2019 |
Even if you are not familiar with The Hero’s Journey, there’s a good chance you know that its first step is establishing the Ordinary World. That, commonly understood, is a baseline view of a protagonist’s life and location.
Establishing the Ordinary World is like playing the first chord in a musical composition: It’s the safe and satisfying sound to which we will long to return during the many variations to come. Until we know a protagonist’s “normal” we won’t know what order needs to be restored. We’ll lack the heart and home anchors that make a protagonist both relatable and motivated. We won’t meet the people who need to be protected and saved. A protagonist without an Ordinary World will be a hero without a cause, and so we need to spend some time there.
That, anyway, is the common idea; however, that idea is limited if not wrong. In too many manuscripts it leads to early pages laden with the domestic clatter of the daily routine. Characters do what they’d do on any ordinary day followed shortly, or so the theory goes, by an interruption that brings the first hint of trouble.
Even stories that begin with trouble—a dead body, say, or a special -ops mission—can retreat quickly to a “normal” atmosphere and tempo, as when a detective in Chapter Two goes home for a shower, or the team returns to base to debrief. Getting to know protagonists is important, obviously, but pouring cereal or joshing around do not automatically produce tension. In my experience, they almost never produce tension at all.
My colleague and friend Chris Vogler in The Writer’s Journey, his distillation and interpretation of mythologist Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces for writers, elaborates on the utility and purpose of the Ordinary World. Chris explains that the purpose of the Ordinary World is multi-fold. It can create a metaphor for the story world and its problems. It can set a story’s context, which is to say the framework for coming conflict. The Ordinary World can feel tame compared to the Special World later on, but the seemingly tranquil base can nevertheless contain the seeds of trouble. The hero’s problems do not begin elsewhere; they are already present at home. Pretty obvious when you think about it.
The Ordinary World phase of a novel can also foreshadow the Special World and raise the story’s dramatic questions. Heroes makes entrances, certainly, yet they can also sweep in along with them all of their baggage and hang-ups. We want to like heroes, unquestionably, but there is also no reason that heroes’ lacks, flaws, needs, wants, wounds, burdens or yearnings need to wait. The story’s stakes and theme are likewise in the air already. How could they not be? Stakes are always present and any issue worth writing about is already with us now.
Thus, the seemingly placid surface of the Ordinary World is deceptive. The Ordinary World is anything but settled and safe. Dangerous currents exist in the water close to shore. Any life that appears serene is actually loaded with suppressed conflict. A routine that feels comfortable and easy is in reality a situation in which a protagonist’s weakness is only temporarily tolerated. Heroes are not yet heroic at home, and if we look closely that is immediately obvious. Heroes have growing to do. They need to be tested. All of that is made plain in the Ordinary World.
Look at in that way, the Ordinary World doesn’t seem so ordinary, does it? Let’s take a look at some Ordinary Worlds already on the shelves.
S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders (1967) opens with Ponyboy telling us about his world; in particular, the distinction between his social class and another:
We’re poorer than the Socs and the middle class. I reckon we’re wilder, too. Not like the Socs, who jump greasers and wreck houses and throw beer blasts for kicks, and get editorials in the paper for being a public disgrace one day and an asset to society the next. Greasers are almost like hoods; we steal things and drive old souped-up cars and hold up gas stations and have a gang fight once in a while. I don’t mean I do things like that. Darry would kill me if I got into trouble with the police. Since Mom and Dad were killed in an auto wreck, the three of us get to stay together only as long as we behave. So Soda and I stay out of trouble as much as we can, and we’re careful not to get caught when we can’t. I only mean that most greasers do things like that, just like we wear our hair long and dress in blue jeans and T-shirts, or leave our shirttails out and wear leather jackets and tennis shoes or boots. I’m not saying that either Socs or greasers are better; that’s just the way things are.
Note the tensions, not only between Socs and greasers but within Ponyboy himself. He’s concerned about getting in trouble, of course, but is he happy being a greaser or more resigned to it? Resigned is not the same feeling as being content. Ponyboy may identify as a greaser but that doesn’t mean that he is okay with it, or is willing to stay that way forever. Hinton’s passage, then, presents an Ordinary World that is not trouble-free. It’s a microcosm; a metaphor for everyone and everywhere. Ponyboy also may claim to be merely reporting the way things are but he wouldn’t be writing about that if that did not bother him.
Jennifer Weiner’s Fly Away Home (2010) is the story of Sylvie Woodruff, wife of the senior senator from the state of New York. Married young, she has given her life to her husband’s career. You would think such a life enviable, and on the surface so it would seem. Weiner opens by establishing Sylvie’s Ordinary World in its most mundane aspect: breakfast.
Breakfast in five-star hotels was always the same. This was what Sylvie Serfer Woodruff thought as the elevator descended from the sixth floor and opened onto the gleaming expanse of the lobby of the Four Seasons in Philadelphia. After thirty-two years of marriage, fourteen of them as the wife of the senior senator from New York, after visits to six continents and some of the major cities of the world, perhaps she should have been able to come up with something more profound about human nature and common ground and the ties that bind us all, but there it was—her very own insight. Maybe it wasn’t much, but it wasn’t nothing. If pressed, Sylvie also had some very profound and trenchant observations to make about executive airport lounges.
She took a deep breath, uncomfortably aware of the way the waistband of her skirt dug into her midriff. Then she slipped her hand into her husband’s and walked beside him, past the reception desk toward the restaurant, thinking that it was a good thing, a reassuring thing, that no matter where you were, London or Los Angeles or Dubai, if you were in a good hotel, a four Seasons or a Ritz-Carlton—and , these days, when she and Richard traveled they were almost always in a Four Seasons or a Ritz-Carlton—your breakfast would never surprise you.
Breakfast. Always the same. How much more ordinary can the Ordinary World get? Yet, look again. Is Sylive settled in her life? Yes, too settled. She is stuck. Atrophied. A world traveler whose opinions are confined to breakfast menus and frequent flyer lounges. She claims to be making the best of it. She tells herself it’s not so bad. It was a good thing, a reassuring thing…that your breakfast would never surprise you. Do you get the feeling that Sylvie’s is a life that needs shaking up? No question, and shaken it will be.
Perhaps no aspect of the Ordinary World phase is more treacherous than its function of conveying back story. Oof. Back story. It might as well be called quicksand. Back story can suck an opening down to its death in seconds. Nevertheless, back story is not doomed merely to flatly set up and explain things. It can raise mysteries. It can set expectations for protagonists, and load them with legacies, prophecies, curses and reputations to live up to—or to live down.
Dean Koontz’s The City (2014) is the story of a musical prodigy from a family of musicians. In its opening pages, Koontz’s narrator rattles on about pretty much everything he thinks we ought to know about his life, location and times (1967) before he starts his story, including a portrait of his Grandpa who played piano in hotels and department stores for money, but who at home only plays for pleasure:
Grandpa was modest, but I won’t be modest on his behalf. He and Grandma didn’t have much trouble also because they had about them an air or royalty. She was tall, and he was taller, and they carried themselves with quiet pride. I used to like to watch them, how they walked, how they moved with such grace, how he helped her into her coat and opened doors for her and how she always thanked him. They dressed well, too. Even at home, Grandpa wore suit pants and a white shirt and suspenders, and when he played the piano or sat down for dinner, he always wore a tie. When I was with them, they were as warm and amusing and loving as any grandparents ever, but I was at all times aware, with each of them, that I was in a Presence.
For all the warmth and affection this narrator feels toward his beloved grandparents, Koontz’s narrator has a lot to live up to. He starts out with musical talent but in an inferior position, psychologically speaking. He is not a man with flaws, exactly, but one who has things to prove. He will soon learn of his destiny in a city of dark forces, but while we linger in his Ordinary World we are already sensing that this hero will have to be tested in order to grow.
What about novels that are already set in worlds that feel different, such as fantasy worlds, royal courts or café society? When the life and times are already extraordinary, how do you convey a picture of the Ordinary and simultaneously within that also cast a foreshadow, erect a framework for conflict, put in place a protagonist’s shortcomings, and all the rest?
Melanie Benjamin’s The Swans of Fifth Avenue (2016) fictionalizes the life of 1950’s high society light Babe Paley. Babe swims with the elegant swans such as Gloria Guinness and Pamela Churchill, living a life of exquisite style and taste. What trouble could possibly roil such smooth waters?
The New York of the plays, the movies, the books; the New York of The New Yorker and Vanity Fair and Vogue.
It was a beacon, a spire, a beacon on top of a spire. A light, always glowing from afar, visible even from the cornfields of Iowa, the foothills of the Dakotas, the deserts of California. The swamps of Louisiana. Beckoning, always beckoning. Summoning the discontented, seducing the dreamers. Those whose blood ran too hot, and too quickly, causing them to look about at their placid families, their staid neighbors, the graves of their slumbering ancestors and say—
I’m different. I’m special. I’m more.
They all came to New York. Nancy Gross—nicknamed “Slim” by her friend the actor William Powell—from California. Gloria Guinness—“La Guinness’”—born a peasant in a rural village in Mexico. Barbara Cushing—known as “Babe” from the day she was born, the youngest of three fabulous sisters from Boston.
And Truman. Truman Streckfus Persons Capote, who showed up one day on William S. and Babe Paley’s private plane, a tag-along guest of their good friends Jennifer Jones and David O. Selznick. Bill Paley, the chairman and founder of CBS, had gaped at the slender young fawn with the big blue eyes and funny voice; “I thought you meant President Truman,” he’d hissed to David. “I’ve never heard of this little—fellow. We have to spend the whole weekend with him?”
Does this Ordinary World strike you as too perfect? Well, naturally it is and hints of its thin façade and fragile underpinnings pervade this passage. The glamorous are dreamers, climbers and costumed frauds enchanted by their own fabulousness. Theirs is a world of privilege, but privilege must pay and the venom is already in the bloodstream of this narration. Truman Capote will wreak havoc with the life of Babe Paley, in case you haven’t already figured that out, and so a world of glamour becomes, in a way, ordinary after all; which is to say, not at all safe.
Too many manuscripts treat the Ordinary World phase as light stretching before hard exercise. As we can see, the Ordinary World actually takes a lot of work—and does a lot of work, reflecting the story to come and already cracking open protagonists who have a long way to go if they are going to earn the mantle of Hero.
What’s roiling under the calm surface of your WIP’s Ordinary World? Share.
[coffee]
Donald Maass (he/him) founded the Donald Maass Literary Agency. in New York in 1980. He is the author of The Career Novelist (1996), Writing the Breakout Novel (2001), Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook (2004), The Fire in Fiction (2009), The Breakout Novelist (2011), Writing 21st Century Fiction (2012) and The Emotional Craft of Fiction (2019). He has presented hundreds of workshops around the world and is a past president of the American Association of Literary Agents (formerly AAR).
Ooh, these are some great examples. In each one, there’s a definite sense of things not being not quite right with the protagonist – even one who seems to “have it all.”
I recently watched the movie “The Martian,” and noticed how they transitioned VERY fast from their ordinary world (well, as ordinary as Mars can be considered), and got straight to the Big Problem much more quickly than we frequently see in movies or books. But even in that short time they established some of the dynamic between characters. In watching the extra features, it came out that originally the opening scene was going to be used later in the film, as a flashback. I think the decision to move it to the beginning was the right move. So my takeaway was that it doesn’t matter so much how long you spend in the ordinary world, what matters is what you accomplish while you’re there, from a story-telling standpoint. Your examples prove this vividly, in a wide variety of ways.
I also like how an author can use what is the ordinary world for the character to show the reader a world that – to us, at least – is anything BUT ordinary. We saw this in your examples: life in a gang, being uber-rich, etc.
Ultimately, showing us the world AND how the character feels about that world gives the reader some powerful insights. The drug-addled opening of Jay McInerny’s “Bright Lights, Big City” is an example that always struck me, taking us into a cocaine-fueled world with a vividness I’ve seldom seen matched, while at the same time capturing the protagonist’s mixed feelings about being part of that world.
Nice job showing us how to make the ordinary extraordinary!
“…showing us the world AND how the character feels about that world…”
You said something important there, Keith. Thanks.
I like how each of these examples is only a few paragraphs long, yet laden with meaning and subtext. Thanks for the well-timed boost as I head into a revision today.
Yes, when in my title I pose the question “how much” Ordinary World, the answer is only enough to make us uneasy, which is less than you might think.
As you can see from the examples, less is more…when the less is handled just right.
Context, oh context… This post helps me understand there can be no contrast without context first. What a great lesson today. Reading your posts, Donald, leaves me feeling like I do when an Olympic skater finishes a performance. Stunned and amazed. Fortunately, I am not actually skating, just writing, and you are a world-class coach. Thanks so very much for showing us context, not just talking about it.
Yes, when in my title I pose the question “how much” Ordinary World, the answer is only enough to make us uneasy, which is less than you might think.
As you can see from the examples, less is more…when the less is handled just right.
My wife was a junior champion ice dancer in Canada. I have figures skates and…well, I can skate around the rink backwards, that’s something isn’t it?
Glad my posts are useful to you, even if my ice skating is not going to win any medals.
Thank you! I needed this reminder. I read The Hero with a Thousand Faces upon beginning my WIP. I love your examples and I also kept thinking about Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. I hope the rules allow for the hero to begin the journey in search of himself. Leaving as a “fallen hero” in pursuit of his reason for being.
Exactly! Like I say, heroes are heroes at home. Not yet.
Great examples and wonderfully written commentary – thank you for a most enjoyable and stimulating piece.
My serie’s and WIP protagonist’s ordinary world is a house of cards regularly exposed to the buffeting winds of human tragedy, violence.and evil.
As an emergency physician his “normal” is the responsibility to minimize harm and protect the lives of every patient regardless of what catastrophic circumstance has befallen them.
As a man he has to deal with the inevitable failure to save everyone and somehow balance his impassioned professional commitment with his responsibility and love for his wife, children and others.
On the best of days his balance is tenuous with feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt always near.
When the victims of crime, violence or murder present the response my protagonist’s character demands he makes place his world, his life, and the lives of those he loves in danger.
Powerful emotion and tremendous challenge roil beneath the “calm” of his not-so-ordinary life.
Thanks, Donald. Another outstanding lesson and exercise.
Tom
An ER physician with a conflict between his duty and his family? Sounds great. Plus, the “ordinary” world of the ER is a great place to go, it’s anything but ordinary to most of us.
Great examples. Given I write domestic tales, this is what I try to show: “The hero’s problems do not begin elsewhere; they are already present at home.” I think of it as peeling the layers of an onion.
Onions can be a problem. The have a strong flavor. They make your eyes water. But only after you cut them.
Old becomes new when I read your posts – thank you. I unwittingly tried this in my first pages, among the mundane:
I am a human Golden Retriever: loving, loyal, dependable. But in my experience, humans with those traits tend to go unnoticed. The dogs, on the other hand, people find adorable.
Hopefully a hint of what she has to learn, and what’s wrong with her ordinary life.
Yeah, dogs get all the love. I think you convey that well. Now we know what your protagonist needs.
Also, your plot can be summarized in one word: fetch!
A teenage girl in a sun-drenched hayloft with birds flitting in and out through a hay door. She’s preparing to do something she’s been warned not to do, but she doesn’t care because she’s driven by revenge.
And what she’s preparing to do in the hayloft is–?? Does it involve a match? See? Nothing ordinary about that girl’s world.
Hi Don
‘When the life and times are already extraordinary, how do you convey a picture of the Ordinary and simultaneously within that also cast a foreshadow, erect a framework for conflict, put in place a protagonist’s shortcomings, and all the rest?’
Tolkien has Elrond establish the Fellowship by acknowledging the idea of chance bringing them together which is an ordinary assumption for the characters to have. Elrond refutes that assumption then marks the Fellowship with exclusivity and puts a great responsibility on them.
“You have come and are met here, in the very nick of time, so it seems. Yet is not so. Believe rather that it is ordered that we, who sit here, and none others, must find council for the perils of the world.” (Fellowship of the Ring, pg. 291)
The task put on the Fellowship is extraordinary, but it’s members are ordinary in Tolkien’s world.
My WIP uses the reactions of the MC to illustrate the ordinary. They compare what they see with what they know. I decided to do it that way so I can start the story at the inciting incident. I’m also using an ordinary format (a true crime broadcast) to build a strong connection with the reader which I’ll need later as the MC is shown to be unreliable, and my story world is shown to be dystopian.
Deliverables will be mailed off soon, see you in April.
A sneaky dystopian world reveal? Love that.
A great reminder – thank you!
Welcome!
Hi Don
‘When the life and times are already extraordinary, how do you convey a picture of the Ordinary and simultaneously within that also cast a foreshadow, erect a framework for conflict, put in place a protagonist’s shortcomings, and all the rest?’
In the Fellowship of the Ring, Tolkien had Elrond acknowledge an assumption, refute that assumption, establish exclusivity, and foreshadow the necessity of their grouping-all in one paragraph.
“You have come and are met here, in the very nick of time, by chance, so it seems. Yet it is not so. Believe rather that it is ordered that we, who sit here, and none others, must now find council for the perils of the world.” (pg. 291)
The task put on the fellowship is extraordinary but the characters are not for Tolkien’s world which is why Elrond needed to change their doubts into resolve.
In my WIP I felt I needed an ordinary format (it begins as a true-crime broadcast) because the MC is unreliable and my story world is dystopian.
Looking forward to seeing you in April!
Oops, thought the first one didn’t post.
No worries. See you in April!
I am someone who is just getting into writing (and English is not my first language). This reminder gave me a great boost, while I am swinging through these branches of a bazillion ideas! Thanks!!!!!
Great to see you here! Happy writing.
Several of the previous responders mention a fast or short introduction to the character’s ordinary world. I agree. I’ve just finished “The Sister Brothers” (great book). The first chapter is short and we see their ordinary world, the tension between brothers, and the symbol of their relationship – their horses. Great stuff in a few words.
Short story writing skills are useful here, in fact I think their are always useful.
In my short story “LA Bank Job” I attack the problem like this (the sometimes inartful language is deliberate)
As usual on Friday afternoons, Colt Flowers sat in one of the bars in LAX Terminal 3 drinking a boilermaker and wishing his mother hadn’t gone into labor in a Texas gun shop. He wasn’t a traveler, but the people in airports didn’t interrupt his drinking with idol chit-chat that lead to stupid arguments like in neighborhood bars. He could just sit there, ruminating on how his life had gone lately. Which wasn’t terrific.
He sipped his beer and stared at the television mounted over the back bar. More gang violence in South Central. The pictures showed a handful of young men throwing rocks and a Molotov cocktail at a police car. Flowers went back to ruminating.
Down the concourse, he noticed a woman dressed in perfect LA casual, on the good-side of thirty-five, marching straight for him. Her three inch, red heels clicked on the granite floor, and she walked like a model. Her skin tight designer jeans and loose silk blouse turned heads.
She stopped at his elbow, took her DKNY sunglasses off, and said, “Order one of those for me.”
Patrick deWitt’s novel has been on my radar for a long time, this is a great reminder to read it.
Your noir opening is classic. It works like all noir works: a hero is discontented inside. Naturally, something must shake him up. Or someone. In three-inch heels. Well done.
Thank you for your kind comment.
I always seem to start stories at the inciting incident, and then have to go back and figure out the ordinary world part afterward. My current work in progress had additional challenges when I wrote the intro, because it’s a sequel. There isn’t a lot of “how-to” books about writing a sequel and finding that balance between the Ordinary World and too much Ordinary World. Add to that the story is contemporary fantasy, so I’m pretty anxious about how much world re-building I have to do so the story is understandable, yet not heavy-handed and boring! I ended up looking at many second books in a variety of series, and hoping for the best. The points you make and examples you list here are a nice collection of how you can pack information in a small, interesting space.
My first scene starts off “My name is Hazel Michelli and on days like today I don’t want to adult anymore.” The scene proceeds to depict a magic lesson between Hazel (protag) and her magical mentor. It’s not going so well due to her concern her kids are going to wake up when they’ve already been interrupted by other “adulting” issues. I’m hoping it’s engaging enough and balanced between enough Ordinary World info to inform new readers what’s going on, while not giving so much information that it’s stilted and boring to people who read the first book.
I don’t plan on doing much else with this story besides put it on Wattpad so anyone who read the first story will have access to the second. I might continue the series over there, but for now the books have mostly turned into a learning experience, which relieves my stress to get the Ordinary World perfect. (I had a LOT of stress about it, and a lot of procrastination, too). I will definitely refer back to today’s post when I start my next story! :)
I love that first line.
Thanks! :D
Great post, as always! Lots of food for thought here.
My main character has successfully created a life fully isolated from her family, but her aloneness is starting to feel lonely.
Perfect!
Hello, Good Sir:
Wonderful, inspiring post, as always. I have already earmarked it for my students in my upcoming “The Character of Plot” class at Litreactor.
One of the things I try to teach in that class is how to embody the character’s backstory in behavior — how she thinks, talks, responds, reacts, what she pursues and what she avoids, what she likes and what she disdains, etc. Through the course of the story the character will be both utilizing the positive aspects of her past behavior and battling the negative effects of that same past, with the prospect of change offered by the story’s events. Revealing backstory through behavior allows you a dramatic and economical way to show that change by depicting how the character behaves at the outset and then contrasting that with her behavior at the end.
One of my favorite uses of this technique is in the film Michael Clayton. The story, about a “fixer” for a major law firm having to face the moral consequences of who he has become, begins with a flash-forward to a dramatic and violent moment that comes near the end of the film — a common technique when it’s feared that the story may begin too slowly for some readers or audiences.
But then we do the “two weeks earlier” trick and put our protagonist in his daily world at the outset of the story, orienting the reader/audience in who he is and what he does, with hints of the disaster to come.
In four brief scenes, we observe the core concerns of Clayton’s world at the outset of the story—specifically, we see the financial and emotional pressures closing in on him, the things in his own life the fixer has proven incapable of fixing:
He collects his son from his ex-wife’s house, and the sweetly serious boy (Henry) tries to engage his father in his current obsession, a book titled Realm & Conquest (the import of which will be seen later in the story). Clayton watches Henry run to class, eyes brimming with love and loss.
Clayton visits an auction house where the supplies and fixtures from his failed restaurant are being sold for a fraction of their cost. He owned the restaurant with his brother, Tim, who through drink and drugs drove the business into ruin. Clayton’s in hock to a loan shark, represented by a man named Zabel, who is cordial but uncompromising: Clayton remains $75,000 short with the points. He’s stunned—he has nowhere near that kind of money on hand, and his brother has nothing to offer. He asks for time, and learns that might not be an option.
At his office, Clayton puts out a number of fires—an associate being shaken down by a “motivated” stripper ex-girlfriend; a business reporter about to break a damning exposé concerning one of the law firm’s corporate clients (Clayton talks off the damning story with an offer for the reporter to become communications director for a hedge fund). Meanwhile, rumors swirl—KBL, Clayton’s law-firm employer, is about to be acquired by a British firm. Clayton’s secretary asks if he (and she) will still have a job if the merger goes through. He says he doesn’t know.
In a sequence of scenes that switch back and forth in time, Karen Crowder, whom we will subsequently learn is Clayton’s Opponent, is both preparing for and conducting a puff-piece film interview for in-house consumption concerning her ascension to the post of general counsel for U/North, a manufacturer of agricultural products (i.e., toxic weedkillers). Karen practices her answers to the stock questions, including one on “balance” in her life, which she clearly lacks, revealing an obsession with detail and enslavement to the job that is soulless and absolute. Once on-camera, she demonstrates a deftness and ease of delivery that will no doubt fool many. We see who Clayton will be up against, and despite her being OCD, we get that she is formidable.
We then watch Karen’s interview in progress get interrupted by an emergency: Arthur Edens, an attorney for KBL, which is defending U/North in a multi-billion dollar lawsuit resulting from that weedkiller, has just stripped down naked in the middle of a videotaped deposition and professed his love for the plaintiff, a shy farm girl from rural Wisconsin.
And we’re off — Michael the Fixer has to fix this disaster, and a great many other things in his life, as as been hinted at by this intro.
There’s more to the intro than I can discuss here. but Tony Gilroy is a great screenwriter who has a novelist’s instincts about character, often putting identity, integrity, and authenticity at the heart of his screenplays. I know you tend to prefer not to use films as examples, but as this one is apt, I thought I’d toss it in. Hope I haven’t tramped on the daisies.
BTW: See you’re doing an intensive workshop with Carol Dougherty, Robin Burcell, Jason Sitzes, and Tex Thompson. Great group. Wonderful writers and teachers, all.
I have never seen Michael Clayton! Must do so.
When am I ever going to get to take one of your classes? This must happen.
I’ll be at Master Craftfest (as will you…sigh). Doing a class on moral argument for CraftFest. Will also be at the Unconference — maybe then? I feel the same way about your classes. I still quote from your “Your Thriller Isn’t Thrilling” talk and more.
Hey Don, I’m coming to WU, and to your essay late today, as I will be for likely the next two weeks. I’ve been selected as a juror on a fairly complex murder case. I read your post during my lunch, and it stayed with me as I watched several witnesses interviewed and cross-examined. It occurred to me that each of them starts their “story” of the day of the murder in their version of an ordinary world. First-responder cops are on patrol when they get the call, EMTs are at the station, detectives are phoned in to the scene, etc.
And then, BAM – all hell breaks loose. Sirens blare, doors are pounded upon, warnings are shouted, guns are drawn and brandished, victims are accessed, scenes are locked-down, etc. Each testimony is fascinating in its own right, and particularly when thinking of it from the perspective you offered at lunch. As others have pointed out, the shit comes down FAST. Lives are turned upside-down (for everyone involved, even if only briefly), and yet I had felt that genuine ordinariness for each of them in their opening remarks and replies.
I suppose I’d rather be working on my WIP than sitting in a jury box for two to three weeks, but there’s quite a bit of story fodder to be had in a courtroom. Thanks for providing a unique perspective for my unique circumstance.
The Ordinary World in courtroom testimony? Wow. I hope the case is one you can judge with equanimity. When cases go to trial, I hear it can be because they aren’t clear cut. Good luck!
I’m starting to wonder if it’s possible to get this right in anything but a rewrite.
In the first book I wrote, I put in way too much Ordinary World, with way too little tension, which was then a major issue in the rewrite.
With the second book, I went too far the other way and had almost no Ordinary World at all. And then I realized the story actually gets going some way before where I started writing, and in trying to “cut to the chase” I’d cut out a whole heap of building tension.
You live and you learn, I guess! Or rather, you rewrite and you learn…
You rewrite and you learn–ha! So true!
Terrific post! Another example of how every element of a story must serve a purpose, earn its keep. I write short fiction, where “dramatic and economical” (thanks, Mr. Corbett) are watchwords for keeping the story moving forward and meeting word-count limits.
The economy of short stories is so valuable. Thanks for stopping by.
Thank you Don. You’ve given me much to think about. Now I’m anxious to get back into my WIP and see if the ordinary world I’ve created has enough emotional tension to keep the reader engaged and hungry for more.
Thank you for sharing your insight. I am currently reading WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL and it’s been so helpful as I work on my middle-grade WIP. My opening lines:
Music pounded through the paper-thin walls, shaking my bed like some sort of rock ‘n roll earthquake. I wasn’t sleeping anyway and not just because of the bass thumping, or even that I get creeped out then Mom’s late and I’m alone in #36. Nope. It’s because just a few hours ago I became a liar, a forger, and a thief. And I’m not even in Junior High yet.
My hero’s world is united behind one goal they want to reach – so much that nothing beside that one goal is considered worthy or even acceptable. My hero wants to reach that goal too, but for slightly different reasons; reasons that will make him start questioning both society and (eventually) the goal itself.