Define "Ordinary"

We periodically get interested around here in the concept of ordinary world in the mythic quest structure. I don't know why this happens. I don't know why this is a hot button topic for so many writers. Do you?

In any case, last week on our working retreat to San Francisco, Alicia and I found ourselves once again talking about ordinary world and some of the concepts and comments we've kicked around here over the years. One concept in particular kept recurring -- that is, the difference between ordinary environment and ordinary character. This kept recurring because of last month's Ask an Editor column at Romance University, where I answered some FAQs about ordinary world. In part, that column mentions an idea advanced by the folklorist Vladimir Propp, namely, that folklore structure begins with an ordinary (pure and virtuous) character in a treacherous or unsettled environment. This is almost the perfect reverse of the ordinary world familiar to students of Campbell and Voegler, in which (in at least some iterations) an extraordinary character is placed into an ordinary environment for safekeeping.

It's Harry Potter versus Cinderella.

In Harry Potter, which tracks the mythic structure almost perfectly, the character is not ordinary. He has special abilities and powers which have been largely dormant or ignored. The special outside world associated with those abilities has been hidden from his view. He has been placed for safekeeping in an "ordinary world" -- in this story, the term is quite literal because nothing non-ordinary or magical can intrude.

Special character, ordinary world.

Cinderella follows fairy tale structure, but whether it follows it perfectly depends on which Cinderella we discuss. There are many versions of this tale, and not all of them include stepsisters. But for those that do, the set-up generally references a few key points:

1. Cinderella is an obedient girl with a sweet, unassuming temperament.
2. But this virtuous nature is uncoupled with any special powers or attributes.
3. Her existing world is threatening or dangerous thanks to the presence of evil people in the home. (Resulting from Propp's "Absentation" -- the death of the mother, which disrupts the existing world.)
   

The question we often hear asked of Cinderella is, "How does she manage to remain so pure in that house?" Because, let's be honest, sooner or later many of us would snap and pummel the stepsisters with that damn broom. But Cinderella never does, and that purity of virtue is precisely what constitutes the "ordinariness" of this character type. In other words, one of the central tenets of this type of wonder tale is that goodness is an ordinary quality for a hero or heroine, that even in an impure world, a heroic character remains pure. It's their nature.

So:
Mythic = extraordinary character in an ordinary world
Folkloric = ordinary (heroic) character in a threatening world

From there, the two structures deviate in particular ways even as they reflect each other. For example, in mythic structure, there's a call to action which is initially ignored. In folkloric structure, there's an interdiction which is similarly ignored. But where the myth demands action, the folk tale prohibits it.

In any case, this might be very interesting in an academic sense, but what has it to do with writing actual books? A book is written in scenes. (Please, Gods of Literature, let most books be written in scenes.) Scenes, as we've discussed many times here before, are composed of three elements:

1. A character
2. In meaningful motion
3. Against a background
   

The nature of the three elements varies somewhat depending on the scene itself, but that's the basic recipe. Character, action, setting. And depending on the story form you're incorporating, your "ordinary world" might not refer to the world/setting at all, but to the character. Think about the source of ordinariness before the story kicks into gear -- don't merely think about how much ordinary world you need, or how to transition out of it, but think about what is ordinary and what changes.

But probably "ordinary" won't refer to the action. Anyone care to take a stab at explaining why?

Theresa

The Romantic Hero's Purpose

This one goes out to the romance people reading this blog. I've been thinking over Alicia's post on Contrasts and Juxtapositions from earlier this week. It's been a while since I had to quibble with Alicia about one of her points, and as usual, it's sort of a side point and not really her main point. And as usual, I find myself wanting to start by noting where we think in tandem. It's so rare that we disagree that the urge to preface and even conciliate runs strong.

So here's a quick rundown of two places where I nodded in agreement while reading the post.

-- Genre fiction as folk art? Yes. Exactly. Love the point about innovation within a framework, "the same but different" so often referenced by agents and editors, or as Alicia puts it, something new balanced on the familiar and expected.

-- Victoria Dahl is an adept writer with a knack for surprising readers in a delightful way. No argument there. I haven't read Crazy for Love, the new release Alicia cites, but it's only a matter of time. (And nothing in this post should be construed as criticism of a book I haven't read or an author I respect.)


And then the wheels screeched as my ability to agree with Alicia ran off the side of the road.

You see, I don't think it should be at all unexpected for a hero to have the urge to protect the heroine. In fact, I think if he doesn't have that urge, at least by the end of the book, then he can't be a romantic hero. By definition.

In sociobiological terms, human males have two primary roles: to impregnate women and to fight off predators. There are other sub-roles, of course, and the way these roles manifest in modern men is surely different from how they manifested in our ancestors. Nevertheless, this is what the male body was designed to do, and it's what the deepest part of the instinctive brain will urge males to do.

The way these roles translate into romance hero archetypes is probably pretty obvious. The sexual urges, for example, form part of the tension in even the sweetest romances. Ever wonder why babies factor so prominently in sweets? It's because, in part, if we don't get to see the sexual behavior of the male during the course of the story, we need some other signal that he's capable of fathering a child. So we have an epilogue with the happy couple cuddling their infant a year later, and the reader is left to understand this is a coupling that works.

And as to the warrior/protector side of the male, this manifests in dozens of different ways. Some are obvious -- he's a SEAL or a Scottish chieftain or some other battle-hardened sort. Some are less direct -- he's a CEO (conquerer of the boardroom and enemy competitors), or an aristocrat (lord of all he surveys), or some other high-status male type. A big part of the emotional arc in romance is the journey this male must take from independent warrior to the man who will risk injury and even death to save his mate and children.

This is why so many successful romances have elements of danger to the heroines which allow the hero to intervene and prove his worth as a protector.

And this is why, when I read Alicia's description of the hero trying to save the heroine from imaginary sea monsters, I thought, "But that's what he should do."

It may be that this particular scene was set up so deftly as a sex scene that it was surprising to watch it morph into a protection scene. I don't know because I haven't read it. But that's a different kind of surprise from surprise that he's protective at all. And when Alicia describes the protective urge as more individual or more unique to this character, well, that's when I knew I had to write this post. That urge is not unique to any one romance hero. They should all have it. How they express it might be unique, but they should all have it, even if only by growing into it by the end of the book.

(So tempted now to shift into Darcy Discussion Mode now, a nearly perpetual condition for me these days. Instead will assert that it was his rescue of Lydia that allowed Elizabeth to ultimately love him, knowing he would not only protect her but her family as well, and even protect her from her family if need be. Heroic actions from a heroic character. Debate among yourselves if you like.)

As to Alicia's assertion that this could translate into some kind of 3-act structure, I think I will limit myself to this: what she describes is not so much a story structure as one method for creating a reversal, which is a structural device. I might not be parsing that part of the post correctly, but that's how I read it. There are many different ways to leverage the power of the reversal, and that sort of surprise behavior built upon a reader's assumptions or expectations is a good one.

Theresa

A Topic Close to Alicia's Heart

Romantic rogues.

Been thinking a lot about this character archetype in recent weeks, but I won't bore you with those thoughts. Suffice it to say I encountered a bit of metastory earlier this summer in which the bad boy from a classic novel was redeemed -- transformed into a romantic hero, even -- and it's been weighing on my mind ever since.

For purely academic reasons, of course. *ahem*

Because girls never go all swoony and coo over rogues, right, Alicia? Especially not over cocktails in the lobby bar in Orlando. And especially not us. We're far too dignified for such shenanigans.

Which brings me to my questions for Team Comments, and anyone else who cares to play along. (Yes, it's a non sequitur. Indulge me.)

Is a rogue the same thing as a bad boy?

Do you prefer one character type to the other (as a reader)? Do you avoid either?

How far can a rogue (or bad boy) go before crossing the line into villainy? Got any examples?

What makes you trust that a rogue (or bad boy) has been redeemed and made worthy of romantic love?

These aren't merely speculative questions. I'm writing something on this topic -- not a blog post, go figure -- and am trying to refine my thinking. TIA for anything you care to share.

Theresa

Let's Talk About Men

I have a question for those of you interested in romance writing. I've been mulling some articles about romance hero archetypes, and could use your help shaping the topics.

Is there are particular type of romance hero you find most compelling? (Bad boy, lone wolf, rogue, dom, beta, etc.)

What draws you to that hero type? Does anything about the other types repulse you?

Me, I kind of like them all. Each for different reasons. But I would like to hear some thoughts that originate outside my own head. :)

tia,
Theresa

Introducing an Antihero: Big Good, Little Bad

Setting up an antihero can be very tricky business. It's not like setting up a villain or a hero, but more like a combination of both. As for a hero, you need to convince your audience that your protagonist is someone worth following. You need to give the reader a reason to care and a reason to want to protagonist to succeed, even if that protagonist is ultimately antiheroic in nature. So in that respect, at least, you introduce an antihero much the same way that you introduce a hero.

But there are some differences. There must be suggestions of bad behavior we can expect in the future, hints and innuendos and even outright badness -- foreshadowing, if you will. In other words, you have to provide a suggestion that there is badness in the character, but that suggestion must not be strong enough to overpower the character's initial likability.

Think, for example, of the Godfather. It's no accident that the story opens at Connie's wedding. What is the element of Don Corleone's character that allows us to cheer for him? In a nutshell, it's his love of his family. We can all relate to this kind of love, but for him, his love is so profound and deep that it means he can never deny a request made on his daughter's wedding day. His love for his daughter compels him to grant all wishes. It's his way, the Sicilian way, of paying tribute to her.

It's not the only endearing aspect of his character, and it's not the only reason we watch him. We are also captivated by his power, his cool temperament, his cunning, his boldness, his control. But these are not the reasons that we forgive him his crimes. We forgive him because he loves his family.

His love for his family is precisely what drives them to commit his crimes. This is classic antihero behavior. Often, the quality that makes us love them the most is also the quality that make them behave the worst.

Which leads us to Don Draper. There are a lot of things to like about Don Draper: his charm, his intelligence, his Superman-esque good looks, his apparent sexual stamina, his leadership qualities. But what is his greatest strength? What is the quality in his character that makes us love him the most?

It's his ambition. He has a powerful drive to succeed which leads him into some workaholic tendencies. Because he cares so much about his work, we care that much about it, too. His work is cool and hip and fun, but more than that, it's important. He's so committed to it that he doesn't go home for days on end while he is working. In fact, it appears that he forgets he even has a family for days on end, all because his work is so engrossing.

Just as we all love our families, we all want to succeed in the work place. We crave recognition, and so does Don. We fear failure, and so does Don. In him these qualities are exaggerated, just as with Don Corleone the love of family is exaggerated. And just as Don Corleone does bad things for love of his family, Don Draper does bad things for the sake of his ambition.

The first episode concentrates on Don's desire to succeed at the Lucky Strike campaign, with a brief segue into the start of the Mencken's department store campaign. Other things happen in this episode, such as Peggy's first day, and a bachelor party, but the bulk of the episode is spent introducing Don and showing him in action in his working world.

Speaking of Peggy, let's take a look at how she and Don interact. It's Peggy's first day on the job. She will be Don's secretary, and she will sit at the desk right outside his door. She is at her post when Don arrives. She stands up, smiles at him, and Joan, the head secretary, says, "Here's Mr. Draper now. With Mr. Sterling." Peggy says good morning. Don keeps walking into his office without saying a word.

Later that morning, when the female researcher comes to his office, Peggy buzzes her in with the intercom. Don says to show her in, and so Peggy does.

Then Don takes a nap, and Peggy is the one who wakes him up. It's only at this point that he notices her and asks, "Who are you?"

Now, we’re meant to believe that he is so focused on solving the problems in their upcoming presentation that he simply doesn't notice Peggy. His mind is elsewhere. But when you stop and think about it, it doesn't quite add up. I don't know about you, but if I had a new secretary sitting outside my door, I would notice. I wouldn't have to interact with her three times before I realized that she was someone different and new. There are days when I can be a total cotton head, but even in my fluffiest moments, I would notice if a body that I worked with every day had suddenly been replaced. Wouldn't you?

So Don is a bit cold, highly self-obsessed, and out of step with his environment. But this is not the first thing we notice about him. It's not the first message we’re meant to get about his character. The first message is that he is ambitious and driven to succeed, that he is a man on the rise, and for that he is worth watching.

Still not convinced? I bet that right about now you're thinking about how Don defends Peggy when Campbell sexually harasses her. I bet you're thinking, but he's nice to Peggy. Everyone else is horrible to Peggy, but he treats her like a professional.

After Peggy is no longer completely invisible to Don, after she has introduced herself and made an impression on him at last, Pete Campbell comes into the office. When Campbell asks, "Who is this?" Don introduces her as the new girl. He doesn't give her a name. But we know that her name has registered with him, because just a moment later, he calls her Peggy. It's not that he didn't know her name; it's that she's not worth introducing. He repeats this exact same behavior in a later episode when Campbell is in the office with his wife.

And what does Don do as Pete sexually harasses Peggy? Nothing. He doesn't say a word. Pete tells Peggy to start wearing shorter skirts, the beginning of an obvious and sexually charged appraisal of her body. Don doesn't interrupt. He doesn't send Peggy on her way. He just stands there and lets it all unfold.

Yes, it's true, he chastises Pete later for this. But does he tell Pete he shouldn't behave like that because it's demeaning to Peggy? No. He warns Pete that if he treats the office girls like that, he will never have any true power. He is not motivated by kind or protective feelings toward his subordinate employee, even though he knows Pete is a scoundrel. Instead, it all goes back to his ambition. He understands what it takes to get ahead, and he's telling Pete that sexually harassing secretaries will not help you reach that goal. One suspects that if Don could sleep his way to the top, he would do it cheerfully. His moral code is defined by his ambition.

We cheer for Don when he takes on Pete, and we probably don't stop to question it more closely. But during the Mencken's department store meeting, when Rachel Mencken refuses to be either charmed or bullied into doing things Don's way, he explodes. He says he refuses to let a woman talk to him like that. And then later, he begins his seduction of Rachel. This is not a man with an advanced understanding of sexual morality in the workplace. His earlier defense of Peggy has more to do with power and ambition than it does with his attitude toward women in the workplace.

Still not convinced? Later, when Don takes Rachel Mencken out for drinks to charm her and earn her forgiveness (worth noting -- he never actually apologizes to her), she says,

"I know what it's like to feel out of place, to feel disconnected. And there's something about you that tells me you know what that feels like, too."

She vocalizes an important truth about him. We see him acting like a superhero, struggling to get a winning Lucky Strike campaign, being touched by divine inspiration at the last minute, saving the day and probably the company. But Rachel sees something else. She sees what is merely hinted at until this moment. Don -- who doesn't see his own secretary, who doesn't see Sal's homosexuality, who doesn't seem to notice that his mistress isn't exactly happy about his late night booty call -- is not in touch with the world around him. If he were a tragic hero, this would be his fatal flaw. But he is an antihero, and it is evidence of his "anti" nature.

We could go on. We could, for example, analyze the very first scene, in which Don questions a waiter about cigarettes and nearly gets the waiter in trouble. In fact, now that you know the kind of small and subtle and even subtextual details we're looking for, go back and take a look at that first scene with the waiter. Listen very closely to what the people are saying. Are they mischaracterizing what's happening? Look for those tiny contradictions.

Don, like most antiheroes, is a complex character. By the end of season one, we understand that better. We learn about Don's dark secret, and we see the heartbreaking consequences for at least one person who has the power to disrupt Don's carefully crafted life. But in the beginning, in this first episode, the writer's job is to make us care enough about Don to stick with him even when he does despicable things. This is accomplished by showing us all the good things about Don in bright and obvious ways, and by only subtly suggesting the not-so-good things.

Theresa

Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It

I re-watched the first episode of season one of Mad Men (available here), and I've talked to a couple people behind the scenes about it, and my conclusion is that we really ought to talk about this one. So if you haven't already seen this, you might want to go to AMCs website and watch the first episode. It's about 45 minutes long, and it is textbook. The writing is absolutely brilliant.

After you have watched it, I want you to give some thought to two issues. Neither one of these issues has much to do with Don Draper as an antihero, but they have a lot to do with the kind of critical thinking we need to do in our analysis of Don's antiheroic nature.


Topic One: Foils
Take a closer look at this scene in the early part of the episode when Don pays a visit to his mistress. Then take a look at the final scene when Don returns home to his wife. How do these scenes act as foils of each other? No detail is too small to be worthy of attention. These scenes are very carefully orchestrated.


Topic Two: Dissemblance
Poor Salvatore. It must be hell to be a closeted homosexual in this environment. Watch the way his character interacts with the world around him, paying particular attention to the things he does that give him away, and the things he does to hide his true nature.


I'm going to give you a day or two to watch it and think it over, and then we're going to use these ideas as a springboard into an analysis of Don Draper's character. You really only need to see the first episode if you want to play along, but I caution you: if you watch the first one, you just might want to watch the rest.

A Potential Definition of Antihero

Alicia asks:

What makes a hero anyway? What makes an anti-hero? What do you see as the connection between the two?

If I were an English literature professor, I would define an antihero as a protagonist with unheroic character flaws. That's how my English literature professors defined antihero. They usually elaborated on that definition by discussing the lack of heroic qualities, or by discussing the way that the antihero's flaws impacted the plot. What they never did was explain antihero in a way that made sense to a writer. Because, if you're anything like me, this is how your classroom experience would go:

Professor: an antihero is a protagonist with flaws.
Me (silently): But all characters have flaws. That's how we make them three-dimensional.

Now, of course, the English professor is well aware that flaws are built into character. And when he's referring to flaws in his definition, he means unheroic flaws as opposed to heroic flaws -- the flaws in a tragic hero’s character that create tragedy. Othello was obsessively jealous, and he ended up murdering Desdemona. That jealousy leads to an act of tragedy, and so that jealousy is a tragic flaw in a hero, or what we might refer to as a heroic flaw.

This is all rather tenuous in my head, and certainly nobody ever taught me this, but I think antiheroic flaws are more related to character motivation than to plot. In other words, we teach our reader to forgive an antiheroic act by explaining why the antiheroic flaw exists in the first place. It all starts with a bad act, though.

Let's look at an example. Let's pretend there are two sisters, Sally and Carla, who live down the street from you. Sally has been engaged to the same man for many years. Then we come to find out that Carla eloped with this man. What do the neighbors say?

The consensus opinion will most likely be that Carla did a bad thing. Sympathy will run high for the jilted sister, Sally. People will almost certainly think less of the man himself.

Now let's add something else into the case of the two sisters down the street from you. Let's say that the eloping sister, Carla, doesn't actually love this man, but married him for his money. And Sally, poor Sally, who has been so patiently waiting for their wedding date, is heartbroken and is almost certain never to love again.

At this point, how many of you are cheering for Carla? If you've recognized the example, maybe you are cheering for her. And that's because you understand the character's motivation.

The example comes from Gone with the Wind. About halfway through the book, Scarlett O'Hara marries Frank Kennedy, her sister Sue Ellen's fiancé. By this point, we're already accustomed to Scarlett behaving in a selfish fashion. She's done a whole load of things that are bad according to the morals of her day. She married Charles Hamilton out of spite, she wore the wrong dress to the barbecue, she left off her widow's weeds far too early. She pretends to feel things that she doesn't feel just so that people won't think badly of her, she hides her constant selfishness, and she manipulates the people around her almost endlessly.

And then what happens? She discovers that her sister's fiancé has some money, and so she marries him.

This is the behavior of a villain. Not a hero.

And yet, for anyone who has read the book Gone with the Wind, we forgive Scarlett for this villainous act. And we forgive her because we understand her motivation. Scarlett has already rationalized this action for us. She has already taught us the value of Tara, and we already understand just how desperate she is to preserve this family farm. Before she marries Frank Kennedy, she has already dressed in the living room curtains, visited Rhett Butler in jail, and prostituted herself to him -- or attempted to prostitute herself to him. She has already sacrificed her dignity. She has already seen Belle Watling, the town Madame, and expressed a wish that she could socialize with Belle Watling and wrangle a loan from her, scandalizing Mammy. (Through most of the book, Mammy functions something like an external conscience.).

In any event, because we readers feel the sting of Scarlett's disappointment when Rhett Butler won't give her the money to save Tara, and because we already know how strong her motivation is to preserve Tara, we forgive her for stealing her sister's fiancé. We understand her motivation. We also understand the built-in punishment: that she'll be married to a man she despises, and that her relationship with her sister will never be the same. And we accept her rationalization: that it's all worth it if it saves Tara.

So let's return to our original question. What is the connection between a hero and an antihero? In order to answer that question, we have to draw the villain in, too. Let's try this out as a working definition, and see if you can all poke holes in it:

An antihero is a character in the role of the protagonist whose actions are villainous but whose motivation makes it tolerable to the reader.

So what do you think? Have I strayed too far afield?

Theresa

Dunnett heroes

Anyone here read Dorothy Dunnett? (Everyone should!)

If you do, see what you think of this:

Lymond = Hero.
Nicholas = Anti-hero.
Alicia

Oooh... Shiny!

I'm so easily distracted. Last night, as I was reading through the blog posts and comments for the last two weeks, almost everything I read made me go, "Ooh, I want to write about that!" You people make my magpie gene go into overdrive. :)

There are two topics that have come up in the threads, though, that I would like to move to the front page. I'd love to know what all the rest of you think about this. You guys always give me a lot to ponder.

Question one.
What is the difference between an antihero and a dark and dangerous hero? As a reader, do you distinguish between these two character types?

Question two.
If print erotic romance books had less embarrassing covers, what effect would that have on the e-book market for erotic romances? In other words, people say they like to buy these stories in digital format because they don't have to worry about being embarrassed by carrying the book around in a bookstore. If we eliminate that embarrassment, what effect does it have on e-books?

Theresa