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

A Piggyback Post: When Should They Meet?

Yesterday on Romance University, I blogged about the first meetings between heroes and heroines in romance novels. This post has sparked a lot of commentary both on their blog and behind the scenes. (Re: commenting on their blog -- one commenter will win a spot in Alicia's character workshop in October. Go over there and wave at me to enter. You want to take Alicia's class if you can, and you won't be entered in the drawing if you email me instead.)

There were several common concerns raised in the comments, and one of them is troublesome enough for most writers that I thought we might do a piggyback post here.


When Should They Meet?

There's been some pressure on romance writers to get the hero and heroine together on page one, or as close to page one as possible. Writers resist this, sometimes with good reason, but I thought it might help to examine the mechanics behind this advice. There are, I think, three reasons this has become an issue.

First, if you read any amount of slush, you quickly discover that most unpublished novels have absolute crap for a first page. Sorry to be so blunt, but -- well, no, actually I'm not sorry. This is the reality of the industry, and we all must face that reality. Most first pages are relentless crap. Sometimes this is because they are made of crap all the way through, and the first page is merely representative of the general quality of the text. But sometimes it's because the writer can't wrangle the opening. Openings are hard, yo.

Whenever I encounter a crappy first page, I flip to a random page later on and do a spot-check for writing quality. So yeah, okay, a crappy first page is a survivable slush offense if the inside pages check out. But do this for 98 out of every 100 manuscripts at a rate of, oh, around 300 manuscripts per week for a few years in a row, and what happens?

You get crazy sick of bad openings. And you start going to writers conferences and sitting at the podium and begging authors to get to the conflict already, put the hero and heroine together quickly, knock off the wheel-spinning on first pages and just tell the story already. And then next thing you know, writers are telling each other that the hero and heroine have to be together on the first page, which is a great idea, but it's not exactly what set you off to begin with. But you don't dispute it because, hey, if they get the hero and heroine together on page one, that would probably eliminate a lot of really dreadful exposition openings in the slush pile. Or not. But either way, the advice is out there and it won't do any more or less damage than most of the advice floating around the writersphere.

So that's the first reason: most manuscripts have really dreadful first pages, and the cumulative effect of this is a combination of editorial ennui and twitchiness.

The second reason has to do with what makes them dreadful. This is a little harder to explain because the specifics vary from manuscript to manuscript, but the end result is always the same. The end result is that the story doesn't engage -- and by "engage," I mean both that "this is interesting" and "shift into gear and go, man, go."

There can be many causes for a lack of engagement, but the more common ones tend to revolve around the same ideas: too much set-up, undercutting conflicts in advance, heavy use of exposition (or any use of exposition, really), and misunderstanding what constitutes "ordinary world" in the storytelling sense. The bottom line, though, is that all this reads like wheel-spinning, like an author unsure of where the story starts, even like an author distrustful of the reader's ability to follow the text.

"But-but-but," writers say, "I neeeeeeed my ordinary world. I neeeeeed my exposition. I neeeeeeed to explain that the heroine visited this very same hospital in 1993 with a sprained ankle, or else how will they understand why she knows that the ER is on the south side of the building? And the reader has to know that she's 5'8" and blonde and has eyes like emerald chips in a stormy ocean so that they can visualize what's happening when they X-ray her lungs. And that backpack full of schoolbooks she's carrying? OMG, have to explain that RIGHT NOW so the reader UNDERSTANDS who she IS as a PERSON."

Right. Or not. Actually, not. See, we form an understanding of a character by watching that character in action. Other material -- props, backstory, and the like -- are merely supplemental to this core understanding. So if you spend all the first few pages explaining this supplemental stuff without letting us see the character in action, we're getting the sauce but not the meat. Sauce is yummy, but it can't sustain us. Or our reader's interest.

So, reason one, piles of crappy first pages. Reason two, crappiness tends to result from too much ketchup, not enough cutlet. And here's reason three: it's all about the conflict, or it should be.

When does the romantic conflict start? Is it when her heart is broken by a past lover who left her at the altar in 1993, resulting in her running through the woods and spraining her ankle and needing a trip to the ER in her bridal gown? Uh, no. That might be fun backstory, but the romantic conflict doesn't exist until the hero appears before her. THEN she is torn between her emotional isolation and her raging lust for the new guy. Not one second before then.

Or, as I've said more than once in the past 24 hours, who cares if he's allergic to okra unless she's an okra farmer?

But let's take it one step more. Let's compare the sequential unfolding of two possible okra openings.


Okra Opening One:
Meet Lucas. Lucas is OMGhot and he rides a motorcycle but not in that icky dirty biker way. More like in a cool and powerful way. He's never been married but he did love one girl for a long time until she died of some tragic and thoroughly researched illness. He still misses her and thinks he sees her reflection in windows sometimes at night, but then he just puts away the whiskey bottle and returns to his hobby of welding sculptures of giant fish in his garage. Also, he's allergic to okra.

Now meet Jayde. Jayde had a seekrit crush on Lucas when she was a little girl and he was a teenager and he was dating her babysitter. Her babysitter who died later of a tragic and thoroughly researched illness, which is different from the tragic and thoroughly researched illness that claimed her parents and left her an orphan with a struggling okra farm, which is super important to her because it's her legacy.

Lucas, meet Jayde. Again. In the local pub in town on a rainy Tuesday night when he can't get on his bike and she just came from the cemetery. Too bad about the okra thing, eh.


Okra Opening Two:
Scene: a dark, mostly empty bar on a rainy Tuesday night. The soft sound of pool balls clicking over the croon of an old Patsy Cline song on the jukebox, someone's idea of irony. Lucas sits at the bar in a wet leather jacket, nursing a whiskey, avoiding the sight of the windows.

Enter Jayde, cool and withdrawn and hoping a drink will keep her that way. She grabs a stool down the bar from the hot guy hunched over his drink. Hot, yeah, but he only gives her the briefest glance. That's when she recognizes him. Slides down a couple stools.

"Lucas?" Her heart ka-bump, ka-bumps. "Lucas, is that you?"

He nods, sips, sets his glass down. Makes her wait for it. "Yup."

Hummanah hummanah. She shouldn't, she really shouldn't, but she slides down two more stools. "I'm Jayde, remember, little Jayde all grown up now ...

(insert more witty dialogue and action)

... and I run my parents okra farm now."

Nod. Sip. Set glass down. "I'm allergic to okra."



It just has more impact when it's revealed at a relevant moment. If you "set it up" by explaining the okra thing in advance, the bar scene loses impact.

We can all see that, right?

Theresa

Strong Beginnings: One Example

I thought it might be useful to take a look at a strong beginning that emphasizes the ordinary world of the story, but before we do that, I want to make one other comment about my last post.

Alicia is absolutely right. You want to send your best work in at all times--though I have a hard enough time remembering what day it is and am unlikely to remember a laughably bad submission from months ago. (Though I'm afraid the "onion cryer" -- tears leeked from her eyes -- will be stuck in my mind for some time to come.)

My subtle point in that post was that I wanted you all to get a glimpse (blurry and vague, but a glimpse nonetheless) of what a stack of submissions looks like from this end of things. In that particular batch it would have been very easy for a solid submission to have leaped out at me. Instead, I got submission after submission with the same basic problems. Sloppy prose. Inattention to detail. Characters and plots that disappeared behind a thick wall of clutter. If you can avoid even these basic problems, you will rise above most of the competition.

OK, enough of that. Let's talk prose.

I first became aware of Private Arrangements by Sherry Thomas at a conference last year when her agent, Sara Megibow, told a story about finding the manuscript in her slush pile. Since then I've heard some other buzz about this title, so I went over to the Amazon page to check it out. Street date isn't until March, but there's an excerpt of the first chapter posted. Take a look:

Only one kind of marriage ever bore Society's stamp of approval.

Happy marriages were considered vulgar, as matrimonial felicity rarely kept longer than a well-boiled pudding. Unhappy marriages were, of course, even more vulgar, on a par with Mrs. Jeffries's special contraption that spanked forty bottoms at once: unspeakable, for half of the upper crust had experienced it firsthand.

No, the only kind of marriage that held up to life's vicissitudes was the courteous marriage. And it was widely recognized that Lord and Lady Tremaine had the most courteous marriage of them all.

In the ten years since their wedding, neither of them had ever uttered an unkind word about the other, not to parents, siblings, bosom friends, or strangers. Moreover, as their servants could attest, they never had spats, big or small; never embarrassed each other; never, in fact, disagreed on anything at all.

However, every year some cheeky debutante fresh from the schoolroom would point out—as if it weren't common knowledge—that Lord and Lady Tremaine lived on separate continents and had not been seen together since the day after their wedding.

Her elders would shake their heads. Foolish young girl. Wait 'til she heard about her beau's piece on the side. Or fell out of love with the man she married. Then she'd understand what a wonderful arrangement the Tremaines had: civility, distance, and freedom from the very beginning, unencumbered by tiresome emotions. Indeed, it was the most perfect marriage.


OK. That's 244 words by my count, and those 244 words accomplish a lot. I bet each of you, regardless of your personal like/dislike of the excerpt or romance in general, already has enough information to understand the ordinary world. Two characters, husband and wife, estranged since the day of their marriage, in a world where polite marital estrangement is the norm. In fact, these characters are applauded for their civility even as their estrangement is condoned. Right? Of course. It's spelled out very clearly. The norms are defined.

I bet you can even figure out where the story is going -- it's about how these two characters reconcile, and based on this excerpt, I'd bet a chocolate truffle that the polite facade will crack. There will be scandal and gossip and yelling. There would almost have to be.

Why does this opening work? If conventional wisdom is to start in the middle of a scene, start with dialogue, with action, with conflict, then why does this work? I mean, look at it. It's omniscient. Romance conventions require us to always be in the viewpoint of an actual character, but there's no viewpoint character here. There's no scene. It's all summary -- exposition, to be precise, and we all know that it's bad to start with exposition, right?

This example proves why rules are less important than the rationale behind the rules. Your job as the writer is to engage the reader from page one, sentence one. The "rules" (start with action or dialogue, start with scene, etc.) are really nothing more than methods which will generally help you accomplish that task. You can break rules IF you still get the job done by some other method.

What happens in this excerpt is actually quite simple. The author is playing with reader expectations to some degree -- romance is supposed to be about happy endings, finding your one true love and marrying and living happily ever after -- but this is the opposite of what we expect romance to be about. Oppositions create tension, and tension drives the reader forward through the pages.

But it's not just that she created an opposition. It's that she set up a world where the reader's expectation -- happy marriage as the goal -- is turned upside down. Toyed with. Redefined. "Happy marriage" in the ordinary world of this story doesn't sound much like the happy marriage we would expect in a romance novel. And yet the world of the book insists that their version of happy (polite distance) is the correct version of happy, and the reader's expectation of happy (romantic love and commitment) belongs to "foolish young girls" and "debutantes fresh from the schoolroom."

What is the promise this book makes in its first 244 words? Nothing less than that it will redefine the entire ordinary world's definition of a happy marriage. That's enough to make me want to buy the book just so I can read beyond the excerpt over on the amazon page.

Keep this in mind the next time you're evaluating an opening scene. Instead of checking off whether it starts with action, starts with dialogue, and so on, ask yourself this: how is the author loading tension into the opening lines? Is the tension being driven by an active scene (the common method), or by some other method such as the one used by Sherry Thomas, playing with reader expectations?

Theresa

More on OW-- character implications

More about the early scene that might establish the Ordinary World.

BTW, it doesn't have to be the first scene! Especially in a mystery or action thriller, you might first want to get the action moving-- have the butler discover that dead body :). But then think about the sleuth going home to that old ordinary world so we can see what's going to change for
her because she's involved in this mystery.


Think of the three aspects here that you're establishing as you sketch the Ordinary World:

The character of the protagonist.

The setting or world.

The situation that will create conflict somehow.

I'll deal with the character here.


The character (and I mean the protagonist-- at least one of them :) is on a journey, from somewhere to somewhere else... but not a geographical somewhere, rather a psychological or emotional or life somewhere. So, for example, the character might be moving from affiliation to
independence (or vice versa).

The beginning of the journey is usually going to be shown somehow in the beginning of the book. Popular fiction is the art of making the internal manifest externally, or at least that's what we should strive for-- to show important life journeys through the concreteness of life.

Okay, so... say the journey is from affiliation (over-affiliation maybe) to independence. How do the early scenes show the "start-point?"

One way to do that is to show the character in her ordinary world exhibiting that starting point somehow. After all, if it takes a book to chronicle this journey, then it's important, if only to her own life. And if that's her start point, it will show up in her life-- in the way she chooses to act, in the world she lives in, in how she lives in that world.

So let's start with a character who is "over-affiliated". What does she
do to affiliate? What does she do too much? How would someone with this
start point live?

Maybe she'd live in some smallish world (because it's hard to affiliate to a million people). If she lives in a large city, for example, her "world" might be her office-- she's the one who always remembers veryone's birthday and brings a cake. Or it might be her neighborhood, and she's the one who organizes the Neighborhood Watch program, and the meetings are at her apartment. Or she might live in a small town and she has a job like running the local gas station so she sees about everyone every day. Or she might be a teacher at a boarding school, after having gone to that boarding school as a student. I am planning a heroine, actually, who goes to college in a small dying town, and stays there even after the college goes out of business, and she's gotten so attached to the town she refuses to let it die, or to take her considerable talents
elsewhere, and she ends upthe mayor (when the story actually opens). She is affiliated with this town to an almost risky extent-- she could probably make more money elsewhere, and not be so tense and anxious. But she's stuck on this town. She thinks if she gives up on it, it will die.


So... think of where your protagonist starts out... what sort of psychological, emotional, or life embarkation point she's at-- what about her life or self the plot events are going to change. Now imagine that person, with that start point... what sort of life situation would she be
in?

What's important is that it's got to SHOW. That is, the reader can figure it out if you show it. Let's say the heroine in the dying town is lobbying to get a new business to locate there. That's fine... but how do you show that she's TOO affiliated? (Not like she's crazy or anything, but maybe slightly over-loaded in the "yay, town!" element.) Maybe she's negotiating with this company CEO, and he laughs and says, "I've given you everything but the kitchen sink! I don't think anyone's gotten around me like you have! You know, I like your style. I think you should work for me. Maybe vice president? Company car? Stock options?"
And she is tempted because it's such a good prospect, and then she reluctantly says no. Then we know .... that this is a trait that is already causing CONFLICT.

You know what conflict is? It's the opportunity for growth. If you show that the protagonist is perfectly, honestly content in every particularly early on, the reader isn't going to see much opportunity for growth there. So usually you do one of two things-- either you come in and
snatch away perfect contentitude right away (a hurricane comes and flattens her little town :), or you show that she's just a tiny bit not so perfectly content, that there's this little chink in the wall of contentment, and that's... where she's going. Towards the fulfillment or change or growth that, were she to continue with contentment, she wouldn't get.

So my mayor heroine... where's the non-contentment? Maybe she works so hard and does so much, and yeah, everyone votes for her, but that's because no one else will take the job. She might be affiliated, but she's not so sure they're affiliated back. Maybe she feels unappreciated.
How do you show that? Well, maybe she arrives at her office, proud of some accomplishment, and there are three people waiting to complain about something, and not one of them mentions her accomplishment. And maybe when they leave she starts an email to her college roommate, trying not boastfully to tell SOMEONE at least that she accomplished something.

But... the point is to take that first scene and show where the protagonist starts out. It might be in the Ordinary World, or it might be a reaction to the Ordinary World (like on the bus leaving the small town :). But that first scene shows us something about who this person is, and how she's needing to change.

Just keep in mind-- to some extent, she has -chosen- this life, this world, this place in life. Of course a lot of life happens without our planning, but something about where we are is what we made it. But also, we come -out- of this world, this life. We don't just shape, we are
shaped. So you might want to ask "why"? Why is she here? How did she get here?

Like my mayor heroine grew up in New York City, and spent her childhood on subways and elevators, and never felt right, but the first moment she stepped off the bus into that mountain town and the bus station lady welcomed her with a big smile... she felt at home. And she gets a bit nervous and antsy when she leaves the mountains now.

So your first scene is going to reveal something about the protagonist. You're in control. What do you want to reveal? (And, I suppose, what do you want to conceal? :)

Ordinary World and Openings

I think the concept of Ordinary World is one of the hardest structural concepts to grasp. Alicia's done a good job of explaining that ordinary is not a synonym for dull, and she's given lots of examples of books with strong ordinary world openings.

Because there are problems in the ordinary world -- after all, no life is trouble-free -- and because fiction shows characters in motion via scenes, it can sometimes be difficult to understand exactly when we've left the ordinary world behind and entered the rising action. We start the story with problems, arguments, disasters and events. And the rising action is composed of problems, arguments, disasters and events. So how do we know when we've left the ordinary world behind?

Here's a simple rule: when the conflict is defined, you are out of the ordinary world.

It's not a new ordinary world. It may bear a strong resemblance to the ordinary world. It may even be an identical setting with identical characters. But something crucial will have changed, and that something crucial is the initiation of the conflict.

Think of Gregor Samsa in Kafka's Metamorphosis. He wakes up in his own bed, in his own home, surrounded by the same family members. This is his ordinary world, and none of it changes through the course of the story. Same bed. Same house. Same family members.

Except one morning when he wakes up, something crucial has changed. Gregor has turned into a cockroach. This change defines the conflict, and from the moment of that change, we're out of the ordinary world and into the rising action as the protagonist struggles to resolve the conflict.

You've all heard the conventional wisdom. Start with events or problems. Start your plot right away on page one, line one. Start with dialogue. Hook the reader. This is great advice. Is it inconsistent with the concept of Ordinary World?

Nope.

Whether you start with lead-in problems, or start with some other method of sketching the ordinary world, or start with conflict in the very first words, you still have to start strong. You still have to show characters in action--though perhaps I should place the emphasis in that sentence on the word show, because it's important to avoid exposition (which "tells") and rely instead on narrative elements such as dialogue and action.

Now, I'm of the opinion that the shorter the work, the less room you have for Ordinary World in proportion to the rest of the story. So a story like Kafka's can start off by defining the conflict in that famous first sentence:
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.

You could probably argue that the ordinary world is suggested by the first part of that sentence, but for our purposes, it doesn't really matter. The story launches right into the conflict without changing the setting. It's a great hook, one of the best in the western canon.

Let's compare this to the first line from a novel with a strong Ordinary World, Gone With the Wind -- I can't lay my hands on my copy of this text right now, so I'm quoting from memory and may not have the exact syntax --
Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when captured by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.

The first sentence contains two notions in opposition -- a woman who lacks beauty, and men who are captivated. These two notions are not usually paired like this. In fact, we might call it a collision of opposites. It works precisely because opposing ideas are interesting to readers.

What follows is a somewhat lengthy physical description of Scarlett. Why does it work? Because the passage is loaded with contradictions, juxtapositions, and other uneasy bits. We're told her face contains a too-sharp blend of her mother's aristocratic features and her father's florid, blunt features. Another uneasy pairing, another collision of opposites. And so it goes on for a good 200 words or so, with contrasting pairs, with praise and criticism, with anything other than a rote list of details such as you might find on a driver's license.

In any event, it's a strong opening even though such lengthy description is no longer in favor.

So there you have two examples of strong openings, one in the ordinary world of that story and one which defines the conflict. So remember: Ordinary World is not a function of setting, and strong openings are not inconsistent with the Ordinary World.

Theresa

Ordinary World-- what I really meant

Best explain that, huh? Because it sort of sounds like I was calling for boring openings in boring places with boring people. No, really, I was suggesting opening with the main character in his/her ordinary world.

If you've read Chris Vogler's book, you're probably familiar with his 12 Heroic Steps. I think this journey tends to be more useful for certain types of books (quest novels, especially) than others, but some of the steps are very helpful in plotting. Here's my take on the first one--


Think about where your character is coming from.... literally. What is the world she lives in when the story opens? Can you show that in the first scene? That's her ordinary world, the one she is going to leave behind in this story.

This doesn't mean a boring scene of the heroine going through an ordinary day. (No scene should be boring-- but you know that. :) It doesn't mean the world of her childhood or her parents' home-- but where she is when your story opens. It means a "before picture" of this world and this character before the events of the plot change everything. But show this in a way that shows something about the character.

And it doesn't have to be a complete scene. In fact, usually the inciting incident happens during this first scene-- the change to the world and the character starts early. Sometimes it's just a paragraph or two, but it serves as an "establishing shot," as the filmmakers call it.

(And yes, this is not true with every type of book and every story. I know that, and you know that. But it is not "a matter of taste," commenters. It's a matter of what's right for this sub-genre and this story-- and most stories really will benefit from a little scene setting. I have seen openings where I don't understand what's going on or who these characters are-- and those stories could have benefited from a few paragraphs showing the main character in his ordinary world. We should discuss prologues! Often those prologues show a "before-before" picture-- some event long before the story opens. I'm not one of those who say you should never use a prologue, but I do believe they're overused lately, and they're not right for a lot of books because they take the focus of the "now" of the story and put it on the "back then".)

You can do a lot with this first scene. It can establish the current situation and set up the need for change. It should be intriguing, drawing the reader in and giving her reason to keep reading. It should give a hint of the coming conflicts, and maybe a starting point for the theme. It should introduce the main character and the setting in a way that both explains and entices-- that
is, you want to give just enough information that the reader is intrigued but not confused.

But too often, first scenes are either jammed full of so many details the reader gives up.... or generic, like a dozen other opening scenes she's read.

That's probably a good reason to write the first scene to get it over with, write the rest of the book, and then go back and rewrite that first scene. :) We're probably unlikely to get it right before we completely know the characters and situation.

So... there are lots of different ways to start a book. But I'm going to riff off a popular one, the Chris Vogler idea of the Ordinary World. Now I don't always agree with Vogler-- or rather, I don't assume that what works for film will automatically translate for a novel. But he's performed a useful service by "writer-izing" Joseph Campbell's work analyzing myths over the ages and finding the common elements. (The myths used are mostly quest myths with young men as heroes. I'm not going to get into this, because it's SO not my field, but some romance fiction analysts think that romance is based on the fairy tale model, not on myth, which is more masculine.)

Anyway.... The Ordinary World is a place to start, both for us as writers and our heroes and heroines. So let's look at how we can use the notion of the Ordinary World to help us craft a good first scene.

Vogler says, " Ordinary World: "The Hero's home, the safe haven upon which the Special World and the Journey's outcome must be compared."

Now that's quite a useful definition. Only of course I'm going to mess it up a bit. The Ordinary World might or might not be home, might or might not be a "safe haven". After all, if your heroine is an undercover cop imbedded in a gang of drug dealers, her ordinary world isn't very
safe at all. But it is the world that she's living in when the story opens. It's not necessarily safe, but it's probably what the character is used to... knows how to deal with. The same cop heroine who is able to deal with murderous drug cartel lords with aplomb might that evening find herself all cleaned up and attending the police chief's dinner party in a gated community, and here she is, surrounded by cops in dress uniform, in a wealthy and crime-free area... and she's terrified, because here comes the police chief's snooty wife....

The point is that the Ordinary World (OW) is the place where this character has been spending a lot of time... and she can handle it okay. Knows how to get around. It doesn't have to be ordinary in OUR estimation. But we probably need to show it's ordinary more or less for this character.

The OW might or might not seem safe and comfortable. It is, however, what this protagonist is used to having. Think of the opening of James Bond movies, you know, where he's surfboarding down the escalator of a high-fashioned Tokyo mall, being chased by laser-shooting robots? Hey, that IS his ordinary world-- a place of danger and action. If the film started with him, you know, standing in line at the BMV to get his driver's license renewed-- you know, MY ordinary world (or at least, my nightmare world :), it wouldn't be showing what he's used to having.

But no matter what, there's something lacking with this ordinary world. Got to be. The protagonist has to leave it, after all. There's something in the Special World (what happens in the plot) that is going to change the protagonist-- a challenge which doesn't exist in the OW. The protagonist HAS to change-- it's just what fiction is about, right? (Okay, James Bond doesn't have to change... until they get a new actor to play him. :) So it would not be good just to hang there in the OW. No matter how happy she is there, no matter how well he succeeds, the OW is lacking something, something that the protagonist needs for growth.

So let's come up with some openings that show the ordinary world, so we can get clear that it's not about being boring and inactive. Keep in mind what this world says about the character, and how it/she/he is going to change.

Gone With the Wind: Scarlett's OW is her hometown, where she is a pampered princess being adored by all the young men. If we don't have a sense of this world, then the huge change that is just about to happen (the Civil War and all the young men enlisting and leaving) won't have as much effect.

The Godfather: This gangster drama starts with a family wedding, and the godfather in his study, listening to supplicants. What's going to change? Events set up in this scene are like grenades which will explode later.

The Wizard of Oz: Dorothy is bored with her prairie home, and longing to escape. This is a very good example of how the Ordinary World can include action-- you know, the tornado. :)

Harry Potter: Harry is an orphan, ignored in his "Muggles" home, unaware of his powers or parentage.

Pride and Prejudice: The village and Bennett family are contemplating another routine spring in the countryside. Lizzie is surrounded by and oppressed by her family.

Niccolo Rising: Nicholas and his two friends are looking for action in their boring Belgian town when they're given a commission, to sail a bathtub through the familiar canals and locks.

Ulysses: Stephen Dedalus is with his best friend in their tower, looking out over their town of Dublin.

The Sound and the Fury: The mentally retarded Benjy wanders around his family home and the town where he has lived all his life.

Your turn-- novel or film-- what does that opening show? And how does it start to change?

The change can happen very quickly. The character can leave this place, or someone else can come. For example, in Atonement, Briony is in her pre-WWII home with her family, sharing a room with her sister just like always-- and then her cousins arrive from the city. That sets in motion the change, and it happens early.

Alicia

Ordinary World-- Theresa's points

That's a great graphic, Theresa! And you and I both keep going back to Aristotle... I think the old guy really got drama. :)

I think too many writers now think they have to leap into the action -- and yeah, for action-adventure novels, that might be right. (We should talk about, at some point, how different types of openings "promise" different sorts of stories, even for the same basic plot.) But novels that are more about character should probably first establish that "ordinary world"-- because it tells a lot about the character when we see how she interacts with the world she lives in-- before that world changes with the plot.

The OW isn't just about setting-- it's a characterization opportunity too. The Ordinary World might not be what the character has chosen... but it's what the character has adapted to and accepted. So the Ordinary World tells us what she's willing to live with, what concessions she has made for the safety and routine and ordinariness, what she values, what she fears-- and why she can't grow unless she leaves.

Examples?

Alicia