Ordinary People

[Svrtnsse]

In another thread (http://mythicscribes.com/forums/writing-questions/16533-perspectives-youd-like-see-more.html) the idea of writing fantasy stories from the perspective of regular people came up. This is a concept that's quite dear to me, and it'd be interesting to discuss it further.

One of my theories is that when writing about mundane people in a fantastic setting the contrast between the extraordinary and the regular becomes much clearer. I'm thinking that if you anchor the story onto concepts that the reader is familiar with, the fantastic elements seem more fantastic by comparison. It increases the potential for escapism in the story.

Does that make sense? What's your thinking on this?

 

[Heliotrope]

Yes yes and yes. I really love using the mundane in my fantasy for exactly the reason you desribed. Whether it is a mundane character, mundane setting, etc I feel that the contrast really makes the magical elements leap off the page.

Here is a writing excuses podcast on the topic that I really enjoyed:

http://www.writingexcuses.com/2008/...ode-2-blending-the-familiar-and-the-original/

And here is a quote from Save The Cat I also found really interesting:

Double Mumbo Jumbo

I propose to you that, for some reason, audiences will only accept one peice of magic per movie. It's The Law. You cannot see aliens from outer space land in a UFO and then be bitten by a Vampire and now be both alien and undead.

That, my friends, is Double Mumbo Jumbo.

Straining the suspension of disbelief.

Trying to do too much can make an experience muddy and confusing for readers.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I write many tales about normal people. I think the trick to writing normal folks is to simply give them something mundane they're really good at. What makes them heroic and sympathetic? Locke Lamora had no magic, but he was super talented.He was scrawny and plain, but he was so good at disguises and so smart he could scheme with the best.

 

[FifthView]

I have a few miscellaneous random thoughts about this.

What may be "ordinary" for a fantasy world may not be ordinary in our own. You had mentioned Enar who is an archivist for a local police station in one of your stories–but who happens to be of the hobbit-like anfylk race. So...what exactly is "ordinary" then, considering the variety of extraordinary fantasy worlds possible? A stable boy who tends the unicorns that random customers hand over at the tavern where he works: ordinary? (I know of no ordinary unicorn husbandry in our world!)

I think that maybe science fiction often uses ordinary people as MCs, more often than fantasy? I haven't read much sci-fi in the last couple of decades, although I used to read a lot of it. This is my recollection. A good example, though comedy/farce, might be Arthur Dent from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But then, this may also be a case of "ordinary person becomes extraordinary in some way, embroiled in an extraordinary adventure." In science fiction, there's more of a tendency to take a mechanic, a lower level government employee, a lab assistant, a common settler in an off-world colony, etc., for a MC.

Just because a character is "ordinary" doesn't mean that character can't have distinction, idiosyncrasies, a fully formed personality, history, emotions, and so forth. This one's rather obvious.

 

[Ray M.]

For me, that doesn't work, not as a reader and definitely not as a writer. I want nothing to do with mundane, every day people - life itself is mundane enough. I write and read fantasy to escape from the world as it is.

That being said, I've enjoyed stories where the ordinary person is thrown into oddities, but also retains some control over the events that happen to him/her. Harry Potter being one of them.

 

[FifthView]

Another thing that came to mind, that I forgot to add to the last.

I think that even if we have an ordinary character going about mundane tasks while a larger, more typical fantasy tableau is playing out around him, we'll still have to come up with a story for him.

So while thinking about this idea, I started brainstorming. Suppose I had what passes for a middle-class merchant for an MC. One of his idiosyncrasies is that he loves arranging "gaming parties" for his friends. This could be like poker night in our world. But he's always on the lookout for interesting tobacco varieties, various drinks and foods–whatever will make those gaming parties interesting for his largish group of friends. The games played at the various parties he throws change; he's always trying to match up that night's fun with tobacco, drinks, food...maybe even an occasional wandering minstrel. And the whole story is about that.

Meanwhile, two armies are clashing a few miles from the middle-sized city in which he lives. Occasionally, dragons and/or magical events–a consequence of the nearby battle–intrude on the city, interfering with his activities. Within the story, he occasionally meets various people from the two armies, as they come to the city for whatever purpose. So he gets an "inside story" about the larger drama playing out.

Essentially, that "larger drama" would be the typical fantasy novel–but, it's totally told from the outside, from this character's being a type of observer to that event. The meat of the story would be his dilemmas, interpersonal clashes, perhaps some rivalries he has with some gamers or even other organizers of such gaming parties.

Would something like this work? I think it'd be interesting to try and tell. But the point is, there still has to be a compelling story, even if we use an ordinary person.

 

[Chessie]

For me, that doesn't work, not as a reader and definitely not as a writer. I want nothing to do with mundane, every day people - life itself is mundane enough. I write and read fantasy to escape from the world as it is.

This pretty much sums it up for me. About as normal as my characters get is that they're hardly ever royalty or warriors. Aside of that, I love fantasy because it gives me a mental out from this world. I want the MC to be out of the ordinary because that's what makes story interesting to me.

 

[X Equestris]

I've thought of doing a story focused on a refugee fleeing warfare, and his struggles to ensure his family survives. Just a normal fellow caught up in an event many times bigger than he is, and one he has no hope of influencing in any measurable way. Not sure I have the chops for it right now, but it's something I'd be interested in touching on sometime down the line.

 

[Svrtnsse]

What may be "ordinary" for a fantasy world may not be ordinary in our own. You had mentioned Enar who is an archivist for a local police station in one of your stories—but who happens to be of the hobbit-like anfylk race. So...what exactly is "ordinary" then, considering the variety of extraordinary fantasy worlds possible? A stable boy who tends the unicorns that random customers hand over at the tavern where he works: ordinary? (I know of no ordinary unicorn husbandry in our world!)

This is a very good point, and it's one I think I may not have made very clear. Enar is very much a regular guy in his world, but he and his people don't exist in the real world. The places he visit and the things he experiences aren't extraordinary in his world, but they could never exist in this world.

Most real world police forces do not have a shamanistic division that needs an archivist to take care of observational data. Most people who go on a hike in the real world don't get to go in the company with a grumpy dog that's both older and taller than them. If you've got a squirrel in your room and you're trying to chase it out, it's most likely not going to blind you by making its tail flash bright white.

There's all kinds of stuff happening around the character that would never be possible in the real world. However, in the setting where the story takes place, it's not that big a deal, and as such it's not portrayed as that big a deal.

The main focus of the story is on the character. I could have made him a human and set it to take place in West Cork or some other real world place, but it wouldn't have been the same. The setting is still an important part of the story, and it helps create an escapist experience of the kind that just isn't possible in stories set in the real world.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you can still create a sense of awe and wonder without having ancient immortal heroes that ride into battle on burning dragons. It's different, but it's no less wondrous.

 

[FifthView]

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you can still create a sense of awe and wonder without having ancient immortal heroes that ride into battle on burning dragons. It's different, but it's no less wondrous.

Yes, I think that's absolutely true. So for my little brainstorm...I've been picturing that merchant being forced, by the ruler of that city, to sell his entire stock to one of the leaders of one of the armies. The MC makes a fortune, all his friends congratulate him–but drat!, included in his stock were two kegs of a special ale he was reserving for one gaming party. So he cracks a plan to sneak into that army camp and steal those kegs back. So it's possible to have adventure, even, with an ordinary person concerned with ordinary things. It's possible to draw a picture of a very interesting milieu. What the readers learn about that conflict, the world, the magics, and so forth can be wondrous still.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Hello everyone.

I prefer to have protagonist characters that are somehow special and out of the ordinary, because that helps with the escapist Fantasy factor that has been mentioned before in this thread. It's true that a character can be completely normal in his or her world and yet extraordinary in ours, but that does not create quite the same effect, at least not for me.

Even though all of my main characters are somehow special in their worlds, I do appreciate what the perspective of the ordinary and non-special characters can feel like and what they can add to a story.

In my Joan of England trilogy, I particularly love the perspective of Jerry and Megan.

They are a happy couple and parents of the protagonists, and even though they are very wealthy, they are nothing truly special in that world. They own a chocolates factory, they are very talented in creating new recipes and that's all... Anyway, how they feel and how they view the magical stuff that takes place around them is a very interesting part of the story.

I love how Jerry springs into action to protect Megan during certain part of the story. They were inside of a Mall that nearly collapsed when Vancouver received the shockwaves from the magical blasts at Seattle, and Jerry suffered serious injuries as a result of the falling glass and other debris that would have hit Megan if he had not been there to protect her.

Jerry is no wizard, no vampire or anything like that, just a man, but still I was cheering for him a lot just like I get all excited and cheering for my magical characters during the supernatural battles...

Yeah, non-special characters have their own way of doing special things =)

 

[evolution_rex]

Its an extremely common archetype in fantasy to have a character who is ordinary become part of an ordinary event. It creates a relatable character in an unrelatable world.

For me, that doesn't work, not as a reader and definitely not as a writer. I want nothing to do with mundane, every day people - life itself is mundane enough.

I suppose fantasy is an exception, but this is sort of how I feel (well, I don't feel as passionate as this character does) about viewing 'ordinary' plots or characters as uninteresting. Warning though, there is inappropriate language.

 

[FifthView]

Thanks for that video. Made my day.

 

[skip.knox]

That word "ordinary" is a tricky one. It's one of those words that everyone thinks they can agree upon, but which, upon closer examination, turns out to be one where we differ each from the other. One could argue that almost every MC in every novel, regardless of genre, is non-ordinary in some way.

My WIP stars a barbarian princess, a Roman aristocrat, a Macedonian slave (he objects to being called Greek), and a career army Tribune. All could be called ordinary in some sense. And all could be called extraordinary.

To go to the other end, Robert Jordan (in For Whom the Bells Toll, not the writer) could be called a perfectly ordinary guy. Certainly there's nothing exceptional about him within the novel. At the same time, he can't be called ordinary because he volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War.

Done right, everyone is ordinary and everyone is extraordinary. Every circumstance is ordinary (no matter how fantastical) and every situation is extraordinary. I know, that's not very helpful. I'm doing philosophy here; it's not supposed to be helpful.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Ordinary is so subjective as to be pointless. Writing the story from the correct perspective is what matters, not whether that perspective is ordinary or extraordinary by someone's standard.

 

[TheCatholicCrow]

Yes, please! I would love to read a Fantasy novel or short story about the "ordinary" wife of a dragon slayer, an average chambermaid for the king's head sorcerer, a random dude that works in the fish market or as a cook in training camps for young warriors aspiring to become professional troll hunters.

To me, "ordinary" means a non-royal, non-magical person/character that is probably otherwise forgotten (gardeners, farmers, homemakers, local shop keepers, etc.) ... but due to reader's expectations, I suspect it might work best in Low Fantasy.

 

[valiant12]

I've been picturing that merchant being forced, by the ruler of that city, to sell his entire stock to one of the leaders of one of the armies. The MC makes a fortune, all his friends congratulate him—but drat!, included in his stock were two kegs of a special ale he was reserving for one gaming party. So he cracks a plan to sneak into that army camp and steal those kegs back. So it's possible to have adventure, even, with an ordinary person concerned with ordinary things.

Why should the reader care about the character's first world problem.

To me, "ordinary" means a non-royal, non-magical person/character that is probably otherwise forgotten (gardeners, farmers, homemakers, local shop keepers, etc.) ... but due to reader's expectations, I suspect it might work best in Low Fantasy.

I'm not sure about low fantasy, but ordinary people are very fun in sci fi.
By the way we have a different definition of ordinary. To me ordinary are people that can be described as human , neither super privilege nor prosecuted and no one in their or our universe will describe them as badass.

 

[Svrtnsse]

Why should the reader care about the character's first world problem.

I'll have a stab at this. The reader will care because the writer makes them. If the character and their motivations are well written the reader will care about what they're doing, no matter what it is.

If the end of the world hinges on the character's actions, that ought to be interesting, but if the writer doesn't make me care about the character and their world I may not even finish the story.
Going to the shop and picking out a tie for a work function may be really dull, but it could probably be made quite interesting if the character is set up correctly (though I'm not sure I'd be the one to pull that off).

In short, it's up to the writer to make the reader care.

EDIT: I guess another way of thinking about it is that everyone is the main character of their own story. For an outside observer, certain people's lives/stories seem more interesting than others, but I'd like to think that very few people view themselves as just a supporting character in someone else's story.
It may be that they feel like that's what their lives are, but even then their story is still told from their point of view.

 

[valiant12]

If the end of the world hinges on the character's actions, that ought to be interesting, but if the writer doesn't make me care about the character and their world I may not even finish the story.
Going to the shop and picking out a tie for a work function may be really dull, but it could probably be made quite interesting if the character is set up correctly

The story don't have to concern the fate of the world. However a story where the main character is sneaking in a army camp to save his children is way more interesting than a story where the main character is saving his ale.

 

[Miskatonic]

The Hobbits. Enough said.