Ordinary People

[Svrtnsse]

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.

I'd say that still depends on the writer and how they write the story. Saving the children sounds like it will be a more interesting story than saving the ale, but it doesn't have to be. A story about a father saving his children is probably an easier sell than a story about a brewer saving his ale, but the idea of the story isn't the story itself.

As a writer, it's up to me to make the the reader care about my characters. If the way I tell my story isn't good enough, then it doesn't matter how great the idea is.

 

[Svrtnsse]

The Hobbits. Enough said.

I actually had to think about this for a moment. >.<

 

[Miskatonic]

I actually had to think about this for a moment. >.<

I was going to put Frodo and Sam, but it was more than just them.

 

[Svrtnsse]

It's extra silly of me not to spot the joke here, seeing as the anfylk race of my character Enar is basically a knock-off of the hobbit race.

 

[FifthView]

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.

But what is the "correct perspective"? Correct may be rather subjective. The word "dog" may also be subjective.

My first impulse when considering your comment was to wonder whether the issue of subjectivity was being used in the way some may use the term relative. "It's all relative!" "It's all subjective!" And then, my next impulse was to wonder at the oddity of a writer claiming that a word is meaningless! My third: To wonder why, then, some seem to be in favor of using "ordinary" characters while others have so quickly rejected the notion because, well, we read fantasy to escape the ordinary world and our ordinary lives—surely both perspectives, although in disagreement, accept the validity of the word "ordinary."

My original impulse was to wonder whether, in a fantasy milieu, we can establish a common idea for ordinariness. A hobbit-like archivist at a police station? A common stable boy tending unicorns? What, within a fantasy world, is "ordinary"? In the thread that inspired this (linked in the OP of this thread), I'd raised the idea of ordinary Joes and Janes, but I'd also said this:

Plus, it could be said that everyone who is alive really is remarkable, even if they aren't named Obama or Kardashian or GRRM...and a good story would always find the distinction in any given character.

And in this thread, that even "ordinary" people can have full personalities, idiosyncrasies, histories, and distinction. Does this make them extraordinary? More or less a "correct" perspective?

I do think the word has meaning, and dismissing the idea seems peculiar. (I don't know whether the dismissal is an ordinary or an extraordinary response, however.) (And saying it has "all meaning" potentially, because it is so subjective, is like saying it has no meaning.)

From the moment I saw the title to this thread, I thought of the movie Ordinary People, which I think was given that name (or rather, the book that inspired it was given the name), in order to show how "ordinary people" nonetheless have deep feelings, major conflicts, strong passions, etc., in their "ordinary lives." Drama, tension, tragedy.

But Ordinary People didn't have superheroes (mutant, godly, alien, or super spy agent varieties) running about saving the entire world, or entire universe, from super villains. Conundrum. But what is super? What is villain? What is hero? It's all so subjective I wonder whether we should cull a great many threads from Writing Questions, given the uselessness of discussing these things, quibbling over semantics.

As a side point unrelated to your comment Demesnedenoir, and not to derail things or instigate another 27-page thread, and maybe for no constructive purpose whatsoever...I sometimes, lately, have begun to feel that, when any issue is brought up for discussion, there are those who read the OP and don't recognize what's addressed as being descriptive of what/how they write, and so the automatic response is, "Something must be wrong about this idea."

 

[We Rise Above]

As a writer, it's up to me to make the the reader care about my characters. If the way I tell my story isn't good enough, then it doesn't matter how great the idea is.

Quite right. I've recently found a couple of books where a great idea was hidden beneath a style that just put me off completely. For example, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared (not fantasy, I know): the basic idea is great but I found Jonas Jonasson's writing style had too many quirks and I had to give up after about 30 pages. The only reason I know that the story is a good one is because I saw the film version.

I cared about the characters in the film, but the book left me cold because I was too busy grappling with the way Jonasson had written about them.

 

[Geo]

One of the things I have come to realize is that if you look hard enough, everybody --and my comment applies to both characters and real people--- is extraordinary at some degree, and by extraordinary I mean out of the ordinary in some aspect or their life, personality, or abilities. I don't need a character to have super powers or being royalty to be extraordinary, but if somebody does something out of the ordinary immediately that somebody turns into an extra-ordinary character (it almost seems like a definition). For me, this means, that each character can be both, ordinary and extraordinary at the same time, that is why I kind of agree with Demesnedenoir saying that “ordinary” is subjective (which I also interpreted as relative).

When reading, and writing, a tend to look for that bit of "extraordinariness" in each of the characters. In some, it's very obvious –Harry Potter surviving a curse, Aragorn the unnamed king— in others is very subtle but not because it’s subtle, it's less important. Take Samwise Gamgee, at first sight he is perfectly ordinary but his loyalty and resilience, soon make him extraordinary.

Of course, you need extraordinary circumstances to reveal the “extraordinariness” of the characters. Such extraordinary circumstances can come in many shapes but they always represent conflict, it’s the conflict that drives the characters to do the “something extraordinary” (conflict within themselves or with the surroundings, that will depend of the story). Once the conflict is resolved, some characters continue to be extraordinary (like Tristran Thorn from Stardust), others seem to retract back into their ordinariness (like Samwise, or Chihiro Ogino in Spirited Away, or Coraline). By back to ordinariness I mean, without getting powers, status, or even recognition after the fact. Of course they all change in the process, they all “evolve” so to say, but that evolution no necessarily makes them less ordinary in the traditional sense of the word.

Independently of the ordinariness or extraordinariness of a character at the beginning of a story, they all need conflict otherwise what would they be doing all through their stories? And why would we like to read about them? Even the wife of the dragon slayer needs conflict to make us want to read about her. It can be as simply as she having to find a magic product to clean her husbands’ clothes after a day of hard work, or her thinking of leaving her husband because she is tired of worrying for him all the time, or something as big as having to go and slay a dragon herself in order to save her children. In any case, she will have to do something out of the ordinary (something different to what she had been doing up to now) in order to create her story, hence become extra-ordinary herself (even if only temporarily).

Without conflict –without the "out of the ordinary" circumstances— even the most extraordinary characters will become ordinary. Just imagine, by Wizard’s world standards, how non-extraordinary Harry Potter’s story would have been if Voldemort would have wait to put his plans in action after Potter had died of old age. Yes everybody would have pointed at Harry for surviving the curse and because of his past but he himself and his story may have go by as the life of many other wizards. For example, he would not have participated in the Triwizard Tournament so young (may be never), he would not had have to master his patronous charm until much later, and many other things big and small would have change to probably make him a mildly interesting character. His very extraordinary beginnings wouldn’t have amount to a great much without the extraordinary conflict brought by such extraordinary adversary.

Summarizing, I think that ordinary people are great in fantasy stories but they can’t be permanently ordinary (all through the story I mean) for the stories to work. At some point, ordinary people turns extraordinary by facing extraordinary circumstances, and it’s then that the stories become alive and the characters turn real, even if at the end, once the conflict is resolved, they go back to their apparent state of ordinariness.

 

[Chessie]

I rather read about characters doing the extraordinary than going to the store to buy a tie. Now, if the tie being chosen will be poisoned and used to assassinate someone, then that would be interesting. But to read an entire book about a character just doing normal things in a fantasy setting? No.

I'm glad Miskatonic mentioned hobbits because that's the first thought that came to my mind when I first read this thread. Frodo was hella ordinary. He went through some seriously crazy things and was the star performer in one of the best fantasy tales of all time. That's how it's done.

This thread is an interesting topic, because I'm also tired of the royalty characters. Yet...Martin has made thousands of people care about his royal born characters. How many endless fantasy books have warriors and mages and chosen ones and empires? Pretty much all of them because those are staple tropes in fantasy. The more I learn about reader expectations, the more hesistant I am to change things that readers rely on. Giving them a story where an ordinary character does average every day things might not go over so well. Fantasy readers (all of us) want to read about magic and dragons and sorcerers kidnapping princesses and sweeping their goblin hordes over the land to pillage.

Readers want stories that matter.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I think the example with the tie might have been a bit over the top - or under, as it were.

My original fascination with "ordinary people" started quite early on. Originally, I wasn't writing stories, and I wasn't planning on doing it. I was just world-building and I planned to use the setting for a pen and paper rpg, rather than as a setting for writing stories in. I put quite some effort into it, and I discussed my thoughts and ideas at great length with friends of mine. They were quite patient with me.

Eventually one of them said something along the lines of:

Why don't you write a short story about someone living in the world? Something like A Day In The Life Of... or something. That way you could show off what life is like in the world in a different way.

That's basically what got me started writing stories. I wrote a few shorts where "regular" people experienced or interacted with aspects of the world that I'd made up.

Most of these stories are pretty crap, but they were a lot of fun to write. They don't have a real plot, and there's little to no point in them other than to describe the main character as they go about their everyday chores. You could probably call them snapshots rather than stories, and you wouldn't be far off the mark.
Some examples of what these snapshots were about are:
- A man waiting on a train while someone at a newspaper stand goes on a bigoted rant about elves.
- A man driving an air-bus (zeppelin style) between two cities.
- A werewolf having a cup of coffee at a cafe run by an ancient elf.
- A chocolate magician using magic to make luxury pralines.
- A woman standing on her balcony, looking at her flowers and being homesick.
- An archivist looking at a brochure from a travel agent and thinking about going on vacation (this turned into a novel later on)
- An elf riding the subway on her own and making sure to cover her ears and eyes so the humans won't see she's an elf.
- A shaman visiting some dwarves doing maintenance roadwork to make sure they're meeting their deadline.
- A chronicler having a coffee while the paladin he's keeping records of is meditating (this is turning into a novella at the moment)
- A receptionist visiting a shrine to seek guidance from the gods.
- A polar elf having a baby.
- A woman dancing at a rave and nearly setting fire to her sweater because she's a bit tired and not that skilled with her magic anyway.

Okay, so not all of these are mundane or ordinary from our perspective - and some of those not even from the perspective of the setting. They're all low key stories though, with not much happening and not much going on. They're not particularly exciting, but I greatly enjoyed writing them, because they gave me the opportunity to explore and get to know my setting in a way I wouldn't have if I set out to write a story about some unlikely hero on a quest to save the world (that's something I'd like to try my hand at too, but I'll save that for later).

Could I turn any of these into an interesting story that others would want to read? Probably not all of them, but certainly a few.

 

[skip.knox]

>- A woman dancing at a rave and nearly setting fire to her sweater because she's a bit tired and not that skilled with her magic anyway.

Bal des Ardents
First thing at jumped out at me when I read your list, Svrtnsse.

 

[Heliotrope]

Svrtnsse, I love all those so much!

I'm deeply inspired by the mundane becoming magical. Disney's short film "The Paperman" has to be one of my all time favorites:

Here is the film (though for copywrite purposes, the music is not original). I absolutly LOVE the concept of the mundane becoming magical.

Paperman Oscar Winner Disney HD - YouTube

 

[Tom]

I love the idea of ordinary people in fantasy! It's a great opportunity to show what normal life is like in a certain culture--what they value and how they live day-to-day.

For Southerner, I've been thinking of writing a companion anthology called Tales of Issadai, which would chronicle the lives of various people of the different ethnic groups, cultures, and belief systems in Southerner's world. I'm really excited to start on it a) because I'm an anthropology nerd, and b) I think it'll give me a richer and deeper understanding of each culture and what makes them who they are.

 

[Chessie]

Okay...maybe I'm confused. When I think of ordinary characters, ones that aren't royalty or already bad asses at something comes to mind. Like my dim-witted bandits in my WIP. They're 'ordinary' to me. But there are fantasy books out there where regular people go through some fantastical journeys.

So is the journey part what we're disagreeing on? Is it that you'd like to read a story about an average joe who does average things in his normal life? I don't get where that would be exciting or how readers would care about that. Then again, it's just my opinion and specific tastes which provide the bias for my statement.

Fantasy≠reality. Average joes are fine so long as something fantastical happens to them along the way. Like the Twilight Zone.

 

[skip.knox]

>Is it that you'd like to read a story about an average joe who does average things in his normal life? I don't get where that would be exciting or how readers would care about that.

That might be a tough sell in the fantasy genre (though, again: Tolkien, Farmer Giles of Ham), but it happens all the time in "serious literature". So people do indeed read that stuff. Not I. When I want to read about ordinary people doing ordinary things, I read history.

It has to be the things being done, not the people doing them, that compels. Consider: ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances is something lots of people here have said they love. Now consider how many people love reading about extraordinary people doing ordinary things?

 

[Geo]

It has to be the things being done, not the people doing them, that compels. Consider: ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances is something lots of people here have said they love. Now consider how many people love reading about extraordinary people doing ordinary things?

That was the point I was trying to make, that ordinary people is ok, great even, as long as in the story they do extraordinary things. I like that.

The other way around, extraordinary people doing ordinary/everyday things but with zero conflict, I think it won't work... like a story of Superman cleaning it's shoes (not much excitement there). Now, may be if he has misplaced one boot when flying over the Himalayas and he has to be ready for a date with Louise Lane, then it's interesting. However, Superman misplacing his boots and having dates it's in itself extraordinary. That will be a story of somebody extraordinary doing something out of the ordinary (even so cleaning shoes/having dates may be very ordinary activities in this case there are not... and that goes a bit to reflect what I (and others) had said about "ordinary" being relative/subjective.)

My comment goes into saying that for a story to work you need conflict, and conflict brings things out of the ordinary/extraordinary. If the surroundings of a character become extraordinary and the character acts to overcome such problems, then the character itself becomes a bit extraordinary.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I probably should have put a bit more thought into the definition of "ordinary" before I started this post.

>Is it that you'd like to read a story about an average joe who does average things in his normal life? I don't get where that would be exciting or how readers would care about that.

That might be a tough sell in the fantasy genre (though, again: Tolkien, Farmer Giles of Ham), but it happens all the time in "serious literature". So people do indeed read that stuff. Not I. When I want to read about ordinary people doing ordinary things, I read history.

Aye, it probably is a tough sale. I don't think it's impossible though. The way I see it, Enar's Vacation is targeted towards someone who's read a lot of fantasy and who wants a character centric story that's a step away from the big adventures, but that still has the escapist elements of a fantasy story.
It's not going to be for everyone, or even for most people, but I think there are those who will enjoy it.

It has to be the things being done, not the people doing them, that compels. Consider: ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances is something lots of people here have said they love. Now consider how many people love reading about extraordinary people doing ordinary things?

From the example I think we may be talking about slightly different things, but I'll disagree anyway.

I think that in order for a reader to stick with a story they have to connect with the characters of the story. If you can get the reader to care about the character, then chances are that the reader will also care about events that are important to the character.

Then again, I guess it comes down to the definition of ordinary...

The things that happen to Enar in his story may be trivial and ordinary to anyone (everyone?) else, but because the story is told from his perspective, and because the events happen to him, they become interesting - assuming I'm successful in making the reader care about the character.

To add to the confusion, let's sum things up as it relates to the story I wrote:

Enar is an ordinary person in the world he lives in.
Enar is extraordinary to himself as he has no experience being anyone else.
The world Enar lives in seems extraordinary to us.
The world Enar lives in is ordinary to him.
All of the events in Enar's story are ordinary because they could easily happen to anyone in his world.
Some of the events in Enar's Story will seem ordinary to us because they could happen in the real world.
Some of the events in Enar's Story will seem extraordinary to us because they could not happen in the real world.
The events in Enar's story are important to him because a) they happen to him and b) they are not regular occurrences in his life.
The events in Enar's story will be interesting to a reader if they care about Enar.
A reader will care about Enar if I successfully make them care about him.

Now...
How do I make the reader care about Enar?
Well, that's a very good question, and I'm really glad you asked, because it's a great question...

It's also an entirely different topic.

 

[Svrtnsse]

So is the journey part what we're disagreeing on? Is it that you'd like to read a story about an average joe who does average things in his normal life? I don't get where that would be exciting or how readers would care about that. Then again, it's just my opinion and specific tastes which provide the bias for my statement.

Fantasy≠reality. Average joes are fine so long as something fantastical happens to them along the way. Like the Twilight Zone.

I don't think it's so much a disagreement as it's a bit of a confusion about definitions, concepts, priorities and all kinds of other things.

One of my key beliefs when it comes to writing is that it's really important for me to make the reader connect with and care for the character I write about. If the reader cares about the character they'll care about what happens to them.

If the reader cares about what happens to the character, then what happens only has to be important to the character for it to be important to the reader. It doesn't have to objectively important within the context of the setting in which the story takes place.

Is it that you'd like to read a story about an average joe who does average things in his normal life?

This really does sound rather boring.

However, if the average joe lives alone on a high-altitude air-ship and spends his days harvesting the jelly-fish that live in the clouds, then I might find a short story about him interesting, just because what he does is so unusual (to me).
You could also take it further, and perhaps he has a crush on the pilot that comes to pick up his catch once a week, and he's working up the courage to ask her to stay for a meal the next time. Now there's a little bit of potential tension there, and it's still not really out of the ordinary: it's just a guy who's got a crush on a girl.

EDIT: Granted, that kind of story idea still probably doesn't appeal to a lot of people. But I hope you can see how it's something that could potentially appeal to a certain type of audience.

EDIT2: Full disclosure: my current WIP is about a character who's highly exceptional in all kinds of different non-ordinary dismundane ways.

 

[Svrtnsse]

...and since work is really quiet today, here's some random vaguely related music:

 

[FifthView]

That was the point I was trying to make, that ordinary people is ok, great even, as long as in the story they do extraordinary things. I like that.

The other way around, extraordinary people doing ordinary/everyday things but with zero conflict, I think it won't work...

For me, this raises the question:

• Do readers come to care about characters because they first come to care about events surrounding the characters?
• Or do readers come to care about the events because they first come to care about the characters?

I think that the answer is almost always the latter, although at some level the two, characters and events, blend to create an overall fascination.

I think we've all seen the sort of Michael Bay-ish approach: Blow things up! It can be spectacular but have a horrible story, barely developed characters (or stock characters), and involve the Fate of Everything. On screen, this might work just fine sometimes, at least for a couple hours' worth of cheap entertainment, but it's not the sort of book that I personally want to read.

This is also why, for my part, I prefer the Harry Potter films over the Percy Jackson films (although to be absolutely fair, the PJ films have so much more that is wrong with them....)

BTW, I don't think that ordinary=no conflict. Everyday life can have high levels of conflict, tension, and so forth. It's just that the stakes aren't as high from an "objective" POV. But from a subjective POV–i.e., the individual character's POV–the stakes might be even higher. (Nero being more concerned about his own artistic performance than about Rome burning. At the moment, I don't remember exactly what it was he was doing, although I know it wasn't fiddling.) It's possible that such a disjunction can itself lead to the creation of an interesting character for the reader, an engaging character.

The issue of scale is an interesting one. One of the "stock" fantasy "ordinary" character types is the street thief. To most of us, being a street thief would be out of the ordinary, even if our own world does include thousands of street thieves. But fantasy worlds seem to be chockablock full of them. Can we create high tension at the street level? This may be a Daredevil vs Avengers kind of question.

But I do agree that every story needs to have a...story. A compelling story. What makes it compelling is the question of the day.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

For me, this raises the question:

• Do readers come to care about characters because they first come to care about events surrounding the characters?
• Or do readers come to care about the events because they first come to care about the characters?

Arguably neither... readers will care when an event happens TO a character. Lots of explosions killing faceless people? meh. Nothing happening to a nice guy? meh. Lots of explosions trying to kill a likable guy, and that killed his wife, kids, and (gasp!) his dog? Now there is something to care about.

The reader won't care until there is something to care about.