Normal World in the hero's journey.

Hero's journey or not, you get to the story immediately. Starting in the normal world doesn't mean you can write even one dull chapter. Get to the story on the first page, if you can. Normal doesn't mean it has to stay there.

Normal just means the space/reality/day-to-day life that the hero typically occupies. There doesn't have to be anything boring about it. It's what the status quo is for that character, as "normal" or as bizarre as that might be.

For Luke, it's being a farmer on a planet filled with sand and weird little glowing-eyed mini-monks. For Harry Dresden, it's being a wizard PI in Chicago but with werewolves and vampires and evil step-fairies for friends. For Frodo and Bilbo, it's hanging out in their little hobbit-holes in the Shire. The "special world" that the hero decends into can still be the same physical world. The point is that by going on the hero's journey, they're going into a place (physically or mentally) that's new and uncomfortable for them. A physically new world is more of a symbol than a requirement.

To expand on the LOTR/Hobbit reference, think how quickly their lives are changed. It doesn't take long for something to come into Frodo or Bilbo's regular world and throw them off balance, does it? They resist for a while, perhaps, but that's part of the monomyth, too. And neither of those start terribly slowly, at least IMO.

If I'm understanding what you mean by 'here's journey', then there's your answer. We need to start by understanding who your character currently is (since they will change), and what conflict exists in their normal world. There must be some conflict, even if it's just their personality. That shouldn't be dull at all.

Peter Parker was socially awkward and unsure of himself before the spider bit - that was interesting. Neo was a slacker at work who longed for something with more meaning - we immediately wanted to know what that would lead to. Heroes start out as people with conflict but no way to address it, then things change. But it should always be interesting, even if it's normal.

Start your story on the cusp of change. Maybe your MC cop is about to clock off work when a kidnap is reported, or the King in your high-fantasy is deposed by his younger brother, or when just before the heroine of your romance novel shunts her car into her future love-interest, as drives to work.

That kind of thing.

Another thing to remember is that conflict and tension build reader interest even if the story's inciting incident hasn't happened yet. My WIP starts with two characters having an argument about how they can stop arguing. I establish in that scene that their status quo is that they live together but can't get along. The big change is when one tries to kill the other.

As others have noted, the normal world doesn't have to be devoid of things the reader can take an interest in. If you can't get to your inciting incident very quickly, then start foreshadowing the fact that a change is inevitable. That tension will keep the reader engaged with the story.

Sometimes fantasy elements have begun to intrude into the real world in a humorous or horrific way, arousing the MC's curiosity/suspicion/desire/etc., in a way that leads to the MC entering the other world.

With the Hero's Journey, you have to track two character story lines.

One is the Desire line, which begins at the Inciting Event. This Desire line is imposed on the Hero through externalities. ex: Luke wants to save Princess Lea, then blow up the Death Star.

The second one is the Need line (i.e. Inner Drive), which is what the Hero needs to achieve in order to grow. ex: Luke needs to trust the Force (and eventually become a Jedi).

By solving the Need line does the Hero solves the Desire line. ex: Only by fighting using the Force does Luke wins over the Empire and grow into becoming a Jedi.



So, what is the Ordinary World plot point?

It is where the Hero's Need is shown. ex: Luke is a farm boy longing to become a fighter like his father.



> how would you start the novel in the normal world without it being dull?

Establish your Hero's Need in action. Any opening style will do - explosive, slow but mysterious, etc. Usually the genre dictates the usual opening styles.

Love (Need is to love and be loved): Hero breaks up with current girlfriend.
Detective (Need is usually to regain honor): Hero comes out tainted from a previous criminal investigation.
Horror (Need is usually to overcome a fear): Hero succombs to his fear in a constrained situation


Hope this helps.

-cb

Project Deadlight said:

My question is: how would you start the novel in the normal world without it being dull? Especially if an agent is judging you on your first three chapters!

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It depends very much on the story (some stories require a fair amount of time spent in the normal world, in order to properly set up the rest of the plot), but ideally the call to adventure will show up somewhere in the first few pages, preferably on page one.

If that doesn't work for your story, then you need to fill the normal story with lots of small conflicts and micro-tension. Build friction into it to keep the reader turning pages.

The normal world doesn't have to be dull either. Harry Potter starts out living in a tiny room under the stairs with his strangely weird (though non-magical) relatives. Even though that's the 'normal' world for Harry, I always found that part of the story strangely entertaining. Same for Alice, who lives in Victorian England and spends her summer days lazily going down a river or chasing rabbits. (Or one rabbit in particular.) I like to see a little of that world before having the hero hurry off to slay creatures, find this or that magical item or start solving some problem that means the end of the world if she fails.

Give your MC an interesting job, or school, or vocation. Have him work in a morgue, or in a library where he has trouble keeping the fantasy books on the shelves - they keep popping off or they rearrange themselves. (Okay, that second example is an intrusion of the magical world into the normal.) But normal can still be interesting, and if you stay in it for very long it has to be interesting or you risk losing your readers.

Most problems have several solutions, each with pros and cons.

In this case, you can begin before, during, or after the inciting incident. I've done all three. All can be made to work. But in each case you have to work to make the people, places, and action interesting. Or at least one of them!

No matter what approach, you must interest the reader from the very beginning of your story. Preferably the first sentence.

You can do this, for instance, with a tease sentence.

Before she died the first time, Mallory was nothing special.

Flash back begins....

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If I were you, I'd forget about the "hero's journey" completely. It's a nonsensical, outdated concept, and most stories that are labeled as following that pattern have been shoehorned into it by literary analysts. Sure, many stories follow the idea of "things seem normal and then shit happens", but that's as far as you should take it. Follow your own instincts.

Shika Senbei said:

If I were you, I'd forget about the "hero's journey" completely. It's a nonsensical, outdated concept, and most stories that are labeled as following that pattern have been shoehorned into it by literary analysts. Sure, many stories follow the idea of "things seem normal and then shit happens", but that's as far as you should take it. Follow your own instincts.

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We must read different novels, and we definitely know different people. The Hero's Journey is still one of the most common themes I read, and it isn't shoehorned in. It's still a great theme, and will never be outdated as long as we have heroes, and we do still have heroes. They aren't nonsensical, the Hero's Journey isn't nonsensical, and it still sells better than any other type of genre story out there,

If I were you, I'd forget about the "hero's journey" completely. It's a nonsensical, outdated concept, and most stories that are labeled as following that pattern have been shoehorned into it by literary analysts.

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Most blockbuster movies have the Hero's Journey at their core. Star Wars. Avatar. Titanic. Harry Potter. Toy Story. The Lion King. Just to name a few.

Sure, many stories follow the idea of "things seem normal and then shit happens", but that's as far as you should take it.

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The Hero's Journey is an expression of character change and this form has been around for a very long time. Each step in the story is an external manifestation of an internal character change - a mini self-revelation - so that at the end of the story, the Hero comes out completely changed.


The reason critics and agent tend to dismiss stories based on the Hero's Journey is not because this approach is bad. It's because their authors have done a passable job of hitting each and every plot point and so the net result doesn't raise above the crowd.

How many stories open up on the Hero waking up in the morning and going through his daily routine? That author has hit the 'Ordinary World' plot point all right. It's just not compelling anymore. The audience wants more than that.

As it is for any genre, merely hitting the standard plot points is not enough in this market. It is the author's job to twist the plot point into something unexpected and go beyond what the template calls for.

-cb

PD,

No matter what "plot template" we use, the normal world does not have to be long and drawn out. Think of it this way: you've got a situation and you drop your characters into it. How are they going to work it out?

If he's the hero in a murder case, you set it up so that the murder happens soon enough in the story that we know he's the main star of the story. A girl is murdered and he's there trying to solve it. Don't have him eat breakfast or read the paper first, unless there is an article in the paper that is necessary to the story. I personally like when murder mysteries start right at the crime or just after it happened.

Susan Littlefield said:

If he's the hero in a murder case, you set it up so that the murder happens soon enough in the story that we know he's the main star of the story. A girl is murdered and he's there trying to solve it. Don't have him eat breakfast or read the paper first, unless there is an article in the paper that is necessary to the story. I personally like when murder mysteries start right at the crime or just after it happened.

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Just a bit of a warning here. Most Detective stories do NOT involve character change. Columbo from the TV series of the same name ( clicky ) is still the same man at the beginning of the story as he is at the end. Trying to fit a Hero's Journey template on a Columbo episode is akin to forcing a square peg in a round hole.

If your story doesn't involve some sort of character change, then forget Hero's Journey altogether.

-cb