None of my stories do what the craft books say; there’s no Ordinary World opening for my protagonists.
You know how this goes: Act One, begin the story with the Ordinary World. Set up the protagonist and show their regular life before the Inciting Incident explodes the whole thin. Then we’re off to the races as the heroine resists the call to adventure, is forced down the path, accepts the call and fulfills their destiny.
Conventional Wisdom
If you go with a conventional story structure like The Hero’s Journey, you get the opening phase, Ordinary World;
familiarize the reader with the known world in which your story happens. This means giving the reader what they need to know to make sense of the world.
It’s the traditional way to open a novel. It establishes character, setting, wants, tone, and probably genre.
The Ordinary World consists of the protagonist seen in their regular life. We see them doing regular things, probably complaining about life’s imperfections, thwarted ambitions, broken dreams, and the strictures of work, family, community and so on.
But is it the best way to open?
Modern Times
In Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat, you get a breakdown like this:
- The Opening Image presents at 0% to 1%.
- Theme Stated at 5%.
- The Setup takes up 1% to 10%.
- The Catalyst occurs around 10% in.
We’ll skip over the rest of the story beats.
Still, in this and similar story structures, the Catalyst or Inciting Incident lands at the 10% mark. The ordinary world is turned upside down and the protagonist is thrust into some adventure out of their comfort zone.
Except I don’t do that.
Ever-shorter attention spans demand you kick-start the story faster and faster. The ancient Greeks knew this and always begin their stories in Medias Res.
‘Too Many Words’
One Book-Tok critic actually used that line in a book review.
The modern fiction reader won’t wait. They want to get into the action from the first chapter. Long, slow builds no longer work in the mass market.
Honestly, if I have the idea for a great story, I want to get on with it as fast as possible.
All of my characters are in motion from page one.
In the Ghost and the Vipers, there’s a flash forward to a climactic battle. I’m kind of cheating, but it’s a premonition, Jovanka is a seer, so it’s allowed. Chapter Two has Jo exit the vision. She’s on the run, in the wilderness, on a search mission, straight into a fight with bandits.
I pull a similar trick in The Seer and the Vipers. In City of Vipers, we’re looking down on the city Jo needs to infiltrate, in order to assassinate the Emperor. This is Mission Impossible, the classic TV series, in which every episode begins with the IMF creating the sting operation. We find out the actual mission, goals and stakes as we go.
Not convinced?
In Kamsen Knights, Yari sneaks around the city on her mission to locate her father. His abduction happened three years ago. She’s had adventures and mishaps since then, but Chapter One sees her close to uncovering the truth.
In The Sixth Messenger, Areyn is on mission to find the holy child. She’s located the latest candidate and has to beat off the mercenaries contracted to take him.
And in The Powder Tower, Zuleika awakens after a catastrophic event with no memory of who she is. We’re thrust right into the mystery along with her. Well, it worked for Jason Bourne…
Maybe there’s a hint of Ordinary World for Yari and Aeryn. This is what they’ve done day in, day out for years. But today, that routine changes.
Zuleika doesn’t remember an Ordinary World. Not even her own name. I wrote that opening in response to Daniel David Wallace’s assertion that novels are obsessed with the past. Zuleika doesn’t have one. There’s life in the amnesia-mystery plot yet.
One Giant Leap
Since I’m writing straight-up fantasy adventure, I can get on with the fantasy and adventuring much sooner than, say, a contemporary romance. Some kind of warm up featuring the discontented life of our singleton protagonist is pretty much compulsory, before the Meet-Cute with their love-interest. Although this genre, too, is subject to the same attention-deficit of modern times.
This is why Blake Snyder’s advise for screenplays and Jessica Brody’s adaptation for novels don’t use the term Ordinary World beloved of other writing coaches.
And nor do I.