Establishing Normalcy

I am an English Teach….ing student. I graduate this semester, but regardless I won’t have all the knowledge that comes with 10 years teaching in the classroom (obviously). I recently had to teach my M.S. students the various ways that plot works within a story, and the first thing my mentor teacher had me start with was Establishing Normalcy.

So how does one go about this unspoken of method (at least in the 15-odd writing books and classes I’ve taken). This is a meter, a level by which the reader understands the world and becomes comfortable with how the protagonist lives their life.

In Andrew K. Rowe’s Arcane Ascension, he begins by throwing his protagonist into a deep dark dungeon. In Dakota Krouts Divine Dungeon, he begins by self-analysis and methods of gaining power.

There’s nothing wrong with having a strange bit of normalcy, but I’ve read other books whereby the story, specifically the prologue, throws you into one tumultuous sequence of action, followed by a story landing on a farm with a boy (rarely a girl) who will save the world and doesn’t know it yet. The above two stories are recent releases in the last 5 years, while the farmboy “chosen one” protagonist is from the 80’s.

So why am I seeing this style returning in the last few books I’ve perused? Will Wight’s Cradle series begins like a 80’s style chosen one, and I found his first book incredibly boring and a slog to get through until he meets his partner near the middle-end. For those who have read Wight’s series, it’s incredible and well-made, but first you have to punch through the boring beginning. So it made me think, do we really need normalcy?

I read in a book by Orson Scott Card, about how he was having trouble writing Ender’s Game until he had an epiphany. He had issues with the writing because of just how bored these scenes were to write, so he figured “why not just write the exciting parts?”. By cutting away the normalcy, by cutting away anything which might be boring and plot-derivative, you’re increasing the speed and excitement the novel brings to the reader.

I wonder, now, with all of my experience and reading, if I need to go back and chop-up my books the way Card did. I’ve had trouble writing my plot-driven book The Boy and the Stick, as establishing normalcy has greatly dragged out the first chapter and all of it’s worldbuilding exposition. If I find it boring to write, does it still have value? Shouldn’t the act of writing drive me to a fun purpose?

Just questions I’m raising for myself, and hopefully it helps any future or aspiring writers who have reviewed the plot diagram (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution(denouement). Feel free to comment and let me know your thoughts.