Ho-hum storylines

That's right. Ho-hum. What do I mean by that? I was thinking last night about storylines and it occurred to me that most adventure stories never revolve around people who have money problems and don't go to extraordinary lengths to resolve them. Seems kind of self-evident, doesn't it? No adventure to be found in a story of a guy who just goes to work every day and drags his butt from pillar to post just to pay the bills. But, how many times has just such a thing been the central focus of our lives? In order to make a story of it, you have to show the dismal, daily round and quickly contrast it with some momentous event in the main character's life.

For instance; the character may be concentrating on getting through the gauntlet his life has become and suddenly be thrust into circumstances that require him to sink or swim, fight or die, just to continue living. We've seen those mechanics used thousands of times, and that's okay. It points up the juxtaposition between what he or she has had to endure and what he or she has forced on him/her. We are suddenly confronted with the question of whether or not a man or woman who can barely drag him/herself through life, can deal with an overwhelming challenge. Many times, we learn that the character has deeper resources that have gone untapped in his/her daily life because there was just no way to use those resources.

A visit to the movie screen calls up an example that is very close to the scenario I have laid out. Who among you remembers 'Straw Dogs'? It's almost a fish out of water story. A man who is mild-mannered and almost diffident, is forced to become harder and more brutal than the people who confront him without losing his humanity. It's a more complex story than that, but it gets the point across.

I believe that the whole intent in showing a man who is beaten down by the circumstances in his life, or is oblivious to the changes going on around him because of his focus on something else, is to lend realism to the story. 'Everyman' forced to become something out of the ordinary. We all like to believe that we are equal to such challenges and many of us are. Look at the stories you find in the news about people who face overwhelming odds to save a drowning child, or pry someone from a wrecked car before it burns. Or the men and women who step up and tackle an armed robber or purse-snatcher and hold them for the police. Of such things are heroes made. Countless men and women have joined the military as ordinary citizens and managed to perform acts of heroism that people who know them would have doubted they were capable of.

No. A story that consisted of the daily rounds of a man or woman who was just getting through life would not be anything that anybody would want to read unless it showed the evolution of that character into something that captured the reader's interest.

These are my thoughts on the subject and probably pretty common and self-evident, but I thought they were worth vocalizing.

Thank you,
Derek A. Murphy
Author of It Happens Every Day, The Empty Heart: A Collection and others.
Available on Kindle.