In fiction and in life, a set of standard procedures creates clarity. Who is in charge? What are the next steps someone needs to take? What skills should a person use to solve a problem?
Messing with How Things Are Supposed To Work can create tension within a story.
For an example of upper altitude thought on procedures and planning, Joe Mathews details the process he used to write a new Magna Carta for cities to adopt (and adapt) when they wish to focus more power on direct democracy in their communities.
NASA uses checklists for every mission so astronauts and ground crew always know what the other is doing. They also make complicated processes easier for exhausted astronauts to complete. You can see some of the actual ones here, with cue cards and a rendezvous chart used in a training simulator.
Putting this to work in drama, Apollo 13 includes multiple scenes where engineers on the ground need to create all new procedures in order to help the astronauts pilot a damaged craft back to Earth:
Even though the scene takes place in a simulator, the stakes are life and death. These engineers know how the spacecraft is meant to work need to find a new, repeatable method to power up the necessary systems in the spacecraft. The drama comes not only from trying to get their procedure right, but doing it with enough time to explain it to the crew.
Heist films frequently honor the trope of laying out the procedure for the big score — which rarely goes exactly according to plan. Brandon Sanderson divides heist stories into two archetypes, Ocean’s 11 heists and Italian Job heists, and explains how the difference between their scenes of planning and preparation create different audience expectations.
Social norms are another form of standard procedure. A culture’s expected behaviors may not be written down or fully explained, but they’re just as real. Tracy Durnell collects some thoughts on what happens when the social norms of different online communities clash, and the differing versions of ourselves that we share on different platforms.
Sometimes showing the opposite of the expected norm helps the audience establish both. Take this early scene from Dead Poets Society:
No one directly says that John Keating is an unconventional teacher. What we see is a group of students who follow along with the initial lesson, but then become confused when he gives them an instruction they’ve never heard in school. “Rip out the page.”
The hesitancy of the class makes it clear that damaging a textbook has never been in any lesson plan they’ve experienced. When another teacher sees the ripping and enters the room, his presence reinforces the idea that this action is counter to the expectations of the school and its faculty.
Similarly, the lack of classroom discussion plays into this idea of norms as well. Keating challenges his students to huddle up, get out of their seats, to offer them the thesis statement for what he intends to teach them.
These are lessons you can apply to your own writing. How would the situation in your story be handled in the real world? How are you going to set or subvert the audience's expectations? How can your characters rise to the challenge when the situation falls out of step with the standard procedure?
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Steps to Take During Writing Emergencies
This week’s issue is brought to you by Standard Procedures, card number 10 in the Writer Emergency Pack XL deck:
Make a list of skills from your hero’s ordinary life. How could they be adapted to fit this challenge?
The Writer Emergency Pack XL deck was made with one goal: Help writers get unstuck when something stalls in their story.
To find out more about the writing prompts on the 52 cards in the XL deck, check out the Writer Emergency site.
Previously on Inneresting…
In case you missed it, last issue’s most clicked link Mandy Brown wants you to stop using the phrase “imposter syndrome,” and realize that there are systems making you feel inadequate (You’re not doing it to yourself).
What else is inneresting?
Faith Hill explains why parents aren’t turning to neighborhood teenagers as babysitters.
John Warner has lots of questions about the kids in the audience of The Smile’s music video “Friend Of A Friend.”
Casey Newton breaks down why OpenAI copying/imitating/gesturing towards Scarlett Johansson’s voice without her consent is only the tip of the iceberg for their ethical issues.
And that’s what’s inneresting this week!
Inneresting is edited by Chris Csont, with contributions from readers like you and the entire Quote-Unquote team.
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