Inneresting 37
issue 37
January 30, 2021
Ordinary Worlds Are What We Make Them
Whether you were introduced to it by Christopher Vogler, George Lucas, or the OG Joseph Campbell, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of the Hero’s Journey.
There’s a quick primer with some helpful links at Screenwriting.io, which includes this summary of the Journey structure by Campbell:
“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”
This week, we’re focusing on that “world of common day.”
Ordinary Doesn’t Mean Mundane
Donald Maass discusses tension in the setup of an Ordinary World in this article for Writer Unboxed.
The examples and thesis point out a flaw in thinking about showing the Ordinary World as something that requires a boring, nothing-to-write-home-about day for a protagonist.
Establishing the status quo for a character gives the audience an idea of what the character expects, and what people in that world see as normal, which may have some sharp contrasts with the audience’s experience.
Sowing Seeds For The Conflict To Come
Screenwriter Michael Arndt made a short video about the lessons he learned working for Pixar on how to craft a strong beginning to a story.
Arndt focuses on showing what brings the protagonist joy, and which of their routines get disrupted even before the audience learns about the central conflict of the story.
Less Ordinary Worlds
Science-Fiction and Fantasy stories offer worlds that diverge drastically from our experience, but the inhabitants of those worlds need to answer similar questions and solve similar problems to us.
The Guardian asked noted sci-fi writers how they go about creating worlds for their stories, and how deep their planning goes.
Justin Marks, creator of the alt-reality series Counterpart, spoke with NPR about crafting the show’s mirror Earth recovering from a global pandemic. You can see an example of an in-world PSA in this conversation Marks had with SyFy Wire.
Highland How-To: Seeing Just What You Expect
Highland 2 is built around the idea of getting out of your way and getting to the important part of writing: The Actual Writing.
You can set up your default view of Highland however you need to best focus on getting the words out of your head and onto the page. If you need a distraction-free writing space, Highland can clear everything out of the way.
If you need to juggle a little more as you write and edit, Highland has additional Sidebar tools to make sure you see what you expect when it’s time to get to work.
To find out more about Highland 2, check out our Knowledge Base!
Other Cool Things
The Science Museum Group has created a new site connected to their catalogue of photographed objects. Every time you load this site, you’ll be treated to a random object from the collection with zero views — an object that has never been seen on the internet.
Do you love cooking, but aren’t a fan of scrolling? Try Just The Recipe, where you paste the URL of a recipe, and they give you a stripped down view with only the essential cooking information.
And that’s what’s inneresting this week!
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