Reflections on the Writer’s Journey Book One Part 2

The Ordinary World

In order to have our characters change, we must first get to know where they are coming from and what they currently are.

It can be as short as a glance in a car between your hero and their sidekick as they are about to rob a bank, or it can be  the exploration of your hero’s current routine that will eventually lead them down the path of the hero’s journey.

Much like ourselves, our hero needs to know what they currently are if they are to go on a journey of self-exploration.

The importance of the Ordinary World is not to list a compilation of facts about our hero, like a police report on a suspect. Rather, the purpose is to set up the journey so that when the hero is torn between the world he knows and the world that calls him, the choice is as hard as possible.

From the very beginning, we can’t to make this pull to stay back in the familiar world as strong as possible. Our hero should want to stay, but there is something much stronger that draws him and which he eventually can’t refuse to ignore, because that call is a call of his or her self, a call, a chance to discover things deeper inside him that the familiar and ordinary will never be able to show. 

Thus, the primary purpose of the ordinary world is to make the call of adventure that the hero feels as painful and hard choice as possible.

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