When it comes to writing, it’s all about characters. The plot is second fiddle and there is nothing interesting about a plot if uninteresting characters are involved in it. Extraordinary things should have to extraordinary people, even if the extraordinary person is simply a fisherman, who is unaware that a sea curse is about to wreck his enterprise and he will forced to fight the forces of evil. You and I face adversity every day, but we don’t fight off 10,000 year old mummies on a monthly basis and we sure as hell don’t have aliens take us aboard their starship and take us across the universe to fight off giant monsters with laser swords. Part of the appeal of these character is routed in the basic Hero’s Journey structure that has been popular throughout most of human history. Why? It could be the desire for extraordinary things happening to us, maybe because it’s a great analogy for human growth or maybe just because normal people becoming larger than life heroes is intriguing.

-Click to continue>