Humans are bound to the places they inhabit. They get familiar with where things are and how to act in certain ways to get things done. Think of cooking in a familiar kitchen, or doing laundry, or taking a shower and getting dressed — it’s a dance, a familiar set of gestures executed again and again to the point that the body moves before the mind thinks of what happens next. Relocating to a new space is discombobulating — nothing is as expected. Everything takes extra effort, thought, and time.
Many stories ramp up as the protagonist arrives at somewhere unfamiliar. Think Harry Potter; he travels to a new school to join a community completely unfamiliar to him in a setting that’s foreign. Or consider any other story that starts with: “They inherited a little cottage by the sea, a book shop in Scotland, a villa in Italy, a grandparents’ farm.” Or: “He started a new job in a new city; embarked on a journey around the world; visited a friend on another continent; climbed the Himalayas; went to a new bar.” Basically, any time there is a change of local, the ordinary rules change and new possibilities emerge.
The most interesting things happen (good and bad) during times of flux. That’s when possibilities open up, and we feel free to act different and make unfamiliar choices.
I once sat on a plane next to an executive who lamented the endless changes that were being imposed on him from higher-ups. I told him to think of this as an opportunity to change all the things he didn’t like as well. The shakeup at the company created an opening to do things differently as part of reorganizing business as usual. If he embraced the changes, he might even benefit from them. It’s a good approach to stressful upheavals.
That said, I personally hate change — I like to go to the same restaurants and, at each, I order my favorites that I’ve eaten before at that same place. I love traveling to places I already love. I adore hanging out with people that are my old friends and find making new ones difficult. I am pretty set in my ways, even as life continues to throw curve balls my way. I’ve had enough change to last a lifetime. Now, the only changes I want are the ones I can write about. Notice that I didn’t say “the ones I can control.” As a writer, I’m categorized as a pantser — I write by the seat of my pants; the stories unfold for me as I put them down on the page. I am just as surprised as my readers at the antics, the sorrows, and happiness my characters experience. I stir up flux in the pages of my stories, and my characters have no choice but to adapt — they can’t dance to a familiar tune anymore.
As I tend to do, I’ve joined an ebook promotion this month: Sci-Fi & Fantasy Giveaway.
My book, Mirror Shards, is all about learning to adapt to completely different situations and exploring the possible and the impossible inside a life of rapid changes. But my story is not the only one that adopts this approach. Read the summaries of the included books. All take their characters away from their familiar lives and force them to face change. That change is the stuff that makes stories.