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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/31037
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/31037
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

This is the third question today that I am going to answer with essentially the same point, but stories are fundamentally about a choice of values. To establish the grounds for a story, you must first establish the values that will be at stake.

In a loss of home and family story (like LOTR) you have to establish the love of home and family. But if you really want to grip the reader, you not only have to make them believe intellectually the the character loves their home and family, you have to demonstrate it. Everything in a story is established by experience. You have to allow the reader to experience that love for themselves, and that can take a good deal of time and a good deal of skill.

But the fear that this will be boring is misplaced, as long as it is done well. Readers understand very well (even if they can't articulate it) that love of home and family is the essential ground of any quest/adventure story. They engage with the experience of that love of place and people because that is the human ground on which all story is based. They are experienced consumers of stories and they recognize (intuitively at least) that establishing the real world is an indispensable part of the story shape. It is not a bitter pill they have to swallow. It is not eating your vegetables before you can have cake. It is an integral part of the pleasure of a story and if it is done well, the reader will take as much pleasure in it as in any other part of the story.

Have you ever noticed that the Shire is the only place in LOTR that feels like a real place. The rest of Middle Earth feels like painted sets by comparison; all absurdly high mountains and absurdly dark woods. The shire is a hymn to the pre-industrial English countryside that Tolkien loved. It is what he knew and what he loved; the rest is merely what he imagined. The best writing in the entire work is set in the Shire. It is the little jewel of reality that makes the rest of what is a rather overblown and fanciful tale vital, alive, and beloved. The lack of something similar is why so few of Tolkien's direct imitators achieved anything like his success.

Often, though, authors will rush this part of the telling. Far from getting the reader to the interesting parts quicker, this means that the story never gets interesting at all because the essential ground of love has never been established and thus there are no moral stakes in any of the action that follows. The rushed opening is boring because it is not allowing the reader to experience the love the protagonist has for place and people. Unfortunately, the common response to being told that these passages are boring is to cut them back further, which further weakens the ground of the entire story.

Sometimes the cure for boring is not less but more. Establishing the ground of values which will drive the protagonist to the central choice of their story arc is essential work and sometimes it takes time. But it is also congenial time for the reader, building their emotional and moral engagement with the story. What is it people say when they meet someone really special? "We talked all night." Getting to know someone, establishing a relationship that you think is going somewhere, is not merely congenial, it is exciting, thrilling even. That is how it should be with the reader and your protagonist. The reader should feel like they have talked all night, even if they have to read all night to get there. We talk a lot about stakes in fiction, but stakes are love, and only love. Love takes time, but falling in love is the most exciting time of our lives. A rushed opening deprives the reader of the chance to fall in love, and without love all the rest is worthless.

It doesn't always have to take that long, of course. But sometimes it has to, and when it has to, it must be allowed to.

Original score: 4