Defining normal heroes
Written by Alexis Hope   
Tuesday, 03 March 2009 23:07
Defining normal; developing characters

If we are able to point out the "exceptional" through characterization, then it helps to know what normal is. Most of us can be defined by a range of behavior considered "normal." There is no absolute yardstick for what is normal. Normal just means it doesn't deviate too far from the central tendencies of the rest of us. Just as twenty-twenty vision doesn't mean perfect vision, as if this was the eleventh commandment carved in stone, it just means average. Twenty-twenty is what most people can see, so it is the standard, even though some can see better than that. Most of the stories we write are about reasonably normal people. (Thrillers are an exception.) We'll get back to the normal range in a moment.

What falls outside the range of normal behavior falls into the classification of abnormal psychology. I spend very little time on abnormal psychology because I have no interest in it, but I’ll mention it with relation to character change. Abnormal psychology covers psychotics: people who probably have a physical cause for their aberrant behavior. And neurotics: people who have become so entwined in complex behavior (usually coping mechanisms which allow them to live with impossible circumstances, or which prevent the real problem from being resolved) that they have lost touch with reality and aren't able to function normally.

Normal people can become "abnormal," but it usually doesn't happen overnight. A distinctly normal heroes or villains will take some to mature into. The only "normal" overnight Jeckyl and Hyde characters I know of are those suffering from alcoholism and other drugs, PMS, hypoglycemia, allergic reactions, and Type A behavior (which usually has no placid Dr. Jeckyl to it), and illness. So it's best not to make characters who have an occasional attack of neurosis or psychosis, unless they are truly schizophrenics. Most people are reasonably predictable and don't change overnight.