Truth

As a writer, I feel it is my job to write down little truths that are universal to the human condition. The problem is, stories tell the big, the grandiose, the exciting. They rarely focus on the ordinary, or else they wouldn't be stories. They would be anecdotes.

But, while stories tell exciting and unusual happenstances, the characters can still be simple and kind and ordinary, just like any of us. Perhaps the best stories place an Average Joe, just like you and me, in a situation beyond the every day. 

One of my favorite examples of this can be seen in The Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien. It is not the elves, the wizards, or even the mighty warrior men who save Middle Earth in these stories: It is the simple folk, mainly the hobbits, who bring peace back into the world. 

I really like this quote from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and I'd like to share it with you today: 

[Some believe] it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. 

                              --Gandalf the Grey

You may be ordinary, but you can still make a difference. 

This is something I've been thinking about as I develop my characters. I want to create a character that most people can relate to, even if the story itself can't just be filled with anecdotes of "the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk."

For what it's worth, those are my musings for the day.