People say that they don't like road trip books. And I thought about why that might be and I do get it and I think it's because you can't use minor characters in the same way that you can in other books and you also can't like place is hard cuz you're moving from place to place. So, every place has to make a big impression. Every character has to be very clear who they are in their your first interaction with them.
I think if we have a quest narrative, whether it's in a poem, a novel, or a movie, we need to have a protagonist with detailed, believable motivation. He needs to want something. So the fact that these desires seem to be stripped from Odysseus, he doesn't seem to want food, doesn't seem to want sex. What does he want?
What we're doing is we're creating a hero's journey for somebody. And what we're surrounding him with are this cast of bizarre, eccentric weirdos and hopefully carving out a path for him to become the leader at the end and have his 12 Angry Men moment where he inspires us all and unites us and then we pull the curtain back and celebrate him as a human being.
6mo ago
Underscored — save the words that stop you in your tracks.
