Strangers and Strange Lands

Peter Quill is an earthling living and working in space

In an interview about SNL creatives, it was said that actors who write prefer Strange characters in a normal world. While writers will write pieces about Regular people in a bizarre world. I have no idea how true that is overall, but it rang true to me.

From an actor's point of view, it must be more satisfying - or at least more fun - to play a person who is bizarre in some way. Reacting to that "craziness" is probably less fun - and less showy.

For people who are writers first - maybe they often feel like the only normal person, surrounded by lunacy. I can relate to that in a way. I can relate to being the oddball, too - but most of what I've written involves a fairly "normal" person surrounded by nuttier characters, or situations, or by something outlandish or horrific.

The "only sane man" trope fits a lot of the stuff I like, and some of the things I write. Having said that, I do have my wackier characters, and focusing on them can be a lot of fun, with the regular world around them reacting to their oddness.

Having some aspect of your stories where things are "normal", relatively, can help emphasize the strangeness of the other people or parts of your world. Even if your "normal" character is pretty strange in some ways, they will probably be more relatable than the really wild characters and situations around them.


Barry is a hitman, an extraordinary person joining the ordinary world (and the 'ordinary' world is pretty crazy too, as it turns out)

I loved the old show Boston Legal, which had a couple of really unusual characters (including Alan Shore, the lead character) and some fantastic "serious characters" for him to get in conflict with. The serious characters were not dull or uninteresting - but the contrast with the wackier folks was a winning combination. I thought it was a huge mistake to get rid of most of the "normies" in the series and increase the wackiness. It made that great show far less interesting to watch.

Anyway, those are my thoughts for the day! Have you written any 'normal people in crazy worlds' or 'crazy people in normal worlds' stories? Which do you prefer?

Bye for now!