 Mystery: May 31, 2017 Issue [#8316] |
  Mystery
This week: Everyman vs. Exceptional Man Edited by: Jeff  
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"Nobody reads a mystery to get to the middle; they read it to get to the end.
The first page sells that book, and the last page sells your next book."
-- Mickey Spillane
Trivia of the Week: In addition to writing the series of novels featuring Inspector Harry Hole, Norwegian author Jo Nesbo is also the songwriter and lead vocalist for the Norwegian rock band Di Derre. Prior to his dual career as a writer and musician he was a freelance journalist and stockbroker, having graduated from the Norwegian School of Economics with a degree in Economics and Business Administration.
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The Everyman vs. The Exceptional Man
In most mystery stories, the protagonist is one of two different types: the everyman (or woman) and the exceptional man (or woman). For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to use "man" from here on out, while fully conceding that this newsletter topic is equally applicable to female characters. 
The everyman is a character who doesn't have any remarkable skills or abilities. They're just a normal person caught up in an extraordinary set of circumstances. Some examples of these kinds of characters include:
Grace Lawson in Just One Look by Harlan Coben - a suburban mother who picks up a developed set of photographs only to find one that doesn't belong... a photo with five people, one of whom she thinks might be her husband circa twenty years ago. When she confronts her husband, he denies that it's him, but then steals the photograph and drives off in the middle of the night, leaving her to put the pieces together.
Harry Bosch in Black Echo and other books by Michael Connelly - a Vietnam veteran turned LAPD Detective, Harry may be extremely perceptive and able to solve crimes that others can't, but he doesn't have any kind of elite training or special abilities that give him an edge over his coworkers or the people he's trying to put behind bars.
John McClane in the movie Die Hard - He's just an off-duty NYPD cop forced to take matters into his own hands when a group of sophisticated bank robbers target the skyscraper office building where he and his wife are attending a Christmas Party.
What's appealing about the everyman character is that we relate to him. Most readers and viewers don't have any specialized training or advanced knowledge about how to handle the kinds of situations that often come up in mystery stories (kidnappings, murders, hostage situations, etc.). It's pure fantasy and wish fulfillment to watch someone who could be us saving the day or solving the crime or being the hero when the odds are stacked against him.
At the other end of the spectrum is the exceptional man, who has a background and set of skills that the average person does not. Whether he's a soldier, assassin, master criminal, pilot, or whatever, this character is typically one of the best in the world at what he does. Some examples of these kinds of characters include:
Evan Smoak in Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz - Evan Smoak is a former elite government operative who, to paraphrase, learned a wide array of skills from teachers who are the very best at what they do (hand to hand combat, firearms, , etc.). The result is an operative who has an almost supernatural ability to anticipate his opponents' strategies and counteract them.
Mitch Rapp in Transfer of Power and other books by Vince Flynn - A counterterrorism operative unofficially employed by the CIA, Mitch Rapp is the kind of guy you call when your back's up against the wall... in his first appearance in Transfer of Power he's literally the guy they call to save the President of the United States when terrorists take over the White House.
Arnold Schwarzenegger in... anything.  - Arnold always plays some kind of an elite soldier or tough guy that single-handedly takes down the bad guys, usually with an astronomically-high body count. Some of the films where he plays this kind of character include: Commando, Predator, Total Recall, Last Action Hero, True Lies, Eraser, etc. etc. etc. FUN FACT: In Total Recall, he actually starts as an everyman who later becomes an exceptional man!
The appeal of the exceptional man character is that he's an embodiment of what we wish we were. Everyman characters are fantasy and wish fulfillment from the perspective of how we'd like to think of ourselves as acting in a difficult situation. Exceptional man characters and fantasy and wish fulfillment from the perspective of what we could have done with our lives instead. What if, instead of going to college, we enlisted in the military and climbed through the ranks of the special forces? What if, instead of taking that job at the bank or the insurance broker out of college, we instead joined the State Department and were recruited for covert ops work by the CIA?
There are advantages to each type of character, and even the possibility of finding a middle ground between the two extremes. Some characters are exceptional in one way, but normal (or even deficient) in others. Adrian Monk in the show Monk and Shawn Spencer in the show Psych have remarkable powers of perception, but that's it. Sherlock Holmes, similarly, has an almost supernaturally logical and analytical mind.
When writing a thriller or a mystery story, it's worth taking some time to consider whether your story is best served by a character who's an everyman, an exceptional man, or something in between.
Until next time,
Jeff
If you're interested in checking out my work:
"Blogocentric Formulations"
"New & Noteworthy Things" |
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EXCERPT: Green Street is a dead end street with six houses, and it is connected to Main Street. Green Street is about 300 feet long. All six houses are more than 120 feet away from Main Street. There are three houses on the right side, and there are three houses on the left side. There is a wooded area all around Green Street.
EXCERPT: 'Master, it's late already and do you think the train will still arrive as scheduled?' 'Yes, it's just a quarter to eight and it says Eight O'clock in their manifest. Besides, am not tired of waiting, the cool breeze and this terrace-paved seats are enjoyable to me'.
EXCERPT: Mary Josephine Parker died on July the twenty-second 1914. Her end came during a break out at the local asylum, PennyWeather Home for the Insane, were she was being contained.
EXCERPT: Have you ever been wrong in life? The decisions you make, the assumptions you make and the realization that you're wrong, did it ever do any good to you? All these always run in your mind don't they? It was for me too and did it do any good for me? That takes me to the night I met those eyes.
EXCERPT: It was close to midnight. The weather was stormy, it was drizzling outside, and the sound of thunder grew louder and louder as the time passed. The loud sound of thunder was not enough to affect her sleep. After her weary day, she was sound asleep, but in spite of being asleep, she was awake, awake in an another place, a place with a dense forest, which was dark and calm, calmer than the world outside where the heavy drizzle and the roar of thunder could have been a nightmare for any girl of her age, but she so was obscured in her dream that it did not mattered her a bit. She was a thin girl, aged eight years, white in colour, whiter than her own parents. Her grandmother who often called her "Britisher", was asleep beside her as deeply asleep as she was. She was right, she was the most white and beautiful child born in her entire Indian family.
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Feedback from my last newsletter about B & C Stories ("Mystery Newsletter (May 3, 2017)" ):
DB Cooper  writes: "Suits includes a character that never went to law school but passed the bar. Some lawyers really do skip law school but 'reading for the bar' involves more then just test taking."
I love Suits! And yeah, I've heard some people take the bar without going to law school... I don't think I could prepare for a test that intense without the years of prep that law school provides, but hey, I guess if you don't need it, why pay for all that schooling?
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