Sanctuary

Today, I want you all to challenge your ideas of what's...

Normal 

Have you ever seen Sanctuary? It's a show where Dr. Helen Magnus works to protect the people and beings among the general public who are known as abnormals. They're people with powers, or creatures we never thought were actually real -- and to Dr. Magnus, they're perfectly normal beings.

But it takes a special kind of story to be able to support creatures like that.

1. Normal is an objective word 

For Helen, abnormals are normal. She is one, in a way. She's lived hundreds of years, and hasn't really aged. During all that time, she's worked to help those who aren't so fortunate as to appear human.

Humans have this weird thing about inclusiveness. We don't like there to be other species that match us on the foodchain, other beings that might be just as good as us. But who's to say that there aren't aliens out there, aliens that might even be better than us?

To make a story with that kind of alien, you'll have to create your own form of normality. What's normal to these creatures? Obviously, it's not us. Humans need to become the abnormals. 

2. To make a new normal, sometimes you have to make better human beings

For this, one of my best suggestions is to look to Star Trek. There, humans and aliens work side by side in almost every episode (if not every episode). They're a part of each others lives in every possible way -- because the humans there are better than a lot of humans here.

3. To make this new normal seem truly normal, sometimes you'll have to write in an unfamiliar POV

Which means, you'll have to write it from the POV of what we humans might consider abnormal.

Think about it, though. A lot of stories are written from the POV of the abnormal, fighting against the normal. What if the abnormal and the normal were united, fighting for their own cause, side by side? What if people saw abnormality as the beauty hiding within the normal?


There's a lot that can be done, when we challenge our ideas of normal.

Leave some of your ideas in the comments -- I'm curious how many thinkers we have here!

[love]

{Rani D.}