balance in the beginning

September 7, 2005

The initial change that happens to start your story will either be an external change or an internal change.

As mentioned before, previous to the story’s beginning there is balance. This doesn’t necessarily mean there is peace. Remember, a Justification is a form of balance - a balanced inequity. There is still an imbalance at heart, but it has been balanced off with other things that bring it back into parity.

This is where your story begins - with everything in balance.

And then there is an Initial Change that is either internal or external.

Let’s create a Main Character - your basic everyday Caveman. His Backstory consists of him walking outside of his cave during winter, running into a ferocious multi-fanged sabre-tooth tiger, and then running home to quickly build a wall around his cave to protect him.

The sabre-tooth tiger and the harsh winter represent the Caveman’s inequity - something he doesn’t want to experience or even think about. He builds up a wall, the same way you or I build up walls to shut out or protect ourselves from things we don’t want to deal with.

Our Caveman now has balance.