Mr and Mrs Dursley of Number 4 Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal thank you very much

“it was a normal day…a day like any other…” - This is a nod to  Kurt Vonnegut’s “The Shape of Stories”

Note the difference between this and “Once upon a time…”

I mean…you can’t knock “Once Upon A time”…because it works…it begins to transport you to a different place and time…but

If you set out the normal at the beginning of your story, it helps lead you somewhere….we all know what became of the “perfectly normal” Dursley’s after all.

This helps with….

• ”An old boss of mine….normally, on any given day she would be calm and cool about stuff…but this one time…”

”here’s what normal looks like for our business…we tend to do X and Y….and that’s why this new thing is even more exciting….”

What’s the opposite? “I had just made probably the worst decision of my business career…”

Or consider transformation posts on Social - simply showing how great you look now because you’ve lost that weight or spent that time in recovery or you’ve worked on your life in whatever way….simply showing that is not enough. You need to show the normal of where you’re come from.

Transformations can be great hooks and are probably worth a chapter on their own…..”you without my service….” vs. “you with it”…..what “boring service” looks like vs. “the excitement of me…”

Have you heard of Celeste Barber? She’s a lady who made parodies of celebrity Instagram selfies and then made a hashtag and a whole movement around it…Tova Leigh picked up on it

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Here’s what she did to Miranda Kerr

TO FINISH THIS POINT - remember, you can take any idea….establish what’s normal…then you can reverse it, subvert it or improve it…all to keep you moving forward in your creative process