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@ericawordsmith

Within the context of a story, what construes as “ordinary” or “extraordinary” is, undoubtedly, relative.

But to me, to be considered “extraordinary”, it makes no difference whether the character gets the special trait at birth or later in life so long as it is before the main conflict. (This means that the orphaned farmboy who gets magic powers and then goes on to fight the dark lord is not ordinary).

How to write #3 stories that are gripping…? The same way to write any gripping story, I suppose. Have your antagonist (whether ordinary, extraordinary, human or not) pose a threat, in some way, to the protagonist and inject heart and creativity in all aspects of your writing from plot to characters to worldbuilding. Of course, for me, I usually don’t rely on just #3 in my own writing as I like to try to cover all sorts of conflicts.

But I understand the issue that it can be hard to come up with a worthy conflict for #3. I think I addressed this in my answer to @kpcentaursister.

@jenwriter17

Hi! Haha, yes, I don’t come here on SE all that often.

Why do you #2 and #4? Is there a reason for why you prefer to read #2 and #4 but mostly write #2 only?