It was the best of times, it was the . . . what’s better than best? Bester? Bestest? Besterest? Besterisimo? It was so good it was almost indescribable. Things were so good that only Eeyore, or an Eeyore-type person, could find fault with how things were going.
But that’s the problem. You see, a story should have an intro, a body, and a conclusion, just like a speech needs those elements. First, you are introduced to a situation and a person or some people. The intro gives you at least a teaser of the who, what, when, where, and maybe even the why and the how. Then, to draw the reader in, the body, or main part of the story, needs to present some challenge for the protagonist—e.g., a problem that needs to be resolved. This causes the tension that keeps the reader reading, the listener listening, or the watcher watching (because they want to know how the challenge is going to be met, how the problem will be resolved). But that’s the problem with this beatific state of affairs in the bestest of times: Where’s the friction? Where’s the challenge, or problem, if everything is hunky-dory? How could such a situaton be made interesting?
In other words: What is there to say when the protagonist has no problems or challenges? Let’s go beyond the problem of a boring story, though—what about a boring life? Would a person living a completely stress-free, no-pressure, no-tension, problem-free, challenge-challenged life also eventually get tired of the same old same old?
Barry started to feel that way in those best of times. It dawned on him one day that his life had become monotonous. To combat the boredom, he set up a challenge for himself. He liked to run. It made him feel vibrant and free to let his legs carry him over hill and dale, past creeks, through meadows—it was exhilarating and endorphin-producing.
So Barry determined to make running a challenge for himself. He started out running from his place to a friend’s house, which was about a mile each way, each morning. Once that was too easy, he started making two circuits: there and back, there and back.
Barry could have continued increasing the number of circuits he was making, and eventually spend the whole day running back and forth, but what then? That would become routine, and he would be back where he started: bored. Besides, he had other things he needed to do. He couldn’t spend all day running. He still had the work to do on his orchard, after all. So rather than running more, Barry decided to make each lap more challenging. He also wanted to be doing something practical for his friend—the one whose house he ran to (twice) each morning. So this is what Barry did:
Before leaving his house, Barry would grab two apples, and run with one in each hand. Once he made it to his friend’s house, he jogged into the barn and gave one apple to the horse, and one to the cow (after grinding it through the cider press, so the cow wouldn’t choke on it).
The horse and cow were not just mildly interested when they saw Barry coming now, but eagerly awaited his arrival. Barry’s friend then offered to give him some milk from the cow each day. Barry took him up on his offer, and asked him to leave a small covered dish of it in the barn each morning.
Beginning the next day, Barry took with him, not just an apple in each hand, but also a kitten in each pocket of his windbreaker. On his first arrival at his friend’s barn each day, he would remove the lid from the container of milk, take the kittens out of his pockets, set them down next to the milk, and then continue his regimen.
On his second arrival of the day, Barry would put the sated kittens back in his pockets, and make his way home.
This was satisfactory for a while, but also, in time, became passé. Barry started bringing apples for the tables-scraps-eating, snake-killing pig, too. Ultimately, that became tedious, also, though. To relieve the unrelenting monotony of it all, Barry began writing haiku in his head as he ran. That kept him amused and absorbed for a month or two. After that, he added songwriting to his daily regimen. He would sometimes write (in his head) the melody, and then come up with lyrics to match; other times he would come up with the lyrics first and then add the melody afterward.
This worked; it never got old: creative activity never gets old. Each song was different from the last. Barry even began writing stories in his head as he was running; he found that a combination of physical exertion, fresh air, and creative endeavors made it so that his life was never routine—there was always something new to create to keep his mind active and engaged with life and the world around him. It was the superbest of times.