For a long time, I have felt the need to put a lot of weight on Community in TWOLD.
However, now that I’ve outlined the TWOLD synopsis, I’m seeing less of a need for community.
Community is important and a good thing to write about, but I don’t need to boil the ocean.
There is fable-like quality to focusing on just a husband and wife.
It is Surreal.
What I’m considering now is still have some community, but no longer seeing it as essential but as a bonus, and ensuring it doesn’t diffuse the primary story dynamics.
Maybe I can also have some communal ties, but make them disconnected.
For example, having long-distance correspondence with family.
The remote community can still be a support network without being the focus of the world’s ire.
In a way, that is similar to many daily circumstances.
For example, a man may receive spiritual support from his church, but if the man is facing social trials at work, the church doesn’t usually visit the man’s job and defend the man as though it were some kind of union.
In the context of TWOLD, the land James and Adelle live in could be likened to that job, with their church life being in some sense outside of that land.
Part of at least a subconscious motivation for community in TWOLD is to avoid narcissism.
I don’t want the story to feel like the world revolves around James and Adelle.
I don’t think the only solution is to double down on immediate community.
I think a viable solution here is to clarify in the narrative that any trials James and Adelle face are not unique to them.
This couple is not special. They are not unique.