Free Drawing on the Power of Resonance in Writing by David Farland Page B

begin to creep into the field.
     
    For example, if you’re writing a romance, do you say that your hero has “gray” eyes or “grey” eyes? The answer, of course, is that he has “grey” eyes. Why? Because Emily Bront ë ’s Heathcliffe had “grey” eyes, and thus the British spelling became preferred. It has stronger resonance with romance readers.
     
    As a new writer, it’s important to become familiar with these codes, these motifs. Readers will think that you’re ignorant if you don’t know the standards. For example, I recently read a novel by a mainstream writer who tried to dabble in science fiction. In it, she had an instantaneous communication device. She called it something like an “ICD.” However, by doing so, she embarrassed herself in front of real science fiction aficionados. In the genre, such a device is known as an ansible . The word was coined by Ursula K. LeGuin in 1966 for her novel Rocannon’s World. By not knowing this, the author revealed that she was a pretender. In effect, she was “slumming.” So the novel died without real critical or financial success, despite the author’s skill as a stylist.
     
    In the same way, we have “code words” that creep into every genre of fiction. When I used to judge for the Writers of the Future Contest, every few months I would get a story that started like this:
     
    Joe, John, and Dave are sitting in a bar, drinking cool beers, brought to them by a big-chested waitress. They’re jawing about things. “How’s work?” Joe says. “Oh, you know, same ol ’ stuff,” John says. “Say, have you seen Tina lately,” Dave asks John.
     
    (This banter goes on for a page or two.)
     
    Suddenly, the door to the bar bursts open, and a dwarf walks in. “Dwarf!” all three men suddenly shout, as they leap up from their stools and draw their swords.
     
    As a reader, you might wonder, “Say what? They’re drawing swords?”
     
    Do you see what is wrong here? Nothing in the text indicated that this was a fantasy world. The author began with a description befitting any modern-day bar in Texas. But in fantasy we have a secret language, inspired by Tolkien and others, that lets us know that we’re in a different time, a different world, where men wear swords and attack dwarves on sight. Using this language signals that the author is writing for a fantasy reader.
     
    How would you then as an author address this problem?
     
    First of all, the characters’ names can’t be Joe, John, and Dave. They have to sound like fantasy characters. So let’s try Theron , Wulf , and Sir Giles.
     
    Second, they’re sitting in an inn , not in a bar.
     
    They aren’t drinking “cold beer,” they’re guzzling “frothy mugs of ale.”
     
    Instead of a “big-chested waitress,” the brew is offered up by a “buxom serving wench.”
     
    When the men talk about their day, they don’t say, “How’s the boss treatin ’ ya ?” Instead, one might ask, “Is Lord Hebring faring well?” And so on.
     
    All of this prepares us for the moment when the dwarf walks in, and the three city guards suddenly draw swords ringing from their scabbards.
     
    The truth is that if you as an author are not aware of the conventions and vocabulary of the genre that you’re trying to write in, you will fail. Your readers will feel uneasy about your work, the critics who are familiar with the genre will lambaste you, and you will bomb at the bookstore.
     
    Sometimes, authors get the wild notion that “Writing romance would be so easy,” or “If I just moonlighted by writing a fantasy novel, I could write so much better than the rest of those idiots.” It doesn’t work that way.
     
    You have to write in a field that you know. You have to love what you’re doing. If you don’t, the chances are almost zero that you will succeed.
     
    The literary agent Richard Curtis once pointed this out. He said that over the years he has known dozens of authors who have gone