Writing With Found Objects 1

 

But I Wanna be Original

 

A friend asked me to explain how a writer can use reader cookies (the things readers expect in a certain type of book, and which in fact reward the reader for reading the book) and clichés (and the use there of) as well as genre tropes and other expected “set-pieces” in narration.

And then I realized this was not a post but a series of posts.  A mini workshop, if you will.  Something that will allow you to amplify and improve your writing by becoming conscious of the expectations and either playing to them or against them.

To begin with, you’re probably sitting there, scratching your head, going “but I wanna be original?  Isn’t the purpose of a book to be startlingly new?”

Well… no.

Perhaps I’m more aware of this because I came from a different culture as an adult, and had to learn to tell stories the American people will want to read.

All right – eh – we all have to learn that as writers, but there are degrees.  What I mean is that I not only had to figure out how to talk to people outside my head, I also had to learn what the expectations in the reader’s head were for certain genres, so that I knew what I was working with, or dispelling.  And what made me aware of it is that I carried a completely different set of assumptions in my head.

Since I came from a culture in which Romeo and Juliet is almost the ideal romance (to be ideal she should have survived and mourned him all her life) you can see where I expected stories to hit different points, right?

It took my first writers groups and then writing fan fic to get that Americans had different expectations.  Oh, I knew it intellectually, and figuring out, for instance, that Romance was supposed to have a Happy Ever After here, was easy but I didn’t know how to hit the unspoken things in people’s heads.  When I introduced my male character as big and rough, for instance, I didn’t know I was cuing him as the villain in people’s heads.

But I got it.  Eh.  Eventually.  And it made it clear to me once and for all that even the most original of writers is not creating things out of whole cloth, nor is it desirable that he or she should.

I’m not talking here about the sort of copycat stuff that traditional publishing worshipped.  I’m not saying “Twilight sold a bazillion copies, so do run right out and write a lot of sparkly emo vampires.”

I’m not even talking about stuff like “Well, Cinderella stories sell pretty well, so I’ll base all my books on that.  That’s not the level I’m speaking at.  I’m speaking at a deeper, more basic level, like… like if the first glimpse the readers get of your character is when he’s drowning puppies, it’s going to set up certain expectations.

But Sarah, you say, I don’t want to count on what might or might not be in the readers’ heads.  I want to set up my whole world, the full story and explanations, and not have to worry about how they might perceive things. I want my work to be immortal, even if culture changes.

I’m here to tell you that you want the impossible.  It’s sort of like saying But I want to control the weather.

I’m not going to tell you that you can’t setup an entire world inside a book.  You probably can.  It would just take you a century or so to write and be unreadable.  Even books that are set in “the real world” make use of what is in the reader’s head to round out the details and setup explanations.

Say a beautiful blonde shows up in the first paragraph of your book.  She might be a shy wallflower raised in a world where blondes are considered ugly.  BUT until that’s established – and hammered in – you won’t know that.  You will see the typical cheerleader who’s been prized for her beauty her whole life.  You’ll expect that.  And even after that is dispelled, you will always have that knowledge too.  What I mean is, if THE READER had grown up in a world where blonds are ugly, then the feeling wouldn’t be the same as in a world where pretty blondes are prized, knowing that this one lives in a world that isn’t.

The “furniture” in the reader’s head matters, and you have to be aware of it, and make use of it to elicit the emotions you wish to.

To put it another way, you can’t tell the story to a reader that never read a story in his life (or if you can that reader is too rare to sustain a career.)  So you’d best be aware of what stories the reader has read, and what expectations he has, or your story will confuse him, upset him, or lose his interest.

This is why people who don’t want to read in the genre they write because they want to be original are shooting themselves in their collective foot.  Writing is a sort of collaboration between you and the reader.

This used to be more explicit when story tellers stood up at banquets (or on the street corner) and told their tale.  If you’ve ever seen a master storyteller work, you know they take their cues from audience questions, interjections and even body language.  (The best way to get that now is one of the fanfic sites with heavy comments.  I did my time in austen fanfic and advise it to anyone not sure they’re hitting the right notes.)

Now you have to fill in what your ideal reader would think/say/feel.  And the best way to do that is to be a reader of that genre or sub-genre.  (Which doesn’t mean you should like every type of story that fits there, btw.)

Now, no one is saying you slavishly imitate what you read.  No.  You should still strive for originality.  But you need to know why the reader picked up your book, what he expects of the genre and how to satisfy the reader.  Or at least not to disappoint the reader.

Next up “Reader Wants Cookie” next week, same batplace, same battime.