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"this isn't what I thought I was reading"? This is the key phrase. The reader needs some idea of what kind of book this is. But this is where genre conventions come to your rescue. Each genre ha...

posted 4y ago by Mark Baker‭ · edited 4y ago by Mark Baker‭

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#2: Post edited by

Mark Baker‭ · 2020-04-17T02:21:18Z (over 4 years ago)
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> "this isn't what I thought I was reading"?
This is the key phrase. The reader needs some idea of what kind of book this is. But this is where genre conventions come to your rescue. Each genre had a certain shape to its stories. Will a high fantasy turn dark in the middle? Of course it will. Will a romance introduce a rival lover. Of course it will. Thus once you establish the genre, the reader will bring all the expectations of the genre with them, and will not be surprised or disappointed when the story turns in that direction.
On the other hand, they will be waiting for the story to turn in that direction, because that is what they came for. So the question is, why are you delaying giving them what they came here for?
There are good reasons for delay. If the darkness threatens something that the protagonist loves, then we need to love that thing too, as we love the Shire in LOTR. And this too is a convention of genre. We expect to fall in love with the fantasy home of the fantasy character, knowing full well that it is going to be imperilled or destroyed.
Some of that falling-in-love time is important. Having the hero's village destroyed by marauders on page one may feel like an action-oriented in medias res opening, and a good writer might be able to make it work, but you run a very good chance that most readers will not care enough about the protagonist of their village to want to read on.
But there is a very basic principle in fiction, that each seen should execute a change of state. Something should be different at the end of each scene. So, the question becomes, can you keep us in the falling in love stage, still expecting the darkness to come, but happy for now to keep falling in love with the protagonist and their Shire? Tolkien could. Can you?

> "this isn't what I thought I was reading"?
This is the key phrase. The reader needs some idea of what kind of book this is. But this is where genre conventions come to your rescue. Each genre had a certain shape to its stories. Will a high fantasy turn dark in the middle? Of course it will. Will a romance introduce a rival lover. Of course it will. Thus once you establish the genre, the reader will bring all the expectations of the genre with them, and will not be surprised or disappointed when the story turns in that direction.
On the other hand, they will be waiting for the story to turn in that direction, because that is what they came for. So the question is, why are you delaying giving them what they came here for?
There are good reasons for delay. If the darkness threatens something that the protagonist loves, then we need to love that thing too, as we love the Shire in LOTR. And this too is a convention of genre. We expect to fall in love with the fantasy home of the fantasy character, knowing full well that it is going to be imperilled or destroyed.
Some of that falling-in-love time is important. Having the hero's village destroyed by marauders on page one may feel like an action-oriented in medias res opening, and a good writer might be able to make it work, but you run a very good chance that most readers will not care enough about the protagonist of their village to want to read on.
But there is a very basic principle in fiction, that each scene should execute a change of state. Something should be different at the end of each scene. So, the question becomes, can you keep us in the falling in love stage, still expecting the darkness to come, but happy for now to keep falling in love with the protagonist and their Shire? Tolkien could. Can you?

#1: Initial revision by

Mark Baker‭ · 2020-04-16T12:17:59Z (over 4 years ago)

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 > "this isn't what I thought I was reading"?

This is the key phrase. The reader needs some idea of what kind of book this is. But this is where genre conventions come to your rescue. Each genre had a certain shape to its stories. Will a high fantasy turn dark in the middle? Of course it will. Will a romance introduce a rival lover. Of course it will. Thus once you establish the genre, the reader will bring all the expectations of the genre with them, and will not be surprised or disappointed when the story turns in that direction. 

On the other hand, they will be waiting for the story to turn in that direction, because that is what they came for. So the question is, why are you delaying giving them what they came here for?

There are good reasons for delay. If the darkness threatens something that the protagonist loves, then we need to love that thing too, as we love the Shire in LOTR. And this too is a convention of genre. We expect to fall in love with the fantasy home of the fantasy character, knowing full well that it is going to be imperilled or destroyed. 

Some of that falling-in-love time is important. Having the hero's village destroyed by marauders on page one may feel like an action-oriented in medias res opening, and a good writer might be able to make it work, but you run a very good chance that most readers will not care enough about the protagonist of their village to want to read on. 

But there is a very basic principle in fiction, that each seen should execute a change of state. Something should be different at the end of each scene. So, the question becomes, can you keep us in the falling in love stage, still expecting the darkness to come, but happy for now to keep falling in love with the protagonist and their Shire? Tolkien could. Can you?

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