Drawing on the Power of Resonance in Writing (2 page)

As they grow more sophisticated in their tastes, widening their interests, the reader begins to look for something a little different. In other words, they want something similar—but better.

Thus, a reader of Westerns may say, “I’m tired of Zane Grey. I wonder what new authors are out there?” And he may discover Larry
McMurtry’s
Lonesome Dove.

Readers crave something different, but not completely different.

As writers, we find that entire “genres” or “sub-genres” grow up around great novels. As new genres develop, over the centuries, hundreds of different types of code words, phrases, settings, and standard character types 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 slumming, but they almost never succeed in launching a new career.
Why?
Because usually the author isn’t familiar with the genre.
He or she doesn’t understand what resonates with readers. They don’t know the secret
conventions,
don’t understand what makes that work delicious to the reader.

Almost every author falls into the trap of writing outside his area of expertise, it seems. I learned to love fantasy and science fiction when I was young. I have written successfully in both fields, becoming an international bestseller. But a few years ago, I got the urge to write a historical novel. “How hard can it be?” I asked myself. It wasn’t as if I were creating new worlds, new societies. All that I had to do was writing about real people, living in a real world.

I soon found that writing a historical is grinding work. Yes, it was based upon a lot of first-hand accounts, but there were so many arguments about what really happened, I had to do two years of research in my spare time just to come up with my own version of the event. There were plenty of holes even in the best-researched account. Then I had to try to recreate the voices of my protagonists by drawing upon the flimsiest evidence—and I had to make them sound historically accurate. In order to flesh out their world, I had to draw upon newspapers, books, first-hand accounts, and military documents.
Writing the novel required travel to museums, and stops along 1300 miles of prairies as I followed my characters’ trail.
In order to recreate their experience, I even braved a blizzard atop the Rocky Mountains. The novel,
In the Company of Angels,
went on to win an award for the “Best Book of the Year,” but writing it was maybe the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

Here’s what I learned: writing
well
in any genre is excruciating! If you’re going to write, write in a genre that you love, so that writing will become a labor of love—not a chore.

I’ve pointed out what resonance is, but there is another point that I need to make about it. When you “create” any tale, you will subconsciously draw the story from
somewhere.
Researchers into the imagination don’t believe that we can actually create worlds, societies, characters, and incidents out of thin air. Instead, the human mind pulls odd little tidbits from our past experience, and we fabricate our
tales based upon that. In other words, whether you’re trying to create resonance or not, you’re still doing it. Some authors get lucky. They naturally create a work that resonates strongly without realizing what they’ve done.

My goal here is to train you to consider what you’re doing, and learn to see resonance as the powerful tool that it is.

Resonance within a Genre

When
you read a book that affects you powerfully
, you’ll be likely to buy a story that reminds you of it. This is true regardless of
whether
the story
be Steinbeck
’
s
Of Mice and Men
, Austen
’
s
Pride and Prejudice
, Shakes
peare’s
Macbeth
, or Dickens’s
A Christmas Carol
.

Most books that you buy resonate
with
some other work
that
you’ve
enjoyed.
You
almost never make a conscious connection, but it is there.
You tend to choose books that suit your developing tastes.

Resonance with Life

However, you should also be aware that we buy books that resonate with our own lives. For example, readers subconsciously gravitate to characters
who
are about their own age and sex
.
Thus, young women tend to like stories about young women, while young men like stories about teenage boys.

You can also resonate within a setting
.
If you set a story about a detective in a major city—let’s say New York—you will find that people from that city are much more likely to buy your book. They feel a personal connection to the work that outsiders don’t.

Entire cultures resonate
.
Recently I went to a large international book fair in Frankfurt, Germany, where thousands of publishers from around the world congregated
.
In many countries, I found that books from Western cultures simply “didn’t translate.”  Want to know how well
Twilight
has done in Oman, or the Ukraine, or Indonesia?  The chances are that it hasn’t been translated at all
.
The entire lifestyle is so alien to people in those countries, that most of our literature just doesn’t translate easily.

But there are other ways to resonate with life besides just the age of the protagonist or by choosing the setting. Years ago, I was asked by the chief editor at Scholastic to help choose the “next big book” for the year, the one that they would put all of their advertising muscle behind. I chose an unknown book called
Harry Potter.
The editor said that her marketing department didn’t share my enthusiasm for the book: it was too long for a middle-grade audience
.
But I pointed out that it had several things going for it. One powerful draw was that every child in most of the world has to go to school. Adults feel that universal conflicts revolve around death, taxes, and love. But for children, the universals are bullies, inscrutable teachers, and being chained to a desk.

In short, almost every child in the world would find that Harry’s experiences at Hogwarts resonated with their own life.

Resonance with Emotional Needs

W
e
often
choose the
genre
of fiction that we do because we are
seeking to create a positive emotional experience.

The primary emotional draw of a book is so powerful that bookstores and libraries tend to arrange their shelves according to the emotion that the book arouses. Stores typically have shelves for
“
Romance,
”
“
Drama,
”
“Mystery
,
”
“Horror,” “Adventure,” “Humor”
and so on
.

We could do a better job of arranging the books if we carried the practice further. One wise editor in the 1950s struggled to get fantasy and science fiction categorized as “wonder” literature in bookstores and libraries, since both genres promise to fulfill the same emotio
nal need of wonder for readers.

When I worked in Hollywood, directors would often seek to have their works resonate with the monumental works in their field. They might say, “For this scene, I want a cool castle—sort of like Disney’s palace, but not quite the same.” They wanted the viewer to feel a connection, but not recognize that too consciously.

There are dozens of ways to create resonance. Let’s go over just a few.

Cover art.

One of the first things that
draws
a reader into a story is
the cover.
If you pick up a romance novel, you want a picture that suggests romance—perhaps a man and woman hugging. If you want horror, something dark and sinister might be more apropos.