The importance of being conventional
I have recently been on holidays, to Canberra and Melbourne. Most days we bought lunch while out sight-seeing. Subway was the most popular choice and it reminded me of the conventions we come to expect from franchises. Regardless of the location, I expect Subway to offer the same range of meats and salads and the same flavour of cookies. I expect fast service and paper wrapping. I don’t expect to be seated or to be offered a menu. My expectations would be different if I walked into a five star restaurant. I would expect high quality ingredients and stylish presentation. and I wouldn’t mind waiting an hour for the meal to arrive.
Consumers hold conventions that we expect eating places to conform to, depending on the style of eatery and the price we pay. Readers have conventions too, depending on the genre of the book they pick up. As writers, we strive towards originality yet we also need to be aware of conventions. To ignore conventions is foolish because the reader is likely to feel ill at ease or irritated, even if they can’t pinpoint why. They already have an internal map for your story and messing with conventions will disorient them.
It is conventional in the romance genre that the two main characters are in a relationship at the end. Neither of them desire such a relationship at the beginning and much conflict occurs as they resist their growing desire for one another. Yet in the reader’s mind, the ending is clear. Their interest resides in the way you tell the story and the vividness of the characters. It is conventional for fantasy novels to include a quest narrative and mythical creatures. The quest must be solved at the end of the story, although many fantasy stories end with a new challenge and extend into trilogies (another convention).
There are also conventions regarding word length within the various genres. Few readers will plough through a 100,000 page romance, unless it’s an epic such as Gone with the Wind, but readers of fantasy novels would feel cheated by 50,000 words. Conventions may appear to restrict writers, but to ignore them is risky. Coyne (2015) in his excellent book, The Story Grid, writes about the importance of learning the conventions and obligatory scenes of your chosen genre. For example, an obligatory scene within the action genre is the final confrontation, in which the hero is at the mercy of the villain. We’re familiar with this scene from movies. When all appears lost, the hero demonstrates renewed physical and emotional strength and triumphs over the villain. The challenge for writers is not to invent new conventions but to work within the existing conventions in fresh and interesting ways.
