Word Play

Here's a simple question: When you say the capital of Kentucky, are you supposed to pronounce it as "Louisville" with the 's' emphasized, or should you say it as "Louie-ville"? The answer: You should say it as, "Frankfort," because that's the capital of Kentucky. Kind of a silly little joke, but admittedly, the first time I was told this, I fell for it. I also answered, "Louie-ville" in case anyone was wondering. And as silly as it is, you will remember this little bit of word play.

In one of my more popular posts entitled, "The Tigers of Africa," I got a lot of snap feedback from people who clearly did not read the post. To a person, the snap-responders were quick to correct me that there were no tigers in Africa, and yes, a few people challenged those comments and some fighting broke out - as is wont to happen on social media. The humorous part of this response is how telling it was. The post itself was actually quick to point out that tigers do not exist in Africa, but when people jump to conclusions from the first words they read rather than investigating the subject, problems emerge. In writing, we can have fun with this.

Let's pretend I am writing a sword & sorcery story, with the setting of a tavern in a busy city. A large, strong, smelly barbarian walks in, draped in the skins and furs of recent kills. The barbarian demands a drink, yells for the minstrel to play some joyous music, then proceeds to get drunk on the house ale. There's the telling of epic tales of past conquests, maybe a fight breaks out, tables are overturned, chairs broken, and the barbarian makes a drunken wreck of the place before staggering into the streets, ready to find another tavern for some entertainment. After hours of drinking and song, the staggering barbarian finally falls into the arms of a young courier boy, who takes the brave warrior to a comfortable cot for a night's pleasant sleep - and that's how the young courier boy first fell in love with the barbarian.

Quite the story, but the end is a little... unexpected. Probably did not see that part coming. Maybe the reader customarily does not expect barbarians to fall in love, or maybe the twist with the young courier boy was an unexpected turn. But tell me this - at any point did you think the barbarian was a woman? Chances are, the expectation of the reader is that the loud, drunken pile of violence that was the barbarian came off as rather masculine, and the reader makes a quick assumption. Everything written thereafter plays to that assumption - no gender pronouns are used, no designations whatsoever. This allows the reader to build upon their assumption and even create things about the barbarian that are not actually described. Then, when the veil is lifted and the reader realizes something was very different, they remember the whole adventure they had been on, and hopefully how they built assumptions into the character they generated in their mind.

This might seem like a mean thing to do to the reader, but as long as the writer's intentions are to engage the reader on a deeper level and not just say, "Ha! Gotcha!" then it's a perfectly valid writing technique. And as I have said many times, any time you can get the reader that deeply engaged with the character, then you know you've got them right where you want them.