literary contrast | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

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June 23, 2025 · 6:00 am

Employing contrast in the architecture of a story #writing

There is a quote from the Buddha that I have found especially true for creating a great story. “There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it.”

J.R.R. Tolkien understood this quite clearly. His work was written in a highly literate style that everyone understood a century ago. Reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy requires commitment, and today, fewer readers are willing to undertake it.

Tolkien employs contrasts throughout the length of his stories. He shows the peace and prosperity that Frodo enjoys and then asks him to choose his destiny. Frodo chooses the difficult path. Tolkien takes the hobbit and all the central characters through many personal changes. He forces them to face their fears, gives them reasons to continue, to not give up.

Frodo’s story is about good and evil, war and peace, and the hardships endured in the effort to destroy the One Ring and negate the power of Sauron. So why would ordinary middle-class hobbits living comfortable lives go to so much trouble if Sauron’s evil posed no threat to their peace and prosperity?

They do it because they can see that in the long run, Sauron’s orcs would overrun the Shire and destroy everything good and beautiful.

Lengthwise, the three books aren’t as long as people make them out to be, especially when compared to Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson’s long and winding 15-book Wheel of Time series (comprised of 4,410,036 words) or Tad Williams’ epic and highly literate Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series (comprised of 1,121,720 words).

Tolkien’s trilogy totals only 455,175 words, which is considered an optimal length for a debut series in the epic fantasy genre. Fans of epic fantasy like and expect long books with large stories.

Whenever I talk about what we can learn from Tolkien, someone will respond that Tolkien wrote in a style that 21^st-century readers find frustrating. Certainly, he used more words than a modern writer would dare to. A 21^st century writer would face the slings and arrows of the modern critique group.

But while his style is more wordy than modern taste, his work is still compelling. He still has plenty to say that can resonate with us. In the process, he takes us on a journey with side quests and an epic, wonderful ending that was somehow left out of the movies – the Scouring of the Shire.

Hint: Yes, reading the books requires persistence, but if you want the real story and don’t have the time or patience, the audiobooks, as narrated by Andy Serkis (who played the role of Gollum in the movies), are a must-listen.

With the Ballantine Books paperback edition in 1965, J.R.R. Tolkien brought epic fantasy to my generation of college students. In the 1970’s, in my college town, the graffiti in downtown Olympia read “Frodo Lives.” Frodo Lives! – Wikipedia

But how did Tolkien’s style of storytelling influence the genre as we know it today? For that, we take a look at Tad Williams’s masterpiece, The Dragonbone Chair. It’s the first book in the fantasy series Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. It was published in 1988 and hooked me.

Williams takes the fourteen-year-old Simon, a kitchen boy, and Miriamele, a princess, and gives them an epic quest. He brings them together and then forces them down separate paths that eventually rejoin. Along the way, they grow into adulthood, and what they learn about themselves is both bitter and wonderful.

I read The Dragonbone Chair when it first came out in paperback. I loved it so much, I had to re-read it immediately upon finishing.

In both the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, we have two of the most enduring works of modern fantasy fiction. Both feature an epic central quest and side quests, all of which must be completed for the protagonists to arrive at the final resolution.

In both series, we have moments of joy and contentment sharply contrasted with events causing terrible deprivation and loss. Each event urges us to keep reading, inspiring the deepest emotions and the desire to find out what happens next.

This use of contrast is fundamental to the fables and sagas that humans have been telling since before the discovery of fire. Contrast is why Tolkien’s work is the foundation upon which modern epic fantasy is built. The way Tad Williams wrote his characters, and his trimmed down prose further modernized the genre, but he kept the tropes of an engaging narrative, epic quests, and diverse fantasy cultures and races.

When the author employs the highs and lows of our human experience to tell their story, the reader empathizes with the characters. They live the story as if they were the protagonist.

And what about contrasts in world-building? It can be shown in subtle ways.

Juxtaposing plenty and poverty in your worldbuilding shows the backstory without requiring an info dump. Contrast and good pacing turns a wall of words into something worth reading.

In our real world, war, famine, and floods are followed by times of relative peace and plenty. The emotions and experiences of people living through all those times are the real stories.

This is not just a concept found in fantasy novels; it’s a part of our human history and our future.

We shouldn’t limit our reading to the old favorites that started us on this writing path. You may not love the novels on the NY Times literary fiction bestseller list, but it’s a good idea to read one or two of them every now and then as a means of educating yourself. We learn the architecture of stories by reading and dissecting novels and short stories written by the masters, both famous and infamous.

What you don’t like is as important as what you enjoy. Why would a book that you dislike be so successful? No matter how much money a publisher throws at them, some books are stinkers.

You don’t need to pay for books you won’t like. Go to the library or to the secondhand bookstore and see what they have from the NYT bestseller list that you would be willing to examine.

Give that book a postmortem.

Did the book have a distinct plot arc?
Did it have a strong opening that hooked you?
Was there originality in the way the characters and situations were presented?
Did you like the protagonist and other main characters? Why or why not?
Were you able to suspend your disbelief?
Did the narrative contain enough contrasts to keep things interesting?
By the end of the book, did the characters grow and change within their personal arc? How were they changed?
What sort of transitions did the author employ that made you want to turn the page? How can you use that kind of transition in your own work?
Did you get a satisfying ending? If not, how could it have been made better?

Reading and dissecting the works of successful authors is a necessary component of any education in the craft of writing.

When you read a book that you like or dislike, think about how you can apply what you learn to your own work.

I say this regularly, but I must repeat it – getting an education about the craft of writing is important. If you have a good library in your town, this sort of education is free, a price that fits my budget perfectly. What I learn from the masters helps me to plan the pacing, helps me balance the emotions and events in my own stories.

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Tagged as J.R.R. Tolkien, literary contrast, Tad Williams, using contrast in writing, writing

August 5, 2019 · 6:15 am

The Depths of the Word-Pond – Word Choice #amwriting

The depths of the Word-Pond we call Story are clouded and visibility is poor. Who knows what creatures prowl down here, waiting for their next meal?

Exposition, the Kraken of the Deep is down here somewhere, lurking. How will we get out of here alive?

In a balanced narrative, some exposition is essential in order to provide context. How much is inserted and how it is delivered is what makes or breaks a story. The same goes for those subversive packets of inadvertent exposition: adverbs.

Some newly converted zealots loudly repeat mantras uttered by their personal gurus, whispering prayers to the demi-god Elmore Leonard– an author whose advice was good, but who would be surprised to learn he’s been elevated to such heights, his short list of advice turned into a holy text. The crusaders can be recognized from a distance because they’re all standing on soapboxes shouting, “If it sounds like writing, rewrite it. Kill every Darling who uses an adverb!”

That kind of devotion is short-sighted. Words like “later,” or “everywhere,” or “never” or “alone” are adverbs. Do these well-meaning fanatics really believe they can write decent prose with no adverbs whatsoever?

As with all religious cults, there is a solid kernel of truth to that arrogant fixation, but to think you can ban exposition and adverbs from the narrative completely is a delusion. Chuck Wendig, in his post The Danger of Writing Advice from Industry Professionals, says,

“And so the advice really should be, don’t use adverbs or adjectives when they sound awkward, or when they fail to tell us something that we need to know.” [1]

Other Word-Choice Mantras bring discord to the ranks of the newly converted. The word ‘very’ comes in for a lot of abuse in writing groups and writers’ chat rooms.

Suppose you decide to simply eliminate every instance of the word “very” because you have discovered you overuse it. You are savvy—you understand your word-processing program well and know all the shortcuts. You open the navigation pane and bring up the advanced search dialog box. In the ‘Replace With’ box you don’t key anything, because you know this will delete the word and are convinced this will eliminate the problem and tighten your prose.

Before you click ‘replace all’ consider three common words that have the letters v-e-r-y in their makeup:

Every
Everyone
Everything

Deleting every instance of ‘very’ could mess things up on an incredibly large scale. Context is everything. Take the time to look at each example of the offending words and change them individually. You’ve already spent a year or more writing that novel, so why not take the time to do it right?

“Actually” is another word to look at individually. Perhaps you have been told it is a ‘weed word,’ and, feeling mocked by the more experienced authors in your writer’s forum, you experience a nearly uncontrollable gut reaction to eliminate it entirely in a scorched earth campaign. Before you obey that compulsion, examine the context.

Have you used the word “actually” in a conversation? If so, you may want to keep it, as dialogue must sound natural, and people use that word in conversation.

Just as the laws of physics break down at the center of a Black Hole, the inviolable laws of grammar break down in conversations. And, just as gravity still rules, keeping chaos constrained in the singularity, punctuation still reigns in conversation, holding our sentences together.

Now that we have adverbs and religious zealots out of the way let’s continue on with word choice. Words, carefully chosen and used properly, have power. Choosing your words with care and binding them into small packets inserted into conversations is how you distribute your exposition (backstory) without resorting to a blatant info dump. Dole it out in small portions, delivered only when the reader needs to know it.

We choose words with power. In English, words that begin with hard consonants sound tougher and therefore carry more power.

Verbs are power words. Fluff-words and obscure words used too freely are kryptonite, sapping the strength from our prose.

Placement of verbs in the sentence
1. Moving the verbs to the beginning of the sentence makes it stronger.
2. Nouns followed by verbs make active prose.
  1. I ran toward danger, never away.

Parallel construction
1. When two or more ideas are compared in a sentence, each part of the sentence uses the same grammatical structure.
2. What parallelism means can be shown by a quote attributed to Julius Caesar, who used the phrase “I came; I saw; I conquered.” in a letter to the Roman Senate after he had achieved a quick victory in the Battle of Zela. Caesar gives equal importance to the different ideas of coming, seeing, and conquering.
Contrast
1. In literature, we use contrast when we describe the difference(s) between two or more things in one sentence.
2. The blue sun burned like fire, but the ever-present wind chilled one to the bone.
Simile
1. Similes show the resemblances between two things through the use of words such as “like” and “as.” They are different from metaphors, which imply that something “is” something else.
2. The blue sun burned like fire.
Deliberate repetition.
1. Repetition of the last word in a line or clause.
2. Repetition of words at the start of clauses or verses.
3. Repetition of words or phrases in the opposite sense.
4. Repetition of words broken by some other words.
5. Repetition of the same words at the end and start of a sentence.
6. Repetition of a phrase or question to stress a point.
7. Repetition of the same word at the end of each clause.
8. Repetition of an idea, first in negative terms and then in positive terms.
9. Repetition of words of the same root with different endings.
10. Repetition both at the end and at the beginning of a sentence, paragraph, or scene.
11. It can also be a construction in poetry where the last word of one clause becomes the first word of the next clause.

“Every book is a quotation, and every house is a quotation out of all forests, and mines, and stone quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, Prose and Poetry. [2]

Alliteration
1. The occurrence of the same letter (or sound) at the beginning of successive words.
  1. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled p
  2. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, (The Raven, by Edgar Allan Poe 1845) [3]

When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter darker trees, (Birches, by Robert Frost 1916) [4]

Poets know and use all the above word choice concepts to convey large ideas and entire stories with a minimum of words.

How we add depth to our prose without adding kryptonite involves verb placement and using ordinary words that most people know and don’t have to look up in a dictionary. Craft happens when you combine those common words in unexpected ways, forming extraordinary passages.

Credits and Attributions:

[1] The Danger of Writing Advice from Industry Professionals, by Chuck Wendig, Terribleminds, The Ramble, http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2017/12/12/the-danger-of-writing-advice-from-industry-professionals/ ©2017. Accessed 31 July 2019.

[2] Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Complete Works. Published in 1904. Vol. VIII. Letters and Social Aims, VI. Quotation and Originality, Bartleby.com, accessed (31 July 2019)

[3] Wikipedia contributors, “The Raven,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Raven&oldid=908701892 (accessed July 31, 2019).

[4] Wikipedia contributors, “Birches (poem),” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Birches_(poem)&oldid=886359747 (accessed July 31, 2019).

Images

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Print, Three ships surrounded by monsters, ca. 1590 (CH 18553601).jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Print,_Three_ships_surrounded_by_monsters,_ca._1590_(CH_18553601).jpg&oldid=276506077 (accessed July 31, 2019).

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Black hole – Messier 87.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Black_hole_-_Messier_87.jpg&oldid=359992100(accessed July 31, 2019).

Wikipedia contributors, “Childe Hassam,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Childe_Hassam&oldid=831999910 (accessed April 6, 2018).