Your Personal Taste Is Not a Writer’s Judge & Jury
What you prefer to read doesn’t dictate whether a piece of writing is good or not.
On any given day, some stranger on the internet cannot wait to tell me how much they hate my writing. It’s too dark, too sad, too verbose, too strange, and the list goes on. They share these thoughts, I imagine, as constructive lessons, dictating what and how I write. As if I’m going to wake one day and look at some comment and upend decades of writing and publishing because I use too many fifty-cent words. Yes, let me add smiley faces and alter history because that’s what you wish to read.
I don’t write to appease everyone. In fact, I write to alienate. I write to ferret out the reader for whom my work will resonate. I don’t pander. I don’t wish to appeal to the masses and I don’t allow someone’s taste and preferences to dictate the stories I tell and how I tell them.
Because here’s the thing — what you prefer (or not) to read isn’t a measure of a story’s worth. It’s simply your taste. That’s it. And taste is subjective. What reviles you inspires another. Someone’s trash is another’s treasure.
Years ago, I sat in a Columbia workshop while my short story was being eviscerated. Apparently, dysfunctional families were passé. Mother and daughter…
