RE: Editing Our Own Fiction - "How To" Books - How Not be a DNF
I am a firm believer that there is a reader for the kind of story you like to write. They are lovely and there are readers out there who do not want their characters to be tortured - at least not very much.
I know that all writing workshops say conflict, conflict, conflict. But I am with you - when characters do stupid things just because we need some mishap, I get annoyed and I don't want to read the story anymore.
I know that so many scoff at romance - but sweet romance is a thing. And people are reading it, buying it, and enjoying it. Lots of people. Intelligent and sophisticated people.
Why torture yourself to write something you don't enjoy? How about embracing writing for people that love what you put out and are willing to buy it.
Spread the joy, my friend. You might not get a Nobel Prize for literature but you might get thousands of fans...
Just saying.
Your work is beautiful and don't you think it is a bit selfish to keep it to yourself instead of sharing it?
Big hugs to you!!
I love you Marianne!!
I do love a good romance (Jane Austen, for one). It's the tropes that grate on me. The same conflicts, misunderstandings, cliches, book after book.
LOL - I love this concept that it could be selfish of me to hide my writing in some drawer instead of putting it out there (that one-in-million reader might find it and like it!).
Thanks again - you and #freewritehouse have done so much to keep me going whenever I've been ready to give up the pen for good!
My point is that you don't have to do the cookie-cutter kinds. You can do your kind! You never know if you won't be the leader in the new field of non-cookie-cutter romance.
Really, the world has so much negative stuff happening that there are many (me included) that do not want to read or watch more conflict. I get that when I take in the news, watch the homeless struggle and much more.
i say, shut down the inner critic and remember that everything had naysayers at one point. Like the Beatles - and look what happened to them LOL
Thank you!
And btw I do realize "torture" just means throwing obstacles at the protagonist, not blood and guts and all that Outlander and Vikings level of brutality. I will bring myself to let "the worst thing possible" happen and turn it into a bonus. I also realize that some of my most beloved novels are so obscure nobody else has heard of the author - Ardyth Kennelly in particular but also Rod Usher, E.E. Giorgi, and others. Nobody at Steemit would recognize the name Guy T Martland if I hadn't lured him here. (He left a year ago after the IOW anthologies tanked.) Anyway, what I realize is that the fiction I love is so obscure, hardly anyone else knows about it or cares. And if my own writing falls into the same obscurity, so be it. We should write the stories WE want to read, I'm told, and I'm not there yet - it's like me with a canvas trying to paint and it never turns out anything like I envisioned - but practice. Hence, 5-minute freewrite!! Great way to flex those writing miles and stir the imagination. Again thanks Marianne.
Cheering you all the way until you are there!
You realize of course that a lot of what becomes popular has not so much to do with the quality of the work or its likeability. Often, it is be at the right place at the right time or who you know.
So, those writers nobody else knows - maybe they just didn't have the luck to be discovered.
They were published but even so "didn't have the luck to be discovered." True, that! And even though I discovered them and bought copies and wrote glowing reviews, STILL their stories collect dust in old book stores. The beauty of e-books and Indie Authors is that so many more writers get to put their stories out there. And in "the cloud," no dust collects.
Thanks yet again @mariannewest!