If you peek into my Goodreads‘ profile (friend me, by the way!), you’ll notice that I read all across the board, not just fantasy. And…at least, it seems to me…my rating system seems to be all over the place. I’ve rated novels I’ve liked three stars, and novels that were frustrating to read four or even five stars.
I’ve always wondered about this, until a good friend of mine articulated it perfectly. She talked about how some writers write as if the craft was a “paint by the numbers”, and “…the only way they can think to be a great writer is to switch out the colors and think they’re shaking things up. But it’s still paint by numbers and it still does nothing to spark a reader’s interest.” And she said that writing like this “…kills anything passionate, inspiring, personal, or real about.”
And that suddenly made it clear that what I read, and how I rate them, basically falls down to how much of the writer’s soul I can glimpse between the lines. It doesn’t matter if I am not a fan of the genre, or don’t like the characters’ decisions, or can’t relate to the characters whatsoever. All I see is the writer, the artist, and what they are attempting to paint. And if I see them trying really hard, struggling against the wave I know that every writer worth their salt must face in order to put words down on every page, then I’m hooked.
I realize this is a strange way of looking at things. And probably it’s only because I’ve been spending so many years writing and talking about writing that I can’t help but see another writer’s struggle every time I read their work. So I’m also pretty sensitive to the lack thereof…when I read a writer who is not bleeding all over the pages, but rather crafting expert turn of phrases with a smile and a nod, the ones who mimic the engineering of a story as opposed to actually creating one organically from the ground up. The sort who has a “formula”, who think that adding grimdark undertones is enough to save a flat novel from falling on its face, who believe that spending hours on research is enough to breathe life into their novel (there is nothing wrong with research–you need it to create a great story, too. But research alone is not enough).
So give me the silliest-sounding story, the one with characters I absolutely normally can’t give a damn about…the stiff-necked admin, the violent assassin, the sadistic prince, the pampered diva, the boring schoolteacher…write them as genuinely as only you can, and I’ll read it. And I’ll probably like it.
