Absolutely correct. What is awful to one person can be great to another. We writers cannot ever hope to please all readers all the time.
One summer between college semesters, I wrote a book. I had only written several full-length novels before this, so it was not a publish-worthy book by any means. But I was proud of it. And after passing it around to a few friends who were genuinely interested in reading it (and did so — bless them!), I handed the book off to my mom.
She read it (bless her!) and gave it back to me. Of course I asked her what she thought of it, and because I was old enough at that point to handle the truth, she gave me her honest opinion.
“It’s not that I didn’t like it,” she said. “It was just too dark for me. Not my kind of book. But I’m proud of you.”
Aw. Thanks Mom.
This was the first — and certainly not the last — time I learned the difference between…
View original post 658 more words
Stevie Turner 
Never play your music or send your books/stories to friends or family. Even if they have a clue. Unless the friend is an artistic collaborator. My wife has a Ph.D. in Rhetoric. You’d think that would be useful.
Beta readers who aren’t afraid to tell you the truth, editors who know the difference between style choices and grammar and when to leave content alone and fix your capped/uncapped pronouns, usually a job best left to a hungry grad student who doesn’t want $2k for the task if you can self edit your content into something readable.
What you have to say falls right into Meyers/Briggs. A given percentage of readers are guaranteed not to like your story or your style. Given that as empirical there’s no reason to sweat it. Unless “That really sucked” is unanimous, and then maybe it’s time to head back to the woodshed. But even then, where would we be without visionaries?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Absolutely. They would probably feel obliged to give a glowing review.
LikeLike