You’re Writing for Friends

You’re going to get criticism as a writer. I guarantee it. A few people will hate what you’re doing (or if you’re lucky, a lot of a few people will hate it). Some people will think you’re not good enough to be published. Some people will send you long lists of all the mistakes you made in your last book. Some of those mistakes may be real. People will tell you they don’t know why your book is a big deal (or a little deal). People will also tell you they couldn’t read past the first paragraph or the first page because it was boring, or stupid or about a girl or about a dog or about something they don’t care about.

Here’s what I want you to remember: You’re not writing for everyone. You’re not writing for the people who don’t get what you’re writing. You’re not writing to get that kid who hated you in seventh grade to like you. You’re not writing for critics. You’re not writing for the future you can’t see into. You’re not writing to some writer in the past who’s dead now and will never know if you used a cool reference to his book. You’re not writing to get someone who hates this genre to change their mind.

You’re writing for friends. And by that I don’t necessarily mean the people who are your friends right now. I mean the people who get what you’re doing and care about it. If you’re writing fantasy, you’re writing for people who like fantasy and the particular kind you’re writing. If you’re writing humor, you’re writing for people who want to laugh. If you’re writing mystery, you’re writing for people who want to be scared.

For every person who thinks what you tried to do doesn’t matter, there are ten who think it does. Those are the ones you’re writing for. They laugh in the right places. They feel sick in the wrong places. They didn’t guess all the twists and turns before you wanted them to. They didn’t know that character was going to turn villainous. They believed in the rules you set forth. They let you weave your magic over them and they didn’t see any of the holes they might have seen.

So when you’re dealing with criticism, remember that you’ve got friends who are rooting for you to succeed in the next book. You’ve got people who know you can do this. You have friends who pick up the last book and think that all they want is another one just like this, that does all those same things, that surprises again and delights in the same way, and hits all the right notes. They don’t want you to wonder about if what you’ve spent your whole life perfecting matters. Of course it does! They’re your friends.

c

This is true. Please reblog.