How About If No One Likes Your Story? – Bloggin’ on the ETC [BEST OF FaN]

This is the shortest piece I wrote this year, yet it’s the one people have told me off blog that they appreciated the most. Go figure.

If you have decided to pursue writing as a career, the voices in your head will ask you this question often. “How about if no one likes your story?” Or the more dramatic version: “How about if every one on Earth rejects what you have written?”

As far as insidious questions go, this is probably one of the silliest. Somebody’s going to like your story. What’s even funnier is that there’s a reader out there for even the worst pile of dreck that will just love it.

Really, the question(s) you’re really asking here are “Are there enough people who will either like or love my story for me to feel satisfied?” And, “How do I go about finding the people who will love this story and getting them to read it?”

Now those are valid questions, for which I have no good answer. But for now, while you are writing, rewriting, or shopping your novel, take solace in this:

There is no such thing as a story that everyone loves. And there is no such thing as a story that no one likes. So the next time the voices in your head ask you “How about if no one likes your story?”, let them know, “On the contrary, at least one person out there is going to absolutely love it.”

featured image credit:  Denisa Kadlecová