
“GOOD” WRITING IS SUBJECTIVE
You Might Not Want To Read Me
My favorite book begins with the words, “You might not want to buy this.”
Patrick Rothfuss describes how he ended up writing The Slow Regard of Silent Things before the novella ever begins. He talks about how strange it is as a story, how it doesn’t do the things he’s been taught good stories should do; he talks about magic and brokenness.
And you know what? He’s right. You might not want to buy his book. The thing he gets wrong is why.
I’m a lifelong reader who went on to study English Language and Literature in college—which basically means that I’ve listened to others talk about books a lot. And I’ve listened long enough to notice something.
When you’re younger, less secure in your own expertise, you put your trust in the people who’ve lived longer than you and studied more than you. When they tell you what good writing looks like, you believe them. When they tell you what a story is, you believe them. And when they tell you how you have to write, you do it.
I defended this process for a long time. Why wouldn’t I? The better I was at conforming to their expectations—whether that meant grammar and punctuation, word choice, or even genre conventions—the more praise I received as a writer.
Then I found myself sitting in Fiction Writing II, bright-eyed and eager to learn how to improve myself as an author. I’d been writing for myself and my friends for several years at this point, completed four (cringey) novels, and I was ready to incorporate formal instruction into my self-taught skillset.
My teacher had this to say about writing: that the only good writing was literary (which I had never heard of before at the time) and that all genre writing was bad writing even if we enjoyed it as a “guilty pleasure.”
I considered myself a fantasy writer at the time, and hearing someone say, with perfect seriousness, that because of what I wrote, my writing would never be good, was devastating.
But we’ll skip over the identity crisis I went over as a writer, my attempt to conform by spending a year or so writing strictly “literary” fiction, my phase of publishing in literary journals, and my eventual realization that I was being stupid. We’ll skip the anger I feel towards gatekeepers such as this teacher and my rantings about “elitist bastards who need to feel they’re better than everyone else.”
Instead, the point I want to make is this—that writing is subjective. And let me say it again, because everyone needs to hear it.
Writing is subjective.
Do you know why you might not want to buy The Slow Regard of Silent Things? It isn’t because Rothfuss is a bad author, and it isn’t because he’s written a bad book. You might not want to buy it for the same reason you might not want to buy any book in the world: you may or may not like it, depending on your individual tastes and preferences.
My father doesn’t like Patrick Rothfuss as an author because there isn’t enough movement. He thinks the descriptions are too long, the narration too long-winded. I knew a teacher in high school who couldn’t get past the first five chapters in Rothfuss’s first novel because he thought it was a boring story about a boring innkeeper.
My favorite author’s writing doesn’t work for them, because they don’t look for the same thing I do when reading a book. And that’s okay. That’s why we have so many books in the world, why we don’t all read the same things. We’re all programmed to enjoy different things.
The fact that we can each encounter the same object and experience different emotions while interacting with it is part of what makes writing such an incredible, magical feat.
We scribble nonsense, and invisible worlds are created. Emotions are summoned. Hearts are moved! There is nothing in the world half as beautiful or miraculous as the wonder of words.
And knowing that writing is subjective—knowing that you, my readers, each have your individual tastes—I am here to tell you that you might not want to read my writing.
Rather, I’d like to encourage you to read some of my writing for yourself let you decide for yourself if you want to read me. All I ask is that you give me a chance.

