Write To Make Your Story Happy

I’ve said it before- I don’t like the idea of writing for the market. You should write your story the way you want to. That being said, we can still get caught up in what people might think.

My novel has a few graphic scenes. I didn’t think they were that intense but my beta readers were slightly shocked. I returned to those scenes to lessen their impact but I couldn’t do it- not without ruining the story. Now, I have moments where I’m fretting over whether or not they’re too intense.

There’s this short story I wrote. I’m super proud of it but I’m reluctant to share it because it’s really rough. I even removed some powerful words to lessen the impact.

This is a pointless battle. Everyone is not going to like your story. We need to make peace with this. We can’t censor ourselves because we’re afraid some may not like what we said.

Similarly, the main reason I’m not doing back flips about being closer to self-publishing my first novel is fear of negative reviews. The idea of someone not liking my story is heartbreaking but we can’t focus on the negative.

Don’t let your work suffer because of fear. We really don’t know how our audience will react. What if you fret over a scene, publish the novel and find out a good percentage of your readers loved it? Fear is one vicious monster but we can’t let it gut our story.