A couple years ago, when my short story “The Battle of
Hutchinson’s Crossroads” came out in Big Pulp Magazine, the editor organized an
open conference call where selected contributors had ten or so minutes to read
our stories aloud. It was pretty cool. There were about thirty people on the
line.
One author read her story. To me, it was a straightforward
tale: Main character unhappy, tries to be happy, then weird stuff happens and
the story ends. I shrugged and thought “Okay, if weird stuff is going to
happen, that’s probably how it would.”
When the author was done, the phone line came alive with
gasps, exclamations, and breathless sighs. “Wow!” “That just . . . wow!”
“Exquisite!” These cries were almost followed by a “Lol, what?!?” coming from
my line. Almost.
I read my story to quiet “huh”s and “thanks”es. But I had
bullets flying in the first sentence! People died in the first paragraph! I had
an O Henry/Vonnegutesque twist ending! And I had “huh”s and “thanks”es at the
end. Maybe I read it too flatly. Maybe my story was predictable. Maybe my story
was . . . bad. Maybe all of my stories are bad. Maybe I don’t know what good
is. Maybe I’m a . . . bad writer.
So how do I know if my writing is any good? Someone on a
writers’ forum said there is no such thing as bad writing; only writing that
isn’t currently in style, or writing that’s not to one’s taste. Lordy, I hope
he’s right.
I’m currently reading Orhan Pamuk’s Snow. It’s blowing me away. Why? It’s omni done well: just enough
out of Ka’s immediate space to keep me going without annoying teasers. It’s
also clever in word play; it takes place in a snowstorm in a town called Kars,
which is Turkish for snow. I understand this book, yet I can't anticipate what's going to happen and I'm delighted when it does. I want to write this way. I can write this way. I
think I’m going to write this way more often.
The only criteria I use to judge if my writing is “good” is
to ask if I am writing what I like to read.
Today I laugh at my reaction to that conference call. I
reread the other story just now, and I can see the appeal; she did a great job
making me feel for the character.
Would I like to write like that? Sure, why not? But if I did
I would add my own flavor, and take the story in the direction I want it to go.
Does that make me a better writer than her? No, but I don’t think being good
means being better than someone else. Being good means saying what you want to
say in a way the reader will neither misunderstand nor (more importantly)
anticipate.
