YOURS MATTER
Ever felt like an outlier about your opinion on a book? Especially one that is either a bestseller or an award-winner, or one that is just raved about by your friends. What am I missing?
I recently encountered that at my book club, and it startled me. Usually my friends and I share similar tastes in books. But recently, they’ve loved our selections and I… haven’t. A book club is supposed to be a place to air differences of opinions, but still, I found myself staying quiet, not wanting to be the odd one out with my critique.
To my great surprise, I’m glad I did stay quiet, because I got to listen. What I heard heartened me. We did, in fact, pick up on the same elements in the novels that we all agreed were weaknesses. But where I had found these weaknesses distracting from the story, my book club friends found them forgivable. They weren’t blind to the books’ shortcomings, the way I had imagined; they just interpreted them differently.
Keep that in mind when people read your own work and offer opinions. Yes, they may have a point about something you want to fix. Or it may be something you want to keep in, even if someone else disagrees. Don’t be frightened to speak up about your opinions on what you read—and the same goes for writing. Your opinion counts. In fact, that’s the beauty of being a writer. Ultimately, yours is the only one that does.