I’ve been writing for the public forum for going on eleven years now, and I’ve had my fair share of flames - feedback that doesn’t have the remotest glimmer of positive in it.  It’s interesting how often people will quietly move on if they read something they like, but will then sit and spend the time to type out a response if they hated it and want to tell you exactly why.

That’s fine, though.  It’s part of writing.  It’s part of putting work, and to some degree yourself, into the public domain.  You’re asking for judgment, and it’s impossible to please everyone.  Some people are naturally conservative: they read The Daily Mail, watch Emmerdale, drink tea with one sugar and go to bed at the same time every night.  This is an awful generalization, but you get the idea.  Other people stay up late, read weird and wonderful things about the world, indulge in vices and stick two or three sugars into their tea.  I, and most of the people I get along with best, fall into this latter, overly generalized catagory.

I write for my friends as much as I write for myself.  I write things that I think would give them a kick.  That’s what Dolls is.  In so many ways, it’s paying homage to my friends and the things I’ve experienced with them.  There are little nods to them throughout, and I’ve lost count of the number of anecdotes that are lifted from their lives.  I’ve got a fairly straightforward idea of what my reading audience is, and I know who my writing most definitely isn’t for as well.  I’m sure I’m going to receive more than a few barbed comments, but that’s fine.

But I don’t want to just swim in the same pond all the time.  I like to experiment, push myself, see how far writing can be taken as an emotive and thought-provoking thing.  That’s what happened with Tasteless.  That story isn’t for entertainment, pleasure or anything like what people tend to turn to reading for.  Is it still a story, then, if it’s just an exploration of an idea and an experiment?  Like a room with no one in it, does it lose it’s purpose?

I knew from the start that I would get more flak for that story than anything else I’ve written so far.  I know the most positive comment I’ll ever get about it is that it’s ‘powerful’ or ‘provocative’ or something along those lines.  That’s good.  This isn’t a story to be enjoyed.  It’s not an event to be thought of fondly.  It’s something to get riled up and sickened and pissed off about.  To hate these people for.  Bring back hanging or at least emasculate the bastards in the most literal sense of the word.  No one should stand for it, in any culture.

The story seems to work for that.  People get upset and pissed off.  Some have been really quiet about it - evasive and non- communicative.  Some say something that’s positive in a blurry sort of way.  Others take that anger towards what they’ve read and fire it back at the person who put it out there for them to read and to become sickened over.  That’s fine.  I understand that and I accept that it’s going to happen.  However, I was surprised to find the first flame for Tasteless in the comments on the blueblog and not here, where it was actually put up.  The comment was also beyond that the reader found it offensive - they wrote it off as ‘not writing’ and stated that it was ’sensationalism of the worst kind’.  In a way I hope they did skip over the warnings and explanations preceding the story, rather than read it but the message and intent not getting across as it should have.

I suppose I should keep working on thickening my hide.

Social Bookmarking:

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 18th, 2008 at 1:46 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.