[ SECRET POST #2088 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2088 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 021 secrets from Secret Submission Post #298.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[truxillogical]

But any kind of writing with impact runs that risk. No, archery and planes are small potatoes, technicalities at best, but if you're writing with no risk, you're turning out...well, Grisham fiction. Something mass-produced and simple.

The idea that an honest mistake will result in permanent damage to a writer's career and life takes a hyperbolic situation to such a paranoid extreme that anyone that worried about it probably doesn't have the stomach to be a writer. A mistake of that caliber could really only come from true ignorance on the writer's part--a steadfast refusal to do research or branch out from what the writer themselves knows from personal experience. But the idea that it would damage their career...unlikely.

Grisham and Danielle Steele and Nora Roberts play it safe. That goes well for them, I'm sure, but I really hope no one sets out in the writing game with the actual intention of being another Nora Roberts, writing the same thing more or less over and over again, with slight tweaks, for the same people who don't want anything scary or new.

Good writing upsets people. Mistakes are made, and those upset people. Harlan Ellison upsets people. Mark Twain upset people. Neil Gaiman upsets people. Gail Simone upsets people. Jim Butcher upsets people. Octavia Butler upsets people. Sometimes a work is upsetting on purpose and sometimes it's by mistake, but if a writer is genuinely so terrified of upsetting people by taking an educated risk in a story that they can't venture outside of their comfort zone, they're probably only writing the blandest of milquetoast anyway.


(Unless we're talking about fanfic. I mean, hell, it's fanfic, write whatever the heck you want. But if we're talking professional writing--which I'm assuming, given the "career damaging" comment above--then no. The craven worry that "someone will take this the wrong way" has no place, and is nothing but an excuse to not push yourself to grow as a writer. A writer should always be taking chances because a writer should never be anything but honest, and honesty is always risky. There can be legitimate reasons for a work not featuring any or many characters outside your comfort zone, but fear should never be one of them.)

[(Anonymous)]

This was wonderful! Thank you for typing all of that out. It is a clear diamond amid all of the unpleasantly sobering mess earlier in the thread. SHEESH, finally someone that gets it.

The same is to be said for ANY creative process. If you aren't stepping on somebodies toes somewhere along the line, what is your work really worth?

There is only one thing worse than being hated. And that's being forgettable.

[(Anonymous)]

My god, all of this. All of it forever.

I just wish other people understood this as well. it seems like so many would rather read dull, numbing complacent stories, than something that challenges their mind, not to mention 'being offended', for a group that is not their own.

Some of us just want a good story.