Um. I know I said I'd work on this and all, so I'm sure you're all probly thinking a considerable amount of time and thought and effort went into this, but I'm here to tell you right now that every time I sat down, looked at the blank page, and told myself to go on and tackle the subject? I pretty much just, like, looked at couches that I can't afford or added stuff to my Amazon wishlist or just played with dolls.
Anyway, now that I think of it, the only thing I really have to say on the topic is something I've said before, many times: Not everything is a matter of opinion. Here - I wrote it back in my guest bitchery of months ago, so allow me to quote myself from when I was talking about a Gaelen Foley novel, bolding the part that I think is importantest:
This is a bad book - crap characters and a crap story and even crap nookie (um, not kinky nookie involving crap, though, you know what I mean). Sure, some people may like it - and like it a LOT, and are sitting at the monitor, working up a healthy bit of indignation at what a rip-roaring little bitch I am - but having defenders doesn't make it good writing. Good writing is qualitative, and so is bad writing. And there's just something about this genre (I dunno, maybe because girls are taught to play nice?) that makes it impossible for reviewers to come right out and say: This is BAD WRITING. You might like it and it's not wrong to like it, and I don't think less of you or your intelligence for liking it, and bully for the author who can care so little and sell so much. But the bottom line is that It. Is. Not. Good. It's not even just sorta-okay. It's downright bad, so jesus effing CHRIST, can we all stop pretending that it's simply not my cuppa? Can we all just say that we WANT good writing instead of being nice about the stuff that other people seem to like, and it's what's on offer, so okay apparently it's "all a matter of taste"?Yeah, see - I already covered the subject, lo these many months ago. And for those people who insist that everything in writing/reading IS a matter of opinion, I just say: why the hell do you think writers critique each other? When I give my writing to someone else and ask for feedback, it's because I want to know what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong. And because I know--we BOTH know--that there are definitive answers to that. I mean, look - I could sit here and blog, "My job is unsatisfactory, and that creates a tension in my life that is sometimes unbearable." I could do that, but honestly, I'm pretty sure that this is far more compelling writing and, in a word, better.
No, apparently we can't. The closest we can get to it is agreeing on One Really Bad Author coffConnieMasoncoffcoff and deciding it's okay to laugh at her. (Insert social commentary here, about the momentum of mediocrity and the tyrrany of egalitarianism, how too-threatening it is to have to recognize definitive excellence and definitive dreck because heaven forbid anyone is better than anyone else in this world. Oh and as long as I'm at it, I'll quote my friend Paul who says that "some stuff is just better. Platonically. God loves it more.")
When I tell a writing friend that this scene she's written is just okay, just serviceable and not anywhere near great, and that her insistence on bouncing back and forth between POVs has robbed the scene of its intensity and interfered with the reader's ability to viscerally connect with her characters, and unless her readers connect with her characters in that scene, they will never ever forgive those same characters for their very human flaws, etc? Not so much an opinion, that. It's a fact. Because writing certain things in certain ways creates certain effects. Which is a fact. Not an opinion.
And said friend's defense of "But I like seeing it from both POVs, I don't want to scrap one," is perfectly valid. But it's not catty or mean or vindictive when I respond with, "Hey, if you want your reader to care less about the people you're writing about, go right ahead."
Look, it is not wrong in any way to say that something can and should be better. Ever.
And pay atytention now, because it's also no sin to say, "Yeah okay - it's not good. But I love it anyway, and a lot better than stuff that's technically superior." (And don't get on that reactionary kick of I hate everything those snooty critics praise, because who the fuck ever said that critics in NY are the experts? It's not just that most are pretentious gits, it's that they're as much Dumb Sheep as so much of the rest of society.)
Or maybe this, which I very often say: "There are many things wrong with it, but it still works and somehow it's still good." (Those are the trickiest to me, because finding out why it still works despite the flaws is like a desperate attempt to define and distill magic.)
The problem I see all the time is that people think that if they like it, then it is good. Period. And then they get all defensive. (Sound familiar, my fellow genre readers?) This is especially the case with reading material, because we tend to think of literature as an indicator of intelligence. So someone looks at that Amanda Quick novel that you're in love with and calls it worthless crap writing, and the gut reaction is often: That's criticism of ME, that person thinks that I am inferior for reading an inferior book. But you know what? I READ Slightly Shady and it IS crap. And if I say that? It's a slam on the book. Not on the reader. And not on the human worth of Amanda Quick or those who enjoy that crime against aesthetic sensibilities.
The bigger problem in this belief that Everything Is A Matter Of Taste, of course, is that we've become a culture that is largely incapable of recognizing (and thereby encouraging) excellence. The "No one's better than anyone else" philosophy has escaped the kindergarten and now rules our society and we let it because god forbid we have some kind of passion for or against a thing, state it in no uncertain terms, and then stick by it.
Read that bolded part there again. Apply it to personal relationships (generally the failed ones) or your worklife or, especially, politics. And tell me that I'm wrong. Because variety and choice and freedom of opinion doesn't come from the Pollyannish attitude that As Long As Someone Likes It, There's Got To Be Something Good About It. Variety and choice and freedom of opinion come when we all agree that there is such a thing as a standard of excellence, and we like when it's achieved. And, conversely, just because we like a thing, that doesn't mean that it's met that standard.
I don't know that I'm making any sense, so here's some shorthand: I love Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls. I looooooove them. They are cheap and bad for me. I also love Vosges gourmet chocolate truffles (which cost like $3 each. EACH!) Now some days I am more in the mood for Little Debbie than I am for truffles. And people who don't like Little Debbie snack cakes at all? I think they are serrrrriously missing out on one of the better guilty pleasures in life. But I will never, ever dispute the fact that Vosges chocolate is a higher quality product and that Little Debbies are basically crap. But that's okay because I love crap! And if someone insists that Leonidas truffles are the best and that they can't stand Vosges? That's a matter of taste.
Or just boil it down to what Paul so eloquently wrote once: Some stuff is just better. Platonically. God loves it more." Not because you love it more.
Hm yeah, that about covers it.
