Webcomic Diversity and Power to Change

@joe_galindez Joe Galindez
Mon, 22 Jan 2018 13:48:57 +0000

@joe_galindez wrote:

Rochrok:

The point is that it was a first novel. If she tossed it "in a trunk" and just accepted it was terrible then a publisher wouldn't have gotten a hold of it, gave it a spit and polish, and published it to the world.

I never said that Chris should stop writing or hide his work from the world. I told him that he should finish what he started, which is something I tell every new writer.

Rochrok:

What you are seeing as "A terrible novel that should just be stashed away and unworthy of promotion" could simply be a raw novel without the fine touches of a good editor and/or beta readers.

As it is now, it isn't worthy of promotion. For one thing, it's raw. For another, it's unfinished. Both of these things are temporary conditions, or at least I hope they are.

Rochrok:

50 Shade's popularity should tell you that something doesn't have to be "good" to gain popularity. It doesn't matter if it isn't good to you or to the people who made fun of it. It was good to the people who threw their money at it.

This is like saying it doesn't matter if we hate dog poop: a quadrillion flies can't be wrong.

Rochrok:

Appealing to a "general audience" is a fool's game.

In this context I meant "anyone who isn't a horny housewife who doesn't know much about BDSM." So, you know, people who might actually have standards.

Rochrok:

No one will ever be a good writer the first time or the second or third, there is always something new that could be learned. Some writers have been writing for decades and never think they are good. What matters is whether you write something that other people think is good enough to pay for.

So commercial success is the end-all and be-all of artistic expression?