Do I write fiction that is crowd-pleasing or deep? Should my readers or my critics love my fiction? Why not the best of both worlds?
I do not read a lot of fiction - not nearly as much as I probably should - but I do encounter this basic dilemma in other mediums just as much as I am sure it arises in literature. How many works of fiction are disregarded by critics as "shallow" or "opportunistic" compared to those that are "literary classics?" What does it take to make a story a "crowd-pleaser" and a "classic" at the same time?
More often than not, I find myself wanting to write fairly shallow stories - more or less a collection of neat scenes that show off some action or immediate passion. Characters do something, stuff happens, and everything comes to a resolution. This was essentially what my first draft of "Event Horizon" was - a story with a ton of neat elements, some great imagery, but characters that were without purpose.
As I tackle my second draft of "Event Horizon" this year, I am faced with rewriting my story to be "better" - but I keep running into the issue of "what is better?" I am half tempted to give my characters a little more personality, tweak my grammar here and there, and call it done. The few people who have read my first draft of "Event Horizon" seemed to genuinely enjoy it for what it is - a collection of neat scenes that show off some action and immediate passion, but really, nothing more.
I will be stuck on this problem for months to come, I am sure.
*sigh*
B3 out.
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