Not Everyone Will Like Your Stories. It’s Okay!

Here’a another new author for you to get to know on JPC AllenWrites. V. Romas Burton is the award-winning author of The Heartmaker Trilogy and The Legacy Chapters and writes teen fantasy and has learned that not everyone will like your stories. It’s okay!

It happens to all of us. A new story is born from our minds. We spend hours writing it down, figuring out all the details and then fine-tuning every sentence until we believe it is perfect. After hours, days, months, and even years of work, our beautiful creation is complete. With excitement and anticipation, we send this beloved idea, this depiction of our heart and soul on the page, into the world. Everyone will love it, won’t they? Reviews start to roll in and though many are positive, our minds zero in and focus on the negative: 

            The beginning is too slow.

            Prologues are so cliché.

            The main character is whiny. 

With each negative comment, our confidence deflates until we wonder if we should even continue writing at all. If you’ve experienced this series of events as a new author, or even a seasoned author, I am here to tell you that you are not alone! 

As we dive into the world of books and writing, there are so many wonderful things to discover: writing friends, like-minded people, those who love the same books as you, to name a few. But we also learn that there are highly critical writing groups, ARC readers who like to point out every typo in your finalized manuscript, and the worst one: readers who just don’t like your story. 

After having spent so many hours creating a jumble of ideas into a beautiful work of art, you can’t fathom that someone would dislike this amazing thing you created. But, unfortunately, not everyone will like your story and that’s okay. 

When my first book was published, I couldn’t wait to get it out into the world. I wanted to share this incredible story with others. They needed it! Yet not everyone felt the same way. The negative comments listed above were just a few of the not-so-kind words I received. Though there were plenty of words of praise and 4–5-star reviews, as a perfectionist, I could not get over the negative comments. They affected me so much I began to alter my writing to fit what these negative reviews said. I wasn’t writing the story God placed on my heart, I was first trying to make my audience happy.

But I’ll let you in on a secret: reading is subjective! You will never be able to make everyone happy because everyone enjoys something different. Writing to trends is okay, if that trend is what you truly desire to write. However, trends are fleeting, and the market is fickle. Things can and will change on a dime.  

I want to encourage you to stick to the story God has placed on your heart. Even if it’s strange or other people don’t understand it, keep going. Your book will find its group of readers, one way or another, and once it does, you will be so glad you stayed the course. Keep writing, my friends!

*****

Devora’s perfect future shatters. Instead of attending Vlacklear Academy, she is sent to the Fortress-a prison holding murderers and thieves that make up the soldiers in His Majesty’s Army. She fears it is the end of her.

Suppressing her forbidden Seeing abilities, Devora is thrust into the role of soldier, and must learn to defend herself while avoiding Warden Hazor and his ruthless right-hand man, Captain Blake.

When Devora’s Seeing abilities are exposed, she’s thrown into a tournament to win her right to live. She must turn to Captain Blake for help or be slaughtered like all the other Seers before her.

BUY AT AMAZON

*****