On Reading; or, I'll Never Be As Good As That

Some stories are entertaining. I spend a few moments or hours reading, and I smile or frown at the appropriate places. I enjoy the experience and do not regret the time spent. This is, in my own estimation, the quality level of my own stories when I try my very best.

Some stories are the riveting sort of tales that you can't put down until you've finished them. You simply must know what comes next, and that feeling continues until there is no more next. A lot of Isaac Asimov's stuff hit me this way. I just had to keep reading. This is how good my stories are in my wildest of dreams.

And then some stories simply blow my mind out of the water, for reasons I can't even fully comprehend. I get pulled along on a frightfully fast, emotional ride, taken to places of darkness and to places of brilliant light. And I can try to put the story down, but it won't let go of me. The issue is simply taken out of my control, the story demands that I read it and I am helpless to do anything but watch the words flow from the page. This is beyond anything my stories will ever achieve.

I have just read one such story. It's called "The Things We Leave Behind, and it's right here on this very site. Here, have a link to it.

Some of you may read the description, glance at the first few paragraphs, and then look at me and say, "What is this? It's just another bit of cliched tripe on a website with no shortage of cliched tripe!"

But you forget, good sir, that there is a reason cliches exist in the first place. And it is stories like this which remind us why. Some situations have a seemingly inherent aspect of 'story' to them, a quality to the events that cries out to be made real in our fiction. Some cliches are so cliche simply because stories build up naturally around them, like debris builds up at a sharp bend in a river. And, like a sharp bend in the river, most of what you'll find is trash and useless junk. But it is also the best place to search for gold.

This story is gold, in my opinion. This bend in the river is called, "Invisible, intangible, dead person visits their friends one last time before moving on for good," and it's a very well-traveled bend in our river. Lots of trash has washed up here. But this little nugget of gold has washed up too, and I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading.

But I wouldn't be blogging about it if this were merely a good story. Even if it were the most fantastic story ever, I'd squee about it to my personal friends, and perhaps in a public forum where many people would come across my recommendation. But this is my blog, so when I post in it I want to say something of relevance to me.

I will never be able to inspire in my readers the emotional response this story inspired in me.

There, I said it. It's out there. This isn't the usual authorial wangsting about "my writing is terrible and I should feel terrible and I'm terrible!" Which I do my fair share of. This is an honest assessment that I, as a writer, will never be that skilled. I like my stories, I even think some of them are good (although Stormy Skies and Night Terrors aren't there yet). But stories like this transcend my understanding of the art and science of writing, stories like this go beyond even what I dream of being capable of. I may be a successful writer someday, but I will never be a master.

That's ok. The thought doesn't dishearten me much. After all, if I were the best, where could I go from there? Which is the whole point of this blog post: going places. Improving. You see, stories like this don't just blow my mind. They inspire me. They are not the unreachable peak of writing that I make them out to be.

They are a goal.

"But Shadow," you're saying, "What about all that stuff you said above about how you'll never be that good?"

Yes, yes, I did say that. And I'll continue to insist that it's true. But I'll always strive, in my writing, to prove that it is not true. Maybe one day I'll surprise myself, or maybe I never will. Either way, my writing is sure to be improved by the effort. And that's the important thing, to me: to be always improving. Always getting closer to that goal, even if it is unattainable.

TL;DR

Awesome story inspires me to be awesome.

EDIT:

Also, I have a tendency to ramble. Feel free to call me out on it. :P