Making People Happy IS an Important Issue
Recently, an author I respect and follow on Twitter posted about important issues that she wrote about in her romances. Other novelists immediately chimed in with their contributions. My immediate thought was, ‘Hold your horses. Isn’t writing about human relationships important enough? Isn’t writing to make your reader happy sufficient for your book to be considered important?’ I know literary critics don’t think so. I know writers of other genres often don’t think so. I know many readers don’t think so.
However, I would certainly hope fellow romance authors don’t feel the need to impress some nebulous critical group. Talking about non-romantic life issues can create powerful books, yes, but talking about non-romantic issues doesn’t automatically make a book more important or better. Humans have a tendency to believe that things which relate to unhappiness are automatically more valuable than things which relate to happiness. How many comedies win movie awards? Dramas are considered the height of human expression, the form of art which has merit, the nucleus of what it means to be human.
And maybe, if you are not clinically depressed, that makes sense. But as someone who struggled with depression for years before being medicated, I can tell you that watching and reading dramas is not logical if you already feel terrible about life. Why would I pay money to put more depression in my life? What I needed was comedic things, things that made me feel better about the world, things that gave me hope. Even now, with meds that keep my mood regulated and cheerful, I don’t particularly enjoy art that creates sadness or angst. Those aren’t feelings I personally value. Nor do I feel that they alone can make the world a better place.
Is there a place for non-romantic life issues in romance novels? Absolutely. When we talk about traumatic things our readers can relate to, we help them feel more included and empowered. When we talk about social justice issues, we remind people that there is still a great amount of work to be done in the real world. When we talk about different experiences and put our readers into the lives of marginalized communities, we foster empathy. These issues do make our readers have a meaningful experience. I appreciate that.
What I don’t appreciate is the implication that making people happy through joyous writing is either not a meaningful experience, or not a meaningful ENOUGH experience. The world has problems, people have problems, and if you can do one thing to make people’s lives brighter, then I feel you’ve accomplished something good. You have made a difference. You have put forward a light when they may be seeing mostly darkness. That is pretty fucking important. It’s sufficient to meet the burden of making the world a better place. You don’t have to add anything that other people claim as important or serious.
Does a book have the ability to change someone’s life? Absolutely. But the book doesn’t have to be an award winner or a certain genre to do that. Any book can deeply affect a reader. We don’t know what affects someone until we put it out there. There’s no magic formula to making a book that will capture people’s interest. We need to write the stories that appeal to us, the stories that we feel compelled to share, not the stories we think would make strangers who read them act in certain ways. No one is going to save the world with one book, no matter what we write. So let’s write the book that we can tell, that we want to tell, and put it out there with no expectations. If people relate to it, great! If people say it helped them, awesome! If people say it’s a pile of rank crap that needs to be destroyed, well, that’s part of the writing journey. You’ll never write a book that everyone loves. So write the book that YOU love, whether or not it meets some litmus test of being deep.
Above all, remember that art isn’t a competition against other people. Art is a journey of the self. There are going to be a lot of people out there telling you what good art is, and what bad art is. But at the end of the day, you have control over only one opinion, and that’s your own. So find value in what you do. Don’t look for value in what other people might possibly think you should do. If you’re writing to impress others, you’re never going to be satisfied. Don’t reach for goals that are only going to bog you down and make you feel worthless. Write for you. Write hoping that other people will get you. Write for the sheer joy of living inside a fictional world. That’s what’s truly important.
