• Saeculum [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    5 months ago

    because usually, mostly, only people who have that ineffable something do write novels

    People have always been writing terrible fiction. Trawl the depths of AO3 and fanfiction.net, look at the great mound of rejected novels by aspiring authors. Artistic mediocrity is a part of the human condition the same as artistic excellence.

    For the most part, the "ineffable something" required to write a good book is years of practice, an editor and the barrier to entry that is convincing a publisher to take you on.