I've got some thoughts on YA, rom-coms, "guilty pleasures" and "good writing".

So, the thing about writing is, it's a tool to communicate something. Sometimes, a book wants to communicate atmosphere, and the author will spin beautiful imagery.

Sometimes, it wants to explore deep concepts, and the writing will wax poetic.

Sometimes, it wants to make you laugh, and it'll be filled with witty asides. Sometimes it wants to give you a peek inside the mind of a teen with a limited vocabulary, so it'll adapt writing thusly.

The thing is, I see lots of people praising the former examples as good writing, but a lot of people claiming the latter is 'bad' or just not a masterpiece.

So, to me, the word masterpiece should be more about whether the art did what it set out to do.

Most people would say Michaelangelo created masterpieces. Most people would also agree Picasso did. But imagine if the ONLY bar was, say, if the art looks true-to-life realistic?

In that case, a lot of people would say Picasso didn't do a good job. They'd say his stuff is interesting, maybe fun, but not GREAT the way Michaelangelo's is. But that's missing the point.

There is skill involved in both these artist's work.

And it's also a skill to write humour. It's a skill to craft a voice that sounds like a teen. It's a skill to make readers fall in love with the love interest.

How come, then, so many people will take a book and say it was funny, or it made them cry, or it made them love, but then say in the same sentence it wasn't written well?

Darlings, the whole point of writing is for the author to use words to cause the reader to feel strongly. If that happens, it was good writing! It's not more difficult to create a whimsical metaphor or a vivid description to tell a joke or capture a thought process.

They're different skills.

Stop feeling like you have to value one more over the other because it's the skill you see as highbrow.
Quiet literary novels can be masterpieces.
Romances can be masterpieces.
Epic fantasies can be masterpieces.
Picture books can be masterpieces.

To imply that one skill is more "real", or more "valuable" than the others is, honestly, rooted in classism and pretentiousness.

So can we all try to unlearn that a little and update the standards by which we judge writing?