Writing Insecurities Series: Is My Story Good Enough?

The Writing Insecurities Series:

1. Lack of Spelling Skills 

Last week I started writing about my writing insecurities. I started with my lack of spelling skills. Something small and with a little work easily fixed. Today I want to talk about one of my big writing insecurities. The question: is my story good enough?

I felt this question running through my head all week. As I wrote on my story, and when I studied my writing board full of post-in-notes where I have written down notes about scenes I have written, scenes I have re-written, and scenes I need to write.

Is my story good enough?

My novel is a romance written for Young Adults (Teenagers 13-18). It's about a girl with hearing loss, like me. Mercy was based on my teenage years. Like I said was, I don't think she as much like me as I have re-written this story a few times.

But this story is not about being hard of hearing. (Mercy's isn't deaf. There is a different) I tried to write that story. The one where the main plot was her coming to terms with her hearing loss. I hated that story, and hated the conflict Mercy had to deal with as she searched for a cure for her hearing loss.

Yeah!

I tried to write that story and hated it.

 So now the coming to term with her hearing loss is a sub-plot and doesn't involved trying to find a cure.    

I worried that since my novel is a romance, will that go over well? Will people say bad things about it, since it is about a teenage girl falling in love? Will it be better if I wrote a tragedy? Will it be compared to Twilight? Not in the good way but in the way that people complain about Twilight.

Also I wanted to write an contemporary novel but that not how my pantser writing mind works. I like to add magical elements to my story. So I ended up with a romantic magical realism(est) story. (It's not like the Latin American Literature that is the real Magical Realism.) I fear that someone will have something to say about that too. That I'm calling my story Southern  Magical Realism is a bad thing. It's not Southern Gothic. There's no ghosts. But I believe that The South has it's magical realism charm that doesn't involved ghosts or voodoo.  My Magical Realism charm involved coffee and a coffee shop.

Another thing about my story that I worry is about the heroine. There's in a lot out there about Deaf Pride. Thanks to the show Switched at Birth with a strong female Deaf character (the capital D means that they are part of the Deaf Culture) and people like the male model, Nyle DiMarco, and the actress Marlee Matlin to name a few. These people are happy and glad to be deaf.

Switched at Birth, Marlee Matlin, Nyle DiMarco

My character Mercy struggle with being Hard of Hearing. She's not what she wants to be: Hearing. It's how I felt as a teenager. I wrote this stories for teenagers who struggle with knowing who they are. I love all these wonderful role models for being Deaf, deaf and hard of hearing and prided of it. But I wanted to write about the struggle. I fear someone won't like the fact that my character isn't prided. And that she want to be Hearing, and not part of the Deaf Culture.  

That she isn't part of the Deaf Culture.

But see I wanted to write about my experience. I'm not Deaf (a person can be hard of hearing and be part of the Deaf Culture). To name one reason why: I don't use American Sign Language as my main form of communication.

So all that to say I worry is my story isn't good enough, and is it saying all the things I want it to say.

What are some of your writing insecurities? Do you have anything to say about being hard of hearing or deaf? Maybe something about Deaf Culture?