During the entire month of April, I’m participating in the A to Z Blogging Challenge. The alphabet will be my motivation, though the content of the posts will be very similar to what regular readers are used to. Check out the link for more amazing bloggers, and enjoy April!

Translated from French je ne sais quoi, is literally ‘I don’t know what’.

Art is subjective. People can choose to define ‘good’ art as something that sells well, or something that everyone knows about, or something that sits in every house in the world being admired. But really, ‘good’ is all up to the observer. For instance, those books that everyone raves about, that have had or will have several movies built around them. Those are good, right?

Unless you didn’t enjoy them. Maybe fantasy isn’t your thing. Or you’re more drawn to strong feminine leads. Or fights to the death for the right for your village to eat nauseate you.

But still people try and define what makes art good. “I like explosions”. “I like compelling characters”. “I like twisted May/December romances with a smattering of S&M built in.”

Or, my favorite that I’ve heard so very often (including from me). “I don’t know, it wasn’t the best writing/movie/song I’ve ever heard. When I think about it, it had all the flaws that drive me insane in most work. But I. Just. Kept. Watching/Reading/Listening.”

Why? Because it had that certain je ne sais quoi.

I think that’s why in the end, all the technical skill in the world will only take a piece of art so far. It can be perfectly edited/workshopped/touched up/mixed, have all the elements that the general population is paying for right now, and be visually amazing.

And it still won’t do well.

It doesn’t have that je ne sais quoi.

How do you define the indefinable when you’re describing something you loved but can’t quite say why?