Or the other way around: something you like to read, but don’t like to write? (Not that you struggle to write, but hate doing it at all. Even if you are good at it.)
I was pondering this question myself and hadn’t come up with too many answers. Vague ideas, like how I don’t like describing the environment, but I can enjoy a good descriptive passage in someone else’s work. On the other hand, everything I like to write I like to read.
However, I know some people don’t like reading other people’s renditions of certain tropes. I’m interested in hearing about it.
I can’t think of any genres or tropes off the top of my head which count for me, but I know there are some of those too!
I follow a couple of writers whose stories are these big emotional pieces. Like the focus is the internal emotions of the characters, the physical effects on their bodies & the writers describe it in depth & use a load of metaphor to expand that emotion out into the world around them. I absolutely love those stories.
But I’m pretty sure that along with a “touch of the 'tism” as I once heard it amusingly described, I also have a condition called alexithymia which makes it really hard for me to identify strong emotions in myself & others, so I could never write those types of stories. And I’m pretty sure I’d hate it if I tried because I struggle to process big & deep emotions without get physically upset. My characters’ emotions tend to be much lighter by comparison (unless I’m stressed & then it all comes out, but it’s hit or miss as to whether it’s readable in the end).
So these fics are great. I get to have someone explain these feelings in words for me & even though I can’t necessarily relate, I can feel the beauty in how they’re described.
I relate. It is definitely my aphantasia which makes me hate and not want to write physical descriptions. The inability to keep images in my head makes it all less important to me. When I read other people writing it, I appreciate the word choices. It doesn’t make me imagine anything, because I literally can’t. I work in concepts and sounds.
On the bright side, the world definitely needs writers like you and I as well as those we enjoy but can’t emulate. Not every story needs heavy emotions and not every story needs the room completely described. We fill those niches. :)