Current Project: Untitled RS
Status: Coming along
Status: Coming along
Yesterday, Lisa's blog on covers reminded me of a blog devoted to bad reviews. Authors voluntarily post their worst reviews and answer set questions about how the review made them feel and how they reacted. Apparently being an author isn't the rainbows and ponies life I expected. This blog posts painful stuff:
- It's a holocaust of prose.
- If you hate Western Civilization, movable type, and the English language...
- It's the same (plot) that has been reused and repackaged in every piece of YA literature for the last few years.
- Shallow...really shallow...I was bored for the majority of the book...tiresome
- This book fades into dust.
- A candy coated turd
Ugh. The interesting part comes after the nasty reviews: How the author reacted. Some say they laughed hard, one said she took deep breaths and headed for the fridge, another said she got depressed and ate chocolate. I read almost every review on this site and never saw the words "I will never write again." Even the authors who wrote of heartfelt emotional reactions to the reviews, brushed themselves off, tried to see the positive, or else utterly ignore it and moved on.
Where would I fall in this list of reactions? If someone called my work a schizophrenic tangle, I'd crawl under the covers and not open my laptop for a month.
Published people, can you share your worst? For the unpubs, what would be your reaction?
5 comments:
Ouch!!! Wow. That's harsh. I have no idea how I'd react. I'd like to think I'd blow it off and think "you try writing a book." But I'd probably cry endlessly.
Wow! I can't believe someone would be that blunt- well, yes I can. I had a review come out after Perfectly Good Nanny won the EPPIE and the reviewer tore the whole book, each character, and the story to shreds. It stung, but I had to remember it was one persons opinion of how ever many my book went through to win the award.
Then my latest book received it's first review after my daughters both said it was my best book yet- the first review said I had a cartoonish villain, the second review said there was too much back story violence, and the third review loved it.
As a writer you have to decide if the book makes you happy, your editor happy, and most of your readers happy. You can't please everyone. Everyone has a different taste. And you can't let a few people make you stop doing what you love or in some cases don't love but are compelled to write.
If you had a favorite blouse you looked good in and felt good in and someone you didn't know told you it was ugly, would you stop wearing it because of that one comment? I wouldn't!
When someone tells me something is wrong with my books, I make it a project to make sure that doesn't happen in the next one.
The following appeared in RT a couple of years ago: "It's hard to feel any sympathy for the characters in Alice Sharpe's Avenging Angel (2); they're not developed enough and too hard to be likable."
Ouch.
I had never had anyone call my characters unlikeable before and so this one really stung. On the other hand, she didn't tear apart the plot, so that tempered it a bit. Still, it knocked me flat for awhile.
You have to grow a thick skin and remind yourself it's one person's ... yada, yada. I read some of the reviews at the site you mentioned -- whoa.
Paty and Alice, thanks for being brave! I would hide my bad reviews and never mention them to anyone. lol.
Lisa, most readers have no idea how hard it is! I know I sure didn't. It kills me when I see other authors review books and are "less than kind." Come on! They know the pain. Why are they spreading it around?
Hey, Kendra!
I got a not-so-good review for STARS IN YOUR EYES. However, I must have gotten over it because I can't remember exactly what the reviewer said. Although in spite of the review, she gave it 3.5 stars--not so terrible. And I did get glowing reviews for that book also.
For me, the not-so-great review made me look at the book and ask some basic questions. Did I do the best job possible? Were there things I would do differently with the book if I did revisions today? Do I like the book? If there were lessons to learn for future projects--great. If not, what the hey. Then move on.
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