Bear with me, guys, because this post may — and probably will — be all over the place. I’ve been sitting here, trying to figure out what to blog about and not coming up with a single topic. No, that’s not exactly right. I haven’t been able to come up with one, single and narrow topic. Why? Because there’s been a course of conduct I’ve noticed of late on the interwebs that has really been getting under my skin, both as a writer and as a reader. It finally started coming to a head day before yesterday when, in a private forum I belong to, a simple thread about four things science fiction needs to do to be entertaining morphed into a long discussion about what you need to do to be successful as an indie author. Let’s not forget that we are supposed to put trigger warnings on all our posts just in case we say something that might upset one of our readers. Then, on another blog I follow, someone came in and started off by saying they hadn’t read the comment linked to in the blog but, even so, the blogger was all wrong. Oh, and btw, she didn’t like the blogger’s books but she and her husband do read the blog and enjoy it. Talk about a back-handed comment — or insult. Then came the reviewer of another MGCer’s work who gave a two star review because he didn’t think there was nearly enough detail and background information in a short story. A short story! Short. . .Story.
And my head exploded.
I don’t know if folks are just going crazy right now or if the trolls have come out in search of the warmth of Spring — and boy are they in trouble if they are. It’s still too frigging cold in too much of the country right now. — or if the moon is stuck in one of those odd phases that cause us all to go a bit crazy, but I’m ready to go around and disengage the “enter” button on almost everyone’s keyboard for the next few weeks. What’s really sad is that a lot of the craziness could be avoided if we would all just think about what we’ve written before hitting “enter” and sending our comments out into the eternity that is the internet.
Let’s start with the first incident to cause my head to want to explode. As I noted in my blog yesterday, if you are posting in another author’s forum, especially if it is a closed forum and dedicated to that author’s writing and fans, don’t hijack a thread to promote your own work. That’s especially true if the author has been known for letting folks post about what they are writing or to link to their work if they ask first. So it’s just bad form to hijack a thread and keep mentioning that you have a book out and it is ranked so high on Amazon and oh, btw, you have a new book that you’re writing that will be coming out soon.
Worse, is showing just how little you understand about indie publishing when you say the only way to be successful is to spend thousands of dollars on cover and interior design as well as editing. Sorry, but no. You don’t have to pay thousands of dollars for cover design, especially not if you are only coming out in digital format. Frankly, if you do for only digital, you need to go find yourself a good business course and learn about return on investment. The same goes for interior layout. As for editing, yes, every writer needs an editor. But you don’t have to pay thousands to get one.
Also, when you have yet to publish a book in a specific genre, giving advice about what you must do to be successful in the genre also is a bit much. That is especially true when you talk in absolutes. Instead, talk about what you’re read and heard. Talk about what you’ve gleaned from your own writing. But don’t say “this is how it must be done”. You have no track record, no credentials in the genre. So who are you to tell the rest of us how to write?
Finally, there is much more to a book than how it looks. You can have the prettiest cover and the most appealing interior layout but that will mean nothing if you haven’t written a book people want to read. Instead of focusing so much on the aesthetics — and, yes, a good cover is necessary but it doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg — focus on plot, pacing and characterization. Most people don’t remember book covers enough to discuss the cover and they sure don’t recommend a book based on cover or interior layout. They remember the plot and characters. In other words, they remember the “craft” of the work, not the packaging.
As for trigger warnings, sorry, not even going there or this post will need them. Just know that I don’t agree for the most part that we need disclaimers on everything we write. Sure, if I were to post something laced with profanity or XXX rated, I’d note it. But for the average post, nah. It’s not going to happen.
If you haven’t been able to figure it out yet, I’m cranky and some of the antics I’ve seen online lately haven’t helped. 😉
With regard to the review mentioned above, my general approach to reviews is to look at how many a title has, see how they are broken down — if it has a ton of five star reviews and nothing else, I usually look at the title with suspicion and wonder if all the author’s friends and family reviewed it or if the reviews were bought. — and then I’ll check the product details and read the preview if I’m still interested. Funny thing about those product details, they let me know how long the e-book happens to be. Even if there isn’t a page count, you have a file size so I know going in if I am getting a short story, novella or novel.
So, when I see a review for a short story that is basically nothing but one long complaint that there wasn’t enough detail and the detail the reviewer wants is stuff that doesn’t belong in a short story — remember SHORT story — but is background for a novel, I start to wonder about the reviewer. I’ll often click through to check out that person’s other reviews. Funny thing, when I do that, I often find a pattern. Usually, the reviewer doesn’t like anything or only likes one genre and why they picked up the title they just gave the negative review to is a head-scratcher. Sometimes, as in this case, it is obvious that the reviewer has certain trigger points — oops, there’s that word again! — and this particular short story hit them. In this particular case, the reviewer didn’t like some of the military and political aspects of the story and wanted to know more about how and why. But these details weren’t necessary to be covered in depth for the story and, truth told, were explained in the story. He either missed the explanation or didn’t like it.
That happens. It sucks for the author because every bad review is like coming up and telling the author that their baby’s ugly. It hurts and makes you second guess what you wrote, no matter how many good reviews you have.
Something else I noticed with this particular reviewer is that he seems to have a problem with indie published work. He loves him some traditionally published books. But give him an indie book and he will pick it apart. Whether he realizes he’s doing this or whether he thinks he is helping the author, I don’t know. What I do know is that his double standard shows.
The lesson here as a reader is to know what you are getting before you hit “enter”. Sure, you might not know the genre. Sometimes it is difficult to tell by the blurb or cover. But you can tell if it is a short story or something longer simply by looking at the size of the file. Understand that if you are buying a short story, it won’t have as many details and as rich a back story as a novel will. If you want to know more, don’t attack the author for not giving it to you. Instead, let the author know that you’d like to see more with that set of characters or more set in that particular universe.
As an author, I’ll simply repeat the advice Sarah gave me long ago. Get someone else to read your reviews and make sure they understand you don’t need to know the details. I don’t know about the rest of you but a bad review — heck even a mediocre review — can bring my writing to a screeching halt. Yes, I’m a writer and my ego is easily bruised.
I guess the whole point of this post is to suggest that we all take a step back, breathe deeply and think. Think about what we want to say and think about what we’ve just put on the screen. Then and only then should we hit “enter”.
Mad Genius Club 
29 responses to “Think before you hit “enter””
“I don’t know about the rest of you but a bad review — heck even a mediocre review — can bring my writing to a screeching halt.”
Me, too. This doesn’t apply to every writer, but I can’t afford to damage my productivity by reading them, so I don’t anymore. Not even the good ones, because they often have that line that says…”If I had to pick one thing that didn’t work for me…”
Oddly, I often obsess more over that one line in a glowing review than I do a review that says “I hated this…”
That’s probably because the reader liked your work, so you think if you change the one thing they didn’t like, you will actually have a chance of changing their opinion. While I at least get the impression with, “I hated this because bad”, reviews that a) the reader is never going to look at anything by the author again and b) there wasn’t anything about the story they liked, so there is no way to change the story and make them like it, it would have to be a different story, written in a different style, by a different person, for them to ever like it, so there is no point in paying attention to what they say.
The advice isn’t original with me. Dave Drake gave me that advice 12 years ago.
Actually, I read them deliberately. I may not enjoy them, but I regard them as a valuable learning tool – almost as useful as beta readers. I try to ignore weird, off-beat reactions, and look for comments that highlight areas where my writing can be improved, or where I’ve neglected an issue or area that needs attention. I’ve found them very helpful in that way.
Looking at the title, I started to think “Uh, oh, who posted something stupid” but then my brain added, “Or maybe she’s just tired of short paragraphs.”
Sorry, Amanda, no caffiene yet. Not that that is likely to help.
I’ve grown a fairly thick skin, so I read my bad reviews to see where I’ve either failed to satisfy my target audience, or need to change tags to avoid attracting the readers who won’t like the books. Mostly I scratch my head and wonder what book they actually read.
And I need to go begging for reviews, even negative ones, to avoid summary rejection by people who shop with a “must have at least ## reviews” filter. So, can’t wish they thought before hitting enter.
I have gotten so TIRED of reviews (for me and otlllher writers), both at retailers, and in review blogs, where the person feels obliged to say things like:
“Loved it, liked the characters, liked the plot, liked the setting… There was this one spot where there were four paragraphs of info dump that were really slow, so DING.” That’s 4 paras in a full-length novel.
That wasn’t applied to me, but I’ve gotten “Liked this, liked that, etc…. But I’m used to internal dialog being set in italics and this author didn’t do that, so DING.”
(Not even to mention people who complain about things in ignorance, like British spellings and punctuation from British authors, or the electability of one style guide over another. I remember a time when I looked forward to learning things from books, just by their vocabulary and foreignness, not like now when they seem only to be a background to preen against by the ill-read.)
Why do so many middle-brow reviewers need the ego boost of finding a nit to complain about when doing an otherwise favorable overall review of a book? They should try reviewing real dreck sometime so they could complain about something meaningful, like plots or characters or overall story. Writers know there’s no such thing as a “perfect” book, and if there were, no two readers would agree about its perfection.
You see more of this with indie books, it seems to me, as if the conditions of birth were more important than the actual product. You don’t see the same reviewers complaining about a perceived editorial failure or formatting issue for a trad-published book. No, this sort of nit-slam is usually applied only to indies, I think, where they can apply the “just one neck to wring” principle more satisfactorily, sure that someone who cares will hear them.
What I’ve found interesting is that all my books are professionally edited, but because I’m out of a small press, there are constant assumptions that the editing is lacking, like only the big five can be trusted there. *eyeroll*
I’ve been re-reading some DAW books by an author who makes them tons.
So far the spelling and such has been OK, but I’ve noticed two different novels have huge plot contradictions; in one, a character burns a magic doll of themselves, and at the end of the book it’s a plot point that they didn’t, and by the wya burning it would’ve Hurt Them Really Bad, isn’t it great that it can be a major part of the solution; in the other, two main characters drag the dead bandits out of camp and get the useful stuff and the younger has a bit of a nervous breakdown, then they go to sleep, then they wake up, drag the dead bandits out of camp and get the useful stuff out of their pockets. This was THE character development point for one of those two major characters, not like in another novel where someone has watery blue and then pale green eyes….
Well, watery blue and pale green eyes *could* be explained by differences in lighting. (My eyes are hazel, and change color in different lights.) Not saying that’s what happened, of course. 🙂
On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 2:21 PM, madgeniusclub wrote:
> Foxfier commented: “I’ve been re-reading some DAW books by an author > who makes them tons. So far the spelling and such has been OK, but I’ve > noticed two different novels have huge plot contradictions; in one, a > character burns a magic doll of themselves, and at the end of” >
Or by emotion, or something else– but if that was the case, it should’ve been emphasized as part of the characterization instead of self description vs first glimpse….
My husband’s eyes go from a sort of cloudy day cloud silver to a slate gray to a lovely blue, depending on his emotions. (Being angry or being excited both result in blue, being tired or anxious is the silvery…usually. Slate gray seems to be transition or mixed emotions, and “mixed emotions” is what most people seem to have most of the time…..)
Explaining why I mention emotion. ^.^
I know exactly who you mean. I love their work – I really do – but I can’t read them anymore after the bandit camp incident.
They’ve always had continuity problems. Like, very major ones. For example, in one of their earlier book series, it was mentioned that emperors of this particular place had always gone to their grave sane. Then in a later book, “it wasn’t the first time an emperor had gone insane”. Same series and and in one book they teleport (I think one way) and then in another book a big deal is made about it being the first time they’ve teleported. A different series and the author mixes up the names of two side characters within the space of a page, forgetting which one was the older/younger sister and which way around they were smart/refined/pretty. I don’t even want to talk about the mistakes they make between trilogies;etc. In one trilogy in the series, magic works this way, and in the next, well, it’s close but not quite the same. In one book, a group of people have this rule, but it’s not a problem in the next book (but the third book over it could be a problem again)!
Obviously, mistakes happen, but this particular writer is just the sort who really needs someone who is very good with spotting continuity errors. At the very least, within a trilogy, but if they can be familiar with the continuity of their whole universe that would be great and I’d start reading them again. But alas. (I’m really pissy about it too since I went from loving all three major series done to having to drop first the biggest, then the one I found most interesting, then the newest series because of the bandit camp incident.)
/stops ranting
One problem I see with a lot of authors is changing the strength of someone’s characteristics over multiple books. In general, I mean making them weaker than they were before, when they should be getting stronger. This seems to be a particular province of fantasy, with magic-using people; In one book, the wizard does something like put up a shield to block an avalanche of boulders, and in another book, he’s hard pressed to stop an ogre’s punch with it. Things like that.
I think one reason reviewers tend to be more nitpicky about editing or formatting issues on indie books than traditional published is that they think the author actually has the input to change the formatting or editing. While traditional publishers are never going to even read the reviews.
As far as the “loved it, except this one little thing” reviews, well I suspect I’ve been guilty of them myself. Some of it is conscious, but I think a lot is an unconscious attempt to make your review seem unbiased. After all, all of us have read reviews that are so sickly sweet that I swear they are ladling it on with a snow shovel. At least myself I ignore such reviews even faster than I ignore the “this sucked, it’s bad because I didn’t like it, the end.”, reviews. Reviews are after all written to be read, so the majority of review writers will unconsciously try to appear fair and unbiased, while at the same time attempting to sway the readers of the review in the direction they wish them to go.
IMHO, a professional book review should cover the basics in a hierarchy of importance, such as story, plot, characters, etc. (YMMV). Down at the end, you could include “Other” which might reference various nits of less importance.
The overall review should only very rarely be influenced by the “Other” category, only if there’s something truly wrong there.
When you elevate the “Other” category to the level that it impacts the overall score, that’s an indulgence in unprofessionalism, IMHO, just to show that you can find something wrong if you look hard enough. It has little to do with the product itself, and more about the reviewer: “See, I can find something wrong, I’m not just a fan of all the good things in the book.” So the review becomes about the reviewer, not about the book.
I’m not being defensive about my own work which, god knows, has plenty of flaws, but reviewers are becoming LESS professional, the more they indulge in this behavior, not more so.
I tend to write reviews for the ‘Zon the same way I do academic reviews. 1) synopsis to prove that I read it. 2) Strengths/weaknesses 3) Fit into the literature/genre. 4) Any additional comments. So far it’s worked pretty well, and other folks find my reviews helpful.
I don’t think we’re talking about professional reviews here, primarily. This is, as you imply, more in the region of unprofessional reviews. But that’s what the Internet has made possible, and is something one must deal with.
Not that I have any better suggestions at the moment. Just making an observation.
I have made a lot of reviews that must have folks scratching their heads….
I do the star off of how I feel about it and if I’d recommend it to anybody else.
Then I write the review.
So you’ll get things like a three star review that praises a product to the sky, ends with something like “I just don’t like how it works” (that one was that a coffee pot kept the coffee too hot so it smelled and tasted like Starbucks) and a five star review that lists of everything I think might turn others off of.
There is such a thing as coffee that is TOO hot?
If you tasted this stuff, you’d understand! UGH!
The advantage, I guess, is that you’d not get poisoned– charcoal helps with that, right?
My favorite coffee pot was a $5 one, brewed slow, but didn’t have an auto-off and when I poured a cup I could sip it right away and finish it before I had to get back to work.
For me, yes, but for someone like my father, no. He said McDonald’s was the best place to get coffee, because they kept their coffee hot.
I’d wager that at least once a day, I type a comment or reply, then stop, think about it, and hit “cancel,” either because too much of my non-fiction identity might be “visible” in the comment, or because after thinking about it, my comment didn’t add to the discussion, or would better suited for my own blog.
I’ve gotten one head-scratcher review that complained about the lack of flow and abrupt transitions . . . in a short-story collection. Which I labeled as a short-story collection. *shrug* I’d just like a few more reviews, period.
“Also, when you have yet to publish a book in a specific genre, giving advice about what you must do to be successful in the genre also is a bit much. That is especially true when you talk in absolutes.”
Yep, I can talk about what I like as a reader, and what I would like to see more of. But I’m not egotistical enough to believe that all other readers are going to like the same things I do, and that writing what I want is the only way to be successful. After all I can’t hardly read either Tom Clancy or Zane Grey, but I would hardly call either of them unsuccessful.
When I do a review (especially Beta ones), I try to a) Note any factors that bear on the review. For example, when I talk about a “MadMike” book, I note that I have known him over 20 Years. I also note that Morrigan is my adopted Granddaughter. These make me less than totally objective. B) What did I like/not like, and why.
You (the reader and/or author), may or may not agree, but you understand why. If you know what I like, you know if it matches well to your likes/dislikes. Most movie critics are almost the exact opposite of what I like; Therefore, I go to the movies that they hate. I also tend to avoid the ones that they “love.”
When I hear trigger warning I think of something ike this:
Trigger warning.
This is a 2lb pull trigger. You pull it you get a 0.50cal out the end.
The only Trigger Warning I need is Larry Corriea’s name on the cover.
You should always give people a trigger warning when handing them anything with under a 3lb pull.
This makes me remember a question i have. Sometimes a work will make me think. And I’ll get a big idea. Then I write a review (on my blog) that starts with the work in question, but soon segues into an exposition of the big idea.
“Yes that Hemingway chap did a great job of describing a safari and the growth of a man from coward to existential hero and his wife’s reaction to this, BUT did you ever think of what it really means to be alive…” And then I’ll ramble on for a few hundred words about existential blues or something.
I feel a bit bad that i’ve taken Mr Hemingway’s and used it as a springboard into my own rant. But I don’t know whether folks find this useful or annoying. I don’t do this on Amazon or Goodreads. I’d like your opinion.
Offhand response — don’t call it a review. A review tells me as a potential reader whether or not I want to buy the book or story. In pursuit of that, it tells me a little about the genre or type of story, how you reacted, if there are any cautions, that kind of thing. What you are talking about I think of as reflections, meditations, or some such term indicating that I may have started by reading this thing, but what I am really talking about is what I thought afterwards.