Some final (I hope) thoughts on reader reviews

In my past two entries, I’ve ranted about author shenanigans in response to online reviews by readers. There are writers who create accounts under assumed names, aka “sockpuppets,” in order to praise or defend their own books.  They go on Twitter and encourage their friends, relatives and fans to vote down negative reviews and vote up positive ones, or to join a dogpile to criticize a negative review or attack the reviewer.This week, I turn to thoughts on amateur book reviews.

Once we've bought or borrowed a book, spent time reading it, succeeding or failing to relate to it, we feel a certain ownership. For this reason, I believe that readers have every right to call an author out for not doing research for a historical novel or for one set on the other side of the world.  A writer giving a novel a present-day setting has no excuse for not checking an atlas or Google Earth to verify whether Istanbul is located in the middle of a desert or not. A writer who presumes to write about an ethnicity or culture about which they know very little deserves any criticism she gets for not accurately portraying those people, their culture, their history or folklore. I personally consider it disrespectful and arrogant to co-opt a culture without their knowledge and consent. A writer writing historical fiction has to remember that he is placing fictional characters in an historical setting and treat that setting with appropriate respect. This includes anything steampunk, science fiction, or presented as alternate history. Whatever your alterations, we readers can tell if you know your stuff or not.

More Authors Behaving Badly and a few thoughts on amateur book reviews

And the fun continues. . . This time an author calls the reviewer a b*tch and encourages her fans, via Twitter, to go to this reviewer's Goodreads page and "like" all the four and five-star reviews. She didn't have to tell them to leave a few flames while they were there.  Here's the link to the original GR post and the ensuing crapstorm. I'm sorry to be devoting two entire posts to this, but it's like I just landed on Mars or something.  I knew there were whiny authors out there; Anne Rice has been famous for complaining about negative reviews for at least the last 30 years. I just had no idea there were writers, supposed professionals, who would go to such great lengths to trash people who didn't like their books. My concern is not for myself as I step hesitantly into authorland, but more for the utter lack of civility and maturity that exists in the publishing world. It makes it hard to know whom to trust as one makes connections and forms friendships with other writers. It seems to me that an author this petty and childish isn't somebody I can trust, nor would they be somebody I'd want to have coffee with. How can I know that some of the vitriol directed at a reader wouldn't also be directed at myself? I don't really want to be walking around the publishing universe worrying about where the next knife in my back will be coming from.

I have written far harsher reviews than "Wendy"'s and have been flamed a couple of times by other GR posters, but I have, thankfully, managed to fly under the radar of any authors. I admit I keep a pretty low profile over there, though. I thought "Wendy"'s objections to Cass's book were thoughtfully written, and she supported all of her assertions with passages from the book. After struggling valiantly through 168 pages, she was criticized for not finishing.  Most readers give up after 20 or 30 pages; "Wendy" only continued reading so she could write a more objective and thoughtful review. A book this poorly thought out, with dialogue and description this *facepalm*ingly cheesy for the first 168 pages isn't suddenly going to become awesome at page 169, so the flames for not finishing the book were completely groundless.

That same week, another Amazon review gets some underhanded treatment (brief explanation here) from the author and her fans. There are references to the author having apologized in the OP's comments, but one gets the impression that it was a less than gracious one, justified, in the author's mind, by having had her feelings hurt over a negative review. Call the waaaaaambulance.  EVerybody gets bad reviews.

My problem is with sockpuppeting and flaming of dissenters being treated by authors as if it were perfectly normal and justifiable as they invite family, friends and fans to join the dogpile. Again, I refer you to the final paragraphs of this article from the UK's Guardian.

Here are two much more balanced views on the subject:  one from Veronica Roth at YA Highway on the ambiguity of the dynamics of the author-reviewer relationship, and a very contrite one from Hannah Moskowitz, who is obviously embarrassed at the nursery-school behavior of her fellow writers.  Hannah's post contains sentence enhancers, so consider yourself warned.

Finally, a few words from Neil Gaiman:  Scroll past the top paragraphs about The Venerable Bede to get to the advice on how to reply to bad reviews.  Among other things, he writes: "I suspect that most authors don't really want criticism, not even constructive criticism.  They want straight-out, unabashed, unashamed, fulsome, informed, naked praise, arriving by shipload every fifteen minutes or so." 

And:

"When you publish a book -- when you make art -- people are free to say what they want about it.  You can't tell people they liked a book they didn't like, and there is, in the end, no arguing with personal taste.  Different people like different things.  Best to move on and make good art as best you can instead of arguing." In other words, how to reply to bad reviews?  Don't.  How to react to bad reviews?  Here's help from Kingsley Amis: "A bad review might spoil your breakfast, but you shouldn't let it spoil your lunch."

Next week:  Thoughts on the writing of reviews.

Go Google Yourself: Authors, The Web, and its Dark Side

Back in September of 2010, a reviewer on Amazon.com called into question an author’s credibility because of some extremely sloppy (or even nonexistent) research he had done for his latest book, which was set in modern-day Turkey. The reviewer, a Turkish woman, called him on several inaccuracies, from getting the capital of the country wrong to giving Turks the wrong ethnicity to mistaking Turkey, whose government is secular, for an Islamist nation.He also placed Istanbul in the middle of a desert. The author happened to be Christopher Pike, known for his teen horror stories. I’m not a horror fan, so I’ve never read any of his books--teen or adult. I have, however, read The Da Vinci Code.  Dan Brown places Versailles north of Paris and makes intersections of Parisian streets that actually run parallel to each other. Unless your book is an alternate reality, look at a damn map, why dont’cha. If Brown’s potboiler prose weren’t already enough to turn me off, his sloppiness as a writer/researcher would have been.

I don’t know why authors do this.  Do they think every American is an ignorant hick who has never traveled outside the country and who doesn’t care about accuracy?  Do they have any respect for the people and the place they’re writing about?

Anyway, somebody calling himself Michael Brite, ostensibly Pike’s editor, showed up to justify the inaccuracies and tell the reviewer she, who had lived in Turkey for 10 years, knew less than the Almighty Pike, who had taken a taxi ride through Istanbul (mistakenly identified in his book as the country’s capital--heh). Turns out “Michael Brite” was Pike himself, who admitted later that he frequently goes incognito onto the Web to defend his books, as if that were quid pro quo. His rant against Caligirl was xenophobic and childish. And it turns out he’s not the only one pulling such stunts. This link contains an encapsulated synopsis of some of the fun. The original Michael Brite reply was deleted from the Amazon post linked above.

Trust Your Readers: Infodump versus Sensory Detail

Writers face these questions all the time:  How much detail is necessary to my story?  When do I introduce these details?  When is it description and when is it an infodump?

Let’s try some examples from some actual unpublished writings:

“Hey, Otteson,” Jared said to the boy standing at a locker in the boys’ changing room.

“Hey, Steadman,” Otteson replied.  Guys on the basketball team never called each other by their first names.

Ask yourself if that last sentence is necessary. Can your reader figure out from context that guys on sports teams call each other by last names? Certainly you’ll be having them talk to each other on occasions apart from this one.  

    Havliki and Kerrick greeted each other by butting heads because that’s how people from their home planet of Lurp greeted each other--with head butts.  Instead, how about:  Havliki and Kerrick greeted each other with the traditional Lurp head-butt.

Here’s another, a little longer:

    “How are things going, Lindsey?” the guidance counselor, Mrs.Green, asked.  Her desk chair squeaked as she sat down in it.  

Lindsey shrugged and pushed her straight, blond hair out of her eyes.

“I’ve been tracking your grades, Lindsey,” Mrs. Green said, looking at two computer printouts in her hand, “and I’m seeing marks that used to be A’s dropping to D’s and F’s. And a couple of your teachers are reporting serious changes in your behavior in class.”

“What’s their problem?  I just sit there. It’s not like I bug people like Jeremy Ellis does.”

“That’s what’s concerning them, Lindsey.  You’re usually eager to learn and share new ideas, but over the past month or so, you seem to have lost all interest.”

Lindsey sat up straight, looking Mrs. Green in the eyes. “Okay, here it is.  Don’t bug me after this, okay?  My mom’s dumping my dad and we have to go live at my grandparents’ because my mom can’t afford a house payment by herself,” she finished angrily.

Mrs. Green looked like she’d been kicked in the gut.  Kids Lindsey’s age usually had to be coaxed to tell what was bothering them.

“Can’t your dad help with the house payment?”

Thank God Mrs. Green hadn’t asked her “How do you feel about that?”  Lindsey might have thrown something.

“He’s buying a new house for the slut he cheated with.  My mom is only getting the legal minimum child support. She dropped out of college to help put my dad through law school, so now she can’t get anything better than minimum wage. Are we done now?”

Her desk chair squeaked as she sad down in it. Is this good sensory detail or completely unnecessary? Or do we need to break up the dialogue with sensory details like this?

Lindsey shrugged and pushed her straight, blond hair out of her eyes. Same question--good sensory detail or unnecessary? Do we need to know she’s blond or does that actually help the reader to visualize Lindsey better?

Lindsey sat up straight, looking Mrs. Green in the eyes. Was she slumping in the chair before this?  

Should Lindsey’s explanation of why her dad can’t/won’t help with a house payment and her mom’s difficulty making ends meet be broken up or interrupted by the guidance counselor? Or should it feel like Lindsey’s doing a practiced speech and anxious to get it over with? Do we need to know if Lindsey is speaking more rapidly, angrily, or loudly here?

These are the dilemmas careful writers face as they’re crafting their stories. My advice:  be aware of the difference between info-dump and sensory detail.  Sensory detail helps the reader see the scene and the people in it better; infodump just treats the reader like he or she can’t figure things out for him/herself.

Still More Genres and Tropes: Mystery/Suspense/Thriller

Previously: Coming-of-Age, Fantasy, Romance, Horror, Paranormal, Science Fiction

A “trope,” not to be confused with nor transformed into a cliché, is an element a reader expects as a characteristic of a genre (such as magical creatures or talismans in a fantasy story).  A cliché, on the other hand, occurs when you take a trope too far (rich-boy-loves-poor-girl romance, for example). The material difference between the two is what fresh, new characters, settings, or magical canon you bring to a familiar element.
No, you don’t have to use every trope listed here in your stories.  This is for reference and guidance only.  And the “possible conflicts” are just suggestions as well.

Mystery/Suspense/Thriller:

It may seem a little unfair to lump all three of these together, but the tropes are similar and the necessity for vivdly-portrayed settings, interesting, complex characters and tight plotting and pacing are universal.

Moments of Awesome -- A tribute to writers at their best

I realize that several of my posts here have been negative or snarky.  Let’s face it--there’s so much crappy writing out there, finding giggle-worthy bad prose is like shooting fish in a barrel, especially when the writer uses tired clichés (This is where you say “I see what you did there”).So I’ve decided to counter my “how does this crap get past an editor” posts with  occasional “moments of awesome” posts. And I’m opening up the forum.  Please send any you find and maybe I’ll share them in future posts.

The verbs “hoik” (getting a hook into an automaton that’s about to kill you, hoisting it over your head, and slamming it to the floor behind you) and “splodge” (a viscous substance that’s too heavy to actually splatter, splodges), both from Philip Reeve’s Fever Crumb, the first of three prequels to The Hungry City Chronicles. I have only recently “discovered” Reeve, but I plan to become very well acquainted with him.
In her book The Shipping News, Annie Proulx uses the verb “razored” to describe the motion of a seagull’s wing as it cuts through the air.
What is most wonderful about these examples is that their creators only used them once the entire book. And that they were appropriate and evocative in the contexts in which they were introduced. When I read Proulx’s book a few years ago and saw “razored” in the first chapter, I thought, “here we go.  Every time somebody’s outside, there will be seagulls overhead, and their wings will “razor” the air ad nausaeum.” Proulx never uses it again, and makes few references to gulls overhead once she’s established her setting on the Newfoundland coast.

Marcus Zusak’s moments of awesome are legion, but here are a couple from I Am The Messenger:
“At first, I’d wanted to write Merry Christmas on the box somewhere, but I decide against it.
This isn’t about words.
It’s about glowing lights and small things that are big.”

And:

“The pain stood up.” 

The protagonist is lying on the floor of his kitchen after being beaten up (no spoilers; read the book). Given the circumstances surrounding the beating, he’s probably describing both physical and emotional pain.

Zusak is one of the rare writers who can use similes and metaphors that would be cringe-worthy if they’d been used elsewhere or by less-skilled writers, but he places them so judiciously and never makes the audience feel like he’s turning to them and saying, “aren’t I clever?” Because if you feel you have to do that, then you already know the answer.  

A New Year's Wish from me, with help from Neil Gaiman

Happy New Year, everyone.  May it be a year of peace.

I leave you with this from Neil Gaiman. A propos for anybody, but especially for a writer, especially one embarking on a new project, writing that first query, dealing with that first rejection:

I hope that in the year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make new mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze. Don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.