Dealing with Reviews
I write reviews. And I write some scathing reviews. But when I do that, I try and deconstruct why I don’t believe the story works. There can be a lot of reasons for this: from bad plotting to thin characterisations to tonal inconsistency (and then lots of stuff in-between). The overriding priority is identifying what the story’s trying to do. This comes from my years as an editor. When I ran editing workshops, I’d instruct the participants to talk to the author and understand what they’re attempting. Disaster looms when the author and the editor aren’t simpatico. For example, if the author’s written a book they believe is a a…
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When you’re published, it’s usually a good idea to not read the reviews. That means don’t stalk a reviewing platform such as Goodreads. The logic is that no matter how many good reviews you have, you’ll focus on the bad ones. It’s human nature. Avoiding reviews is great in theory. And I have a number of published author friends who advise me not to check out the reviews, while I advise them not to check out the reviews. And then we check out the reviews. I envy people who can just not worry about it. But it seems most can’t. Writing is intensely personal. You have this idea you want…