On Getting Criticism

[T.Allen.Smith]

Hi,

Just a quick point about the comment that people who hate your work are right - I recently received this review on one of my books and have to say it floored me:

"This book is so contrive, that if it would have been a paperback instead of on my kindle I would have thrown it across the room. Also if this woman could see that the main character killed, why could she not see why? I hate books where the character shows an unreasonable amount of guilt for either protecting themselves or other by killing their attacker. This shows poor writing skills to us such a contrived emotion to drive the story line. People who survive an attack feels relief not guilt."

Now not to belabour the point but to set the scene - my Mc initiated the attack (for noble reasons thankfully) peppered the guy with arrows and then watched him fall into a fire and burn to death screaming - in a manner reminiscent of his childhood memories. Since he's a normal enough guy morally speaking, I would expect him to feel guilt and shame for that. I don't think I went overboard in portraying that since it's only a small part of the book. But hey maybe for some people any form of guilt or remorse is too much.

My point is that if this guy is right - and in my view he's not - then I really want to be wrong! I don't want my MC to be some sort of sociopath.

And that's actually the hardest part about accepting criticism, judging when to listen to advice and think well maybe they have a point, and when to think - well they're just plain wrong.

In this case I read the review, I consider it a genuine view, I weighed it up, and I considered that I don't want to change my books in any way to reflect his point of view. It's my book and my vision and ultimately I have to be able to write what I believe in, and not simply bend to the whim of every critic and assume they are the best judges of what my books should be. A few years ago I might not have been so sanguine about this and would have been riddled with self doubt after reading his review.

Cheers, Greg.

We have to be able to apply judgment on critiques, and it appears you're very capable of doing so. I don't believe this article suggests that you must accept the opinion as truth. Rather, the article's author is suggesting that if a reader had a particular reaction to your work then, assuming it is genuine, that reaction is real and valid...for them. I think that's hard to argue against since we're discussing opinions and likes/dislikes which are widely subjective.

Still, even with critiques like these, it may be wise to consider the comments. I'm not trying to say you should accept them and make changes off of such harsh comments. However, there may be issues underneath the acid tongue we could focus on which could better our writing.

Now, that being said, I don't know this person & I haven't read your book, but the first thing that popped to mind when I read the review and your comments was "Is there a clarity issue?". There may well not be, but it seems like the portrayal you were trying to impart, and the emotion you were trying to invoke failed...for this reader.

Would I let one review like this alter my process or thinking? Probably not. However, if I got a few like this, it's time for some serious thought and introspection. This is why we should look at reviews as a whole and not single out hurtful comments. If I have ten readers and seven like it, two thought it was pedestrian, and one couldn't even finish, I may make a few changes but I'd be pretty content with 70% of the people enjoying the story. What I'm trying to say is.... Don't let one-off reviews impact too deeply. Consider one review as a facet of a greater whole.

 

[Philip Overby]

I'll just leave here what Raph said about people disliking your work for those who may have not read the OP:

Everyone who dislikes your work is right.

This is the hardest pill to swallow. I’ve never gotten a piece of feedback that was wrong. You see, you can’t deny a player their unique experience. Whatever they felt, was true. For them. And something in your work triggered it.

It is useless, and worse, actually self-defeating, to attempt to deny the critique. Sure, there are sometimes reviews that seem spiteful, unfair, and the rest. But the vast majority of the time, people are giving their honest reaction.

And the bottom line is, you put the game out there in order to get reactions. If it were not for reactions, you could have just kept the game in your drawer and gotten everything you needed out of it.

@psychotick: To me the review you posted sounds more like someone's personal dislike for a way of portraying emotions. However, this person obviously has "some experience" with these kind of books since he/she mentions "I hate these kind of books." So one person's not a fan. It happens. It's good for you to recognize what you published was the vision you wanted and decided not to change it.

One thing to note though: reviews are not always analytical. In this case, it sounds like the reader had a raw emotional reaction to something. A pet peeve or some such. Sometimes I see reviews that say "This was boring. I wouldn't recommend it" and that's it. These reviews are about as useful to potential readers as "This was awesome! Must buy!!!!"

For me, if I was planning to pick up your book and saw this particular review, I may wonder what this reviewer is talking about. However, I'd make my own judgment if I felt like the key elements (good blurb, nice cover art, interesting sample) worked for me in order to begin reading it.

I've read people say "I can't stand Game of Thrones for the way it portrays the world as grim and full of death." Well, that's your personal choice. And if you don't like it, fine. The internet has definitely cracked open a whole new realm of opinions. And I think that's great. Sometimes if someone hates something you do it can be just as good as them loving it. I bet for every review like this, there are others that liked the scene you described. It's good to get a wide spectrum of responses to your work. It's when they don't care or feel indifferent is when it's time to worry.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Yeah I agree. I believe this review is genuine. I've had drive by's before and they are usually quite different. But my point isn't whether the review is genuine. It's weather the review is right. And that's something completely different.

In the end as a writer you have a vision and you write to it. And a huge part of maturing as a writer is learning to trust yourself. To trust in your vision. That's not to say that what you write will appeal to everyone. Most works may not appeal to loads of people. And people can honestly say they would prefer this or that, or they found some things within the book to be unacceptable etc. But in the end you have to balance what they say against your vision.

If they say they didn't understand part of the work, or a character was unconvincing etc, listen. It may be as you say a clarity issue. If there's a factual matter brought up as in my example then check it. (And in this case the reviewer got the facts wrong.) But if they are saying that they don't like your vision then you have to be able to stand back and say "that's wrong". Because in essence it is. The moment you start altering your work in such a basic way because you place another person's vision in higher regard than your own, you're lost as a writer.

Imagine if Tolkein had got a review saying something along the lines of "I hate the whole idea of two friends risking life and limb to support each other to complete a mission", and had listened to it.

Or take Twilight (please!). I hate it. Passionately. But I would never write a review saying that the fundamental premise of the book - vampires really just wanting to be loved by teenage girls, is wrong. It's not. (Well sort of not?) In the end that may be a genuine gut reaction of mine to the work, but to critique the book on this basis would be completely wrong. That is the core of the author's vision, and she did not write it for me as a reader.

There are parts of a writer's work that are simply too central to the work, too much the core of the vision, that as a writer you simply have to accept that the critique is wrong. It may be genuine, but in the end you simply have to reject it as wrong. Because to accept it in any way as being right is to basically deep six your entire book and maybe a lot more besides.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Feo Takahari]

Or take Twilight (please!). I hate it. Passionately. But I would never write a review saying that the fundamental premise of the book - vampires really just wanting to be loved by teenage girls, is wrong. It's not. (Well sort of not?) In the end that may be a genuine gut reaction of mine to the work, but to critique the book on this basis would be completely wrong. That is the core of the author's vision, and she did not write it for me as a reader.

I don't know if you'd agree or disagree with this, but I think it's a valid review to say that Meyer's conception of love is wrong--that she promotes as tender and romantic a controlling, unhealthy relationship. It's not saying the author shouldn't have written about love, but saying that there are better ways to write about love.

 

[psychotick]

Hi Feo,

My thought is that I'd disagree. I think what you've said about the work is completely correct, I just don't think it's a legitimate thing to raise in a critique. It basically says to the author throw it out and start again, and this time do it according to my design of what a healthy romantic relationship should be.

If I was going to make that sort of comment it might be as a sort of aside in a review as a sort of guide / warning to other readers, but even that would be a stretch since I don't know what other readers might think of such romantic relationships. Most likely I would put that in a completely separate opinion piece since that's essentially what it is.

So if we're going to unhealthy romantic relationships etc, why not go to the font and the writings of the Marquis De Sade, say Justine. Now I could write a critique saying something like - this book is perverted. But I wouldn't.

In the end this comes back to the purpose of the critique. Is it to help the writer? In which case the comment is useless to him. He presumably knew from his prison sentences that his work was perverted. What the writer needs to know is opinion as to how to make his book better. (I personally dread to think what sort of advice that might entail for our ancient noble.) If I'm writing a review for other readers, then yes I could make that comment as a warning to them, assuming by some chance they didn't realise what they were planning on reading. But really the only place the opinion would have true merit is in an opinion piece essentially decrying his work.

As an aside I am toying with the idea of writing such a piece about some of the writings of Nietzsche. (Polemics in my view though even that may be too generous to the man. Hate speech is more accurate.) But I wouldn't be writing a critique to help improve Freddy's writing assuming he was still alive, nor a review for other readers of his work - they surely know what they're getting into. It would be about giving my opinion on his work, not for its literary merit or story telling, but to disagree with his philosophy.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Steerpike]

I don't know if you'd agree or disagree with this, but I think it's a valid review to say that Meyer's conception of love is wrong--that she promotes as tender and romantic a controlling, unhealthy relationship. It's not saying the author shouldn't have written about love, but saying that there are better ways to write about love.

Is a fiction writer necessarily 'promoting' every behavior they write about? Also, lets not assume readers are stupid, whether adult or teen. This is an odd criticism of the book, in my opinion. I think it is an overstatement of the issue, makes assumptions that aren't necessarily justified, and ignores parallels in other works (usually because the reviewer likes those other ones, like Buffy).

So I suppose its a valid review in that the reviewer provides his true opinion, but it supports the point made in this thread that you shouldn't always listen to a person providing a critique. Unlike a review of the work, this would seem to me to be beyond what is desirable in a critique, because the person providing the critique isn't writing the story and deciding the character relationships. That's the author's job.

 

[GeekDavid]

Just a quick point about the comment that people who hate your work are right - I recently received this review on one of my books and have to say it floored me:

"This book is so contrive, that if it would have been a paperback instead of on my kindle I would have thrown it across the room. Also if this woman could see that the main character killed, why could she not see why? I hate books where the character shows an unreasonable amount of guilt for either protecting themselves or other by killing their attacker. This shows poor writing skills to us such a contrived emotion to drive the story line. People who survive an attack feels relief not guilt."

Obviously, this person is not a fan of your style of literature. Therefore, I'd take those comments with a very large grain of salt.

It is hard enough to write a book that will please those that are already fans of your style (or maybe the word is sub-genre) without trying to please those that aren't fans. I'm not a fan of the vampire-werewolf-zombie style of fantasy, so it makes no sense for an author to try to craft a story in that style that will appeal to me. I'm not that author's audience. Not to mention that in trying to tweak the story to appeal to me, said author would probably change it in such a way that he'd lose his appeal to his real fans.

No book will be loved by everyone. Even The Hobbit and LotR have their detractors among fantasy fans. The key is to accept it and move on.

On a related note: It's perfectly OK for people, even fellow fans of the huge and diverse genre we call "fantasy," to like and dislike different things. If someone doesn't like the kinds of books I like (i.e. David Eddings, L.E. Modesitt, Brock Deskins), that's no skin off my nose. I like what I like, they like what they like, and I'm perfectly fine with that.

 

[Feo Takahari]

@Psychotick: It's not like I haven't rewritten from the ground up when folks told me I was being creepy. If they hadn't told me, I would have kept being creepy in the same way in later stories. (Besides, have you seen what happens when authors decide they no longer care if they alienate their readers? That way lies Orson Scott Card.)

P.S. As for the question of advocacy, I thought Twilight was supposed to be about a mutually unhealthy relationship. Then I read that interview in which Meyer called Edward the perfect boyfriend. Yeurgh.