quick curious q

[rm]

Pro authors are all over LJ, often in very participatory fashion. Does this effect how or to what degree you critique their books?

I'm being relentless on the subject of Melusine and was just sort of taken up short by "Monette is on my friends list" in another comment on it. Of course, it doesn't really change my tonal quality, which is what it is, but it interested me.

Conversely, for those of you published or working on publishing, how do you want that sort of thing handled and how do you intend to handle it on your end.

Personally, I think I'd have to do a lot of constant reminding my myself not to engage, because I can explain my work all day long, but ultimately a book must speak for itself, no matter how engaging I seem to think I am on the subject.

Comments

[winterknight.livejournal.com]

I don't think it should affect anything. I realize the author is on LJ and I've seen her say some rather interesting things in the past. I didn't like the book; I didn't say she was a bad writer. I think there's a difference. We all write stinkers. I've written stuff that makes me cringe. It might even be publishable, but I'd still think it stunk.

When we write, we put ourselves out there. When I'm writing, I divide my beta-readers in two: my cheerleaders, who say nothing bad about my work and keep my ego going, and my critics, who take the piece apart and tell me where it's wrong. I need both and I need it from those people. What others have to say about it is not my problem. Who says you and I are right that the book was a lousy read? That's what we thought. I am a notoriously bitchy reader. That's all there is to it. I love some of my friends, but I won't read their writing. No offense, it's not for me.

If I ever get published, I expect people to say what they think. If fanfic happens, I don't want to read it until I'm sure I'm done writing in that setting/with those characters, but go for it. Slash my characters, kick my tires, tear up my books. It's part of the job.

[winterknight.livejournal.com]

Why do we baby authors so - as a society - but directors/producers and actors, as well as comic book artists and writers, get friggin' trashed almost every day? I was reading the comment below about ego-Googling. The only time I'd care if someone said my work was shit or not would be IF I THOUGHT SO TOO. And I would not have published it if I'd thought so. I have teeny scraps of writing that I'd be willing to publish (people have been telling me I'm publishable for years) but not much I look at and go 'God, that's beautiful, I want that out there with my name on it!'.

If someone's out there ego-Googling and doesn't like what they find, they can write better or stop reading or stop caring. Because pinning your ego on the passing whims of strangers is ridiculous and, to be completely rude about it, being upset when someone doesn't like your book is like a whore being upset when a car passes her by -- it's not you they don't like, it's the product, and it's not personal. I'm sure I'm going to be hurt in the future when people say my work is shit. But that's my problem, and I'll go cry on my therapist or something.

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

"Pro authors are all over LJ, often in very participatory fashion. Does this effect how or to what degree you critique their books?"

Generally I try not to critique at all if I know the author has a blog. Some of these folks (i.e. the authors) clearly ego-Google themselves and their work constantly while claiming they don't and are masters of the passive-aggressive "link to a bad review by random stranger so my groupies friends can go hotly defend me, while I claim myself not to mind the review at all and just be happy my book's talked about" strategy, and life's too short.

"Conversely, for those of you published or working on publishing, how do you want that sort of thing handled and how do you intend to handle it on your end."

Ignore it (however praiseful or otherwise it is), and if I must comment or vent do it to a very small filter. I think there's a lot to that old theory about readers needing the freedom to discuss a work well outside the (active, known) presence of the writer.

[timiathan.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I just wouldn't care a tiny ounce what people around here have to say. I'd be flattered that they're talking about me, maybe, but who gives a damn if they like it or not. But I never cared about being a 'writer,' and never written for anyone but myself, so that might be why.

On the other end, I would hesitate to rip on a book if the author was a friend, but only because they're a friend...

It is interesting that as an author these days you can see reactions to your own work that weren't really intended for you. I wrote a post once tearing apart the moral stance of a certain poem published in a lit journal, and the author found it whilst Googling himself. That was kinda weird. In the past authors have indured the opinions of critics, and fan/hate mail, but those letters are addressed directly to them, on purpose. I wonder if a lot more feelings get hurt now.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

While RPG writing is admittedly a mixture of technical writing and (typically) low-end genre writing, so the issues are somewhat different, I very much want honesty. If someone loves my work, I want to hear about it, if they hate it or have serious negative criticisms, I also want to hear about this (although, preferably ones that don't come down to their being either a raving homophobe &/or right-wing wackball, as was true of most of the negative criticism of Blue Rose).

As for handling such criticism, I see arguing with critics as largely being silly and useless, and only do so to attempt to correct what seem to be significant misconceptions about a particular work, or occasionally in an effort to make raving homophobes &/or right-wing wackballs look even more foolish than they naturally do - however, this last behavior is no different from my typical on-line behavior, except that when I'm writing about my work I attempt to be considerably more polite.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I know too many writers in person to be sure how Lj affects my take.

Generally, if I liked a book, and then get to know them, I am more prone to look to new books when I am shopping.

But if it's crap, it's crap.

TK

[earthgoat.livejournal.com]

Amen.

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Monette is on my friends list and I've been interested to read your take on it as I've yet to read the book myself. I don't think I'd be careful about what I said necessarily, Tanya Huff is andpuff and it won't stop me from saying that I still find her Keeper stories a bit tedious at times; thus far I've not found too much at fault enough to be scathing for most authors.

[karnythia.livejournal.com]

I think that you have to be willing to be critiqued as an author. I know that after I finish the book I shall want a few folks to read it, just so I can get a fair appraisal before I try to submit it to a publisher. Me, I'd want to be told someone thinks my work is too slow or my characters two dimensional because that's constructive. Now, I wouldn't want to hear "Why must you write about black people?" but I think that's fairly self-explanatory.

[earthgoat.livejournal.com]

Frequently, I'm very cautious in what I specifically say to the authors themselves. On the other hand, if they ask my opinion, which is rare, I try to be honest without being cruel or gushing. I have a good friend in particular who's initial few books I loved. His writing has gone down the toilet since. However, he doesn't ask my opinion, nor am I one of his advance readers, so I just leave it alone.

I am of the opinion that when you are having a friendly discussion about a book, you are entitled to your opinion.

Additionally, most of the writers that I know of on lj are rather reasonable about reviews. They realize that not everyone will like their writing style or topic. They obviously prefer it when people like their books, but they do not seem to expect it.

[earthgoat.livejournal.com]

I owe you a thank you. Reading about your take on Melusine and how you express your thoughts has encouraged me to look deeper into my reading habits and discussion of books. Thank you for reminding me to elevate my game.

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

I tend not to say much about the writers who are on my friends list, or their immediate friends (if I know them). I have the advantage that Soren was part/is part of the science fiction professional community (former editor, copyeditor, proofreader), so I know some of the relationships. However, it doesn't stop me from posting, if I think something is good, or wonky.

As a writer, I would probably brood a bit over a bad review, but never write back, unless I: 1)truly felt that something had been misinterpreted; and 2) Soren had read the initial post and my potential response, and made sure that I hadn't gotten overly defensive. (However, I've not had anything published in fantasy since 1994 or so, so the odds of getting a review are low. And even if I did, that was my first story; I can see a lot of flaws in it now.)

In other words, I agree with "do not engage," since the reader is never going to be My Ideal Reader, and I will not be Their Ideal Author.

[telesilla.livejournal.com]

I've been pondering this quite a bit lately, because I've been thinking about doing some meta about professional fic by written by slashers. While I no longer share a fandom with naominovik, a good number of people on my flist do have her fannish persona friended and are fans of her slash/fanfic. I have some things I want to say about reading the Temeraire books while consciously aware that the author writes slash/fanfic, but some of what I want to say is rather critical and that could get kind of wanky. Not so much with her, but with her fans.

Even more complicated is the person on my flist who has recently filed the serial numbers off some of her fic and sold it as original gay romance. One of the fics she sold was a favorite of mine and I found that, when I did my best to read it as original fiction, it suffered some. While I don't consider her a close friend, I do like her a fair amount--she's one of those people I wish I lived closer to, because we've got a fair amount in common outside fandom--and I really don't want to hurt her feelings. Plus, she's justifiably considered one of the better writers in the fandom, and, I'd rather not piss off her fans because they're my readers too.

Part of me wants to just go with what I say about crit anywhere: if you post it in public/sell it to the public, people have the right to talk about it in public. And with naominovik I probably will say some things, because I can segue into what we expect from slash/fanfic and how that might differ from what we expect from professional fic. I probably won't say anything about the other person's work, which makes me a bit of a hypocrite, but I can live with that.

Um...so yeah, this is something that's been on my mind.

[orobouros.livejournal.com]

shit, I'd say critique away.

might be fun to get sucked into some Anne Rice/Amazon level drama. ;)

[splix.livejournal.com]

I've never been really participatory WRT my fanfiction and should I publish, I don't see that changing. I tend to view that DVD-commentary stuff with a dim eye, though I know others are quite keen on it. Same goes for writer/reader interplay, though that probably has more to do with my tendency toward silence than anything. In the end, I prefer a story to speak for itself without a lot of nattering from the author.

I hope I don't have to one day eat these words.

[raaven.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it's just me, but in my mind there is a very clear distinction between critique and review.

When I critique anyone's work these days, I try very hard to keep in mind that critique is (to my mind, anyway) something that should help the author make the work better. I try to keep it very impersonal, and write of specific things in the particular piece of writing (pacing, plot, characters, tone, etc), not the author's character, intelligence, etc.

When I critique, I try to speak to those factors very clearly, and give specific reasons that I did or didn't like them (ie: "the plot was crappy" vs "the plot didn't hold my interest"), and offer thoughts about how it could be changed (ie:"the plot didn't hold my interest because it seemed repetitve. If different sorts of things had happened throughout (example), I might have been more drawn into it).

Reviews, however, are a whole 'nother critter. Reviews are not created (again, to my mind) to help the writer, but to help readers determine whether or not to read the work. Cleverness, snark, casting aspersions...all of those things seem appropriate to me in a review, where they don't in a critique.

If I were sensitive about that, and a publishing writer (aside from AC, I mean), and I had friends who were particularly sharp about reviewing, I'd probably ask them to lj-cut or filter it so that I don't run across it randomly in a vulnerable moment - because seeing something mean from a friend is different than seeing something mean from a stranger.

If I ask someone to critique (or beta, to use the fanfic term) my work, I expect them to do so in a way that doesn't attack me, and does point up ways to make it better. Put simply, I want them to be honest and helpful, not mean.

I would certainly not engage with strangers who reviewed my work, unless to thank them for their opinion - which I consider a social politeness, and need not be heartfelt. ;)

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

It makes me think twice, sometimes, about whether I really want to bother with a negative review or just let it pass in silence. And conversely, if I can honestly praise a friend's book I'm more likely to make the effort to do so. But it doesn't change the content, and it only mildly moderates the tone -- I would in any case be part of a small world of genre folks who are seldom more than three degrees away in any direction, so whatever concerns I have about not making drama in our little shared sandbox predate my presence on LJ.

Who even knows how I'm going to handle it if I'm ever in a position to do so? Probably not as gracefully as I could. But first would come the tremendous squee of watching other people discuss my stuff as if it were a real book. I think I'd be loathe to interfere with that, not only for fear of becoming too defensive, but also because people talking to me about my stuff is an experience I've had through fanfic. People caring enough to talk to each other about it, that's more rare.

[winterknight.livejournal.com]

Randomly, were you at all relieved by the responses there were to the discussion of Melusine?

We need an obsessive-snobby writer's group, I think. Because I SO am one.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I was. I was, however, dissapointed in teh lack of detail people went into, and the lack of detail most of hte people who liked it went into. Perhaps I'm most annoyed that it's clearly the first of a trilogy, according Amazon, and we all sort of went into it not really knowing that. And while I understand breaking up longer books, more and more that's not done -- but I suppose it just wasn't good enough to sell a 1,000+ page volume and they figured the standards from readers in teh genre are mostly low and they'll just keep buying 'em as they get churned out. I will, out of curiosty probably complete the trilogy at some point, when I can get the other two (the third isn't out at all yet) in used paperback for a quarter.

[winterknight.livejournal.com]

I think part of it is that people aren't taught to read critically, and that's what a book club is for. As participants read the review/critiques of other, more experienced members, they develop the language and concepts necessary to read critically. My father, an English prof, studied this in regard to Oprah's Book Club, that women without any university education were learning a critical literary idiom and becoming critical themselves and expanding their reading/understanding independantly as a result of being in such a community.

As for the book, it's an example, to me, of the problems with modern publishing. First, it's very obvious that the author was not given the assistance of a talented editor. I get my editing done for free by a friend who is a professional textbook editor and former fiction editor and the small feedback I get from her would have cleared up many of the issues that were clumsy in Melusine. (I should be posting this in The Mollyhouse, and I may, possibly.) Also, it's my personal belief that a trilogy is no excuse not to have three reasonably independant books. The whole should improve on the experience but there is no reason why any book should be so unimpressive on its own. The structure requirements are the same for a paragraph and a chapter and a novel, it's almost hologrammatic, and so I don't see why any failures of a book can be in any way placed at the feet of the trilogy excuse.

That the reading standards are low is possibly more a function of the product being a low standard. There's a good book out there called 'Edit Yourself Into Print' that addresses the growing problem that publishing houses no longer assign authors an editor and many books are hitting the shelves on the sole basis of the first 30 pages (at best) with benefit only of the standard spelling and grammar checker in a word processor. We can and should do better as writers, and we should demand better as readers.

Man, I am blabbalicious today.

[rm.livejournal.com]

The publishing industry distresses me far more than the acting industry. Both seem to be as superficia and cruel, but only one (acting) strikes me as marginally justified in that. One of the reasons I stopped writing fiction for a long time was I didn't want to be part of teh race to get a novel out while I could still be marketed as an over-sexed under-30 crazy chick. And now that I am over-30, I'm just as scared of the paradigm.

[winterknight.livejournal.com]

I'm a state where I fully intend to write until I drop, but I am very, very leery of getting published. The whole nature of the beast has me thinking I will need to find an alternate source of income -- ironically, spurring my interest in film making. That's possibly because in Canada, one can make a living as a non-commercial film maker. :p

[rm.livejournal.com]

also, here's the thing, I can be a profoundly credulous and forgiving reader. Anne Rice may suck, but I derived value from those books and her early novels still have the power to charm me for reasons beyond mere nostalgia. I'll forgive sloppy (and a host of other things) if a writer can make heir sloppiness three dimensional.