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Putting The Critics In Their Place
I once read that if you were a writer, it wasn't enough to just write. "You must publish what you write" was the given advice. I believe that's true and it's great advice. But when you do that, you have to know at least three things are going to happen: 1.) Someone will like your writing. 2.) Someone will dislike your writing. 3.) Someone won't care! If you allow all these reactions to make or break you, you'll be on an endless emotional roller coaster ride. You can smooth out the peaks and valleys, though, if you ask yourself a few questions.
Who is Saying it?
You may have heard the saying "consider the source". That's important when you're weighing any commentary on your work. In the case of teachers, editors or book reviewers, you want to be confident that the person is truly objective and knows what they're doing. If you're sure of them, you can take what they say, good and bad, and learn from them. These aren't people out to destroy you (usually!), so don't shoot the messenger.
Once people in the real world start buying and reading your work, you'll definitely hear about who loved it and who hated it. But pay close attention because there's more to it than a love-hate relationship. My first novel was packaged in such a way that it looked like an urban romance when in fact it is a complex family drama. I knew people who picked up the book expecting a light romance would be sorely disappointed--and that's exactly what happened when my novel was featured in a book-of-the-month club that specialized in selling urban romance. Many of their customers who bought my book hated it!
What Are They Saying?
If I had taken their criticism at face value, I would have felt like a failure. But all of the reader comments I saw on the club's website: "Too slow, boring, not enough se*x" told me they were expecting a different kind of book--and I didn't blame them! I would have been miffed too if I had expected "Valley of the Dolls" and ended up reading "War and Peace"! These readers were not in my target market, so the comments didn't upset me.
Readers in my target market gave different feedback. Yes, they liked the book, but that wasn't all: I could tell they had engaged with the book and had invested in the characters. Even comments about how frustrated they got with the main character were good because it meant they cared enough to be frustrated. If these readers had found the book slow and boring, I would have known for certain I had a problem.
Is it Consistent with What You Know of Your Work?
As a writer, you must know your own work well enough to help you decide what criticism makes sense and what doesn't. I've said before that I believe most writers know in their heart when something is wrong or if they're having problems with their material. If you know writing dialogue is difficult for you, there's no reason to be hurt or surprised when someone says your dialogue is weak or unbelieveable. So do an open and honest evaluation of what the reader and/or critic is saying. Then you can...
Make a Decision: What Will You Do?
No matter where your feedback is coming from, it will always be your decision whether or not you do anything with it. Sometimes feedback will open up new ideas and you're happy to rewrite based on those comments because you know the work will be better. Sometimes the book is already out there, and the feedback can only make you think about what you'll do differently next time. Or maybe you won't make a change at all. There's a particular scene in my novel that's so soap opera-ish it's almost ridiculous. But I knew that when I wrote it and I wanted it to be that way because I wanted to show how love can make people do crazy things. I wasn't going to change it.
But if I hadn't been clear on my intentions for the scene, I would have felt horrible everytime it was brought up in a book group's discussion. It was easier for me to stand up for my writing because I had been clear about what I was doing. So, for the sake of your writer's heart, be clear--all the better to see your way through to a better book.
© 2006 Sophfronia Scott
BONUS : Querying: One Authors Feedback On Tactical Issues
When I was functioning as that lowest of all life forms, the unpublished author, I benefited from established novelists willing to share their experiences. This article is intended to give something back, especially since my experience had some unexpected turns.
I quickly learned to prefer sending queries by snail mail. Yes, it is slower, expensive, and more work, but my perception is that paper queries are taken more seriously and less likely to be ignored. They are also harder to destroy than merely pushing a delete key.
Where I struck out on my own relative to what I was reading on the Internet was the volume and velocity of my campaign. I sent out more than 500 queries, each a customized package, in three months. I scrupulously abided by all guidelines listed for each agency or publisher except one. I did not abide by the industry's requirement of honoring exclusive reading policies of agencies who request it.
This is an unethical system that appears to have been deliberately rigged to unfairly favor publishers at the expense of writers. Although many publishers no longer ask for it, it is a disgraceful legacy that needs to be put out of its misery as soon as possible. Ignoring it in a massive way will do that. I do, however, think that, for now, writers should state clearly that they are making simultaneous queries.
Why such a massive, saturation bombing approach to querying? Well, life is short, and the more leads you put out, the greater the chance of a productive hit. I also needed it because I discovered that I was disadvantaged relative to many other authors. My novel, Coinage of Commitment, is a new kind of love story, one written of characters who love at a higher level than we see all around us. Plus it is fittingly written in a more emotionally vivid style than is currently fashionable.
Sales figures tell me this works well for readers, but it did not appeal to agencies who, I quickly discovered, are very conservative, extremely risk averse, and looking only for something they are used to or which has sold well in the past. Many have political or ideological agendas that bias their decision making. I never did come that close to landing an agent. Publishers were more sympathetic, more interested in literature for its own sake, but it was still a tough row to hoe.
The high volume approach to querying was decisive in my case because without it I would not have found the three royalty publishers who offered me contracts. Only after I had exhausted the list of addresses in print sources like Writer's Market, and those on subscription sites like http://Firstwriter.com, did I go to open sites like Predators & Editors. There I discovered a new class of royalty publisher not listed in the other sources. These are small outfits with low overheads, who use POD print technology (which is becoming widespread), and who do not accept returns.
Otherwise their books are carried by the leading distributors. This is a group of publishers who have sprung up in the last five years. Many of these folks seem to be in it more for the love of books and literature than the profit motive. I found them much more willing to consider something new, like what I was offering, and this is where I hit gold with my own project.
There are other related issues: how to progress as a writer and improve your manuscript while also trying to sell it; how to deal with independent editors when you feel your manuscript is not good enough; and how to deal with the shadier side of our industry during a query campaign. But that is for a future article.
When I was functioning as that lowest of all life forms, the unpublished author, I benefited from established novelists willing to share their experiences. This article is intended to give something back, especially since my experience had some unexpected turns.
I quickly learned to prefer sending queries by snail mail. Yes, it is slower, expensive, and more work, but my perception is that paper queries are taken more seriously and less likely to be ignored. They are also harder to destroy than merely pushing a delete key.
Where I struck out on my own relative to what I was reading on the Internet was the volume and velocity of my campaign. I sent out more than 500 queries, each a customized package, in three months. I scrupulously abided by all guidelines listed for each agency or publisher except one. I did not abide by the industry's requirement of honoring exclusive reading policies of agencies who request it.
This is an unethical system that appears to have been deliberately rigged to unfairly favor publishers at the expense of writers. Although many publishers no longer ask for it, it is a disgraceful legacy that needs to be put out of its misery as soon as possible. Ignoring it in a massive way will do that. I do, however, think that, for now, writers should state clearly that they are making simultaneous queries.
Why such a massive, saturation bombing approach to querying? Well, life is short, and the more leads you put out, the greater the chance of a productive hit. I also needed it because I discovered that I was disadvantaged relative to many other authors. My novel, Coinage of Commitment, is a new kind of love story, one written of characters who love at a higher level than we see all around us. Plus it is fittingly written in a more emotionally vivid style than is currently fashionable.
Sales figures tell me this works well for readers, but it did not appeal to agencies who, I quickly discovered, are very conservative, extremely risk averse, and looking only for something they are used to or which has sold well in the past. Many have political or ideological agendas that bias their decision making. I never did come that close to landing an agent. Publishers were more sympathetic, more interested in literature for its own sake, but it was still a tough row to hoe.
The high volume approach to querying was decisive in my case because without it I would not have found the three royalty publishers who offered me contracts. Only after I had exhausted the list of addresses in print sources like Writer's Market, and those on subscription sites like http://Firstwriter.com, did I go to open sites like Predators & Editors. There I discovered a new class of royalty publisher not listed in the other sources. These are small outfits with low overheads, who use POD print technology (which is becoming widespread), and who do not accept returns.
Otherwise their books are carried by the leading distributors. This is a group of publishers who have sprung up in the last five years. Many of these folks seem to be in it more for the love of books and literature than the profit motive. I found them much more willing to consider something new, like what I was offering, and this is where I hit gold with my own project.
There are other related issues: how to progress as a writer and improve your manuscript while also trying to sell it; how to deal with independent editors when you feel your manuscript is not good enough; and how to deal with the shadier side of our industry during a query campaign. But that is for a future article.
