By: Greer
Macallister
I like to give advice. While I don’t consider myself an
expert by any stretch, I’ve been writing a long time, and I think all writers
benefit from a community that shares information, support, expertise, and
suggestions. (And also wine, but that’s a lot harder to do online, as it
happens.)
And one of the things I tell people is this: Don’t read your
Goodreads reviews. People will say nasty things about your book. About your
writing. About you as a person, even though they don’t know you. So why bother?
You’ll be happier not mucking up your life with that kind of negativity, right?
Except for this: I do read my Goodreads reviews. Almost every
day. I’m a terrible hypocrite, and I thought it might be interesting to
explore why. (With a few examples straight from the site to help out,
because why not?)
The Magician’s Lie was captivating, to say the least. This
novel is a concoction of The Night Circus, Water for Elephants, a splash of
Downton Abbey, a pinch of American Horror Story: Freak Show, and a sprinkle of
The Hunger Games.
There’s nothing like unvarnished, straight up reader reviews
to remind you that every reader is different. Everyone sees what they want to
see. If you want to control what your readers experience, to tell them that a
certain character is intended to be a hero or a certain scene is meant to be
read ironically or they didn’t catch a clear reference to one of your
influences in Chapter Sixteen… well, publication is not for you. Once the book
is out there, it’s theirs. Period.
Unfortunately I was just bored the majority of the time.
Do negative
reviews push me to do better on my next book?
. . .
To read the rest of
the post, click here:
~*~
If you missed my latest writing
and marketing tweets, here they are again:
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