Melodie Ramone
Reviews, Nuclear Physics and cashiers!
It is such a
common theme in our lives as writers. We got a bad review, it ruined our day.
We went into our writer’s group and vented. Our friends came to the rescue and
voted down the review. We felt better. And if we’ve got the skin it takes to
make it in this business, we jumped right back into Word and began a new
chapter in a new story.
I often wonder
why writers bother to read their reviews. I know that seems counter-intuitive,
but I rarely ever do and I’ll tell you why. It’s not that I don’t understand
that most of us spend hours upon hours, days upon days, working on
our stories.
What’s a story if nobody reads it? So, of course, we want to know what readers
thought. But what happens when they don’t like it? In a nutshell, it hurts like
crazy and anybody who writes has trouble exactly pinpointing why.
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Well, I can.
It’s because those words we wrote mean so much to us. It’s like being pregnant
for ten months while another organism inhabits your body and destroys you from
the inside, makes your brain shrink to the point where you are clinically
insane and then you spend weeks in hard labor only to end up with a c-section
where the editor rips the thing out of your guts and slaps it on its brand new,
pink bottom until it screams. It’s a relief to have it on sale, it’s a joy the
book’s been born, but, really, it’s been such a toil. You’re destroyed mentally
(sometimes physically depending on if you took the time to eat or sleep) and
you’re permanently scarred from the process. But the book’s yours. You created
it. You dress it in a lovely book cover that you also tormented yourself over
and bring it out into public, hoping that people will see the beauty of what
you have done. And then – WHAM! There’s the insensitive person who looks at it
and cries, “Holy heaven! What is THAT monstrosity! Kill it before it lays
eggs!”
It’s crushing.
The truth is we get too close. We get too attached to our work. We fall in love
with our characters (literally), we become fascinated with the scenery. We
become intertwined with the meaning inside the cover. We build a home in a
little fantasy world and there we escape our actuality. The story becomes our
happy place and the safety of going there after a long day of reality is
intoxicating. We look forward to it. We want to share it and we want people to
love it as much as we do. The practicality is, not everybody is going to and
that’s just not our fault.
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A bad review is
genuinely no reflection on a writer. It’s more a reflection on the reader.
Think of it this way. If we were at a dinner party and six of the seven guests
were Nuclear Physicists and the other was a cashier, the cashier probably
wouldn’t have a very good time. She’d either be intimidated, annoyed or bored
silly. She’d be left out of the conversation. If it was the opposite and the
Physicist was the odd man out, he’d probably pick the cashier’s conversation to
bits as trivial. Point being? Inviting either was a mistake. They didn’t
understand the conversation. The same goes for a book. We send an open
invitation for people to come to our party and find a place at our table. Not
everybody’s going to like what we serve. That’s not our fault. They just joined
the wrong gathering.
I see authors
all the time agonizing over what they think readers are going to like, actually
catering to an anticipation of what will be demanded. It’s an energy drain. Not
that one shouldn’t care what readers think, quite the opposite, but the trick
about that is to find the RIGHT readers. That’s where targeting an audience
comes in, which is a skill you gain along the way of mastering your marketing. Even
with all of that down to a science, there will always be a party crasher who
buys a book they shouldn’t have read and hates it. Occasionally, that person
will fire off a horrible review. It’s their opinion, they are entitled to it,
and it hurts to read it. But the truth is that you probably weren’t talking to
them to begin with. They came to your table, you didn’t directly invite them
and you certainly didn’t force your book on them. This being said, why should
you care what they think?
The best advice
I can give any author is to write what they want from their own heart and not
worry about what other people are going to say about it. There are many voices
out there. Some will think you are wonderful, others will hate what you do. Not
all of them are trolls. Some of them were just reading a book that’s wrong for
them. Again, their loss and not the author’s problem. If there are enough good
reviews,
authors who obsess over the bad ones are really only harming
themselves. They are there for balance and, honestly, in this business, balance
is a goal. It helps us improve. Distressing over every bad review is poison to
the joy of the writing process. We need to stay in the middle and do what we
do, regardless of the feedback. If we’re doing it right, we’ll land somewhere
near the center, maybe a little to the high side. All that reflects is that
people are buying your book and that is ALWAYS a good thing. The more that
read, the closer you should fall somewhere near the center.
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You own what you
write the way you own your children. You can only bring them to this world,
love them, put all you can into their formation, watch them grow strong and
send them out into the world with the faith that you have done all you could
and they have what it takes to make it in a big, messy, wonderful, topsy-turvy
universe. Beyond that, what people think of them is not up to you. Love the
stories anyway. Let the voices of those who don’t understand roll past. Write another
book with joy. Trust the process. Look for balance with enthusiasm and no matter
what comes your way, never give up. Your stories are yours and you are the only
one who can tell them. If somebody can’t relate, that’s fine. Somebody else
always will. You never need to worry about either, because both opinions will
be there should you choose to take a peek at your reviews. But keep in mind
that you certainly are never required to torture yourself. That is a choice you
make on your own and may be one of the only things in this business you
actually can control.
Notes:
Reviews for Melodie
Ramone’s work can be seen on Goodreads, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. She is currently in the editing process of
her upcoming novel 'Burning Down Rome', slated for release in autumn 2014. The image for 'Burning Down Rome' is only a placemarker and is not meant to represent the book's cover.
Bio:
"I'm a keeper of fuzzy critters, author, speaker and certified Kitchen Witch. When I'm not creating Culinary magic, I can usually be found writing stories, reading books, relentlessly tweeting, knitting or delving into fringe Physics. Super geek? Oh, yeah.
Bio:
"I'm a keeper of fuzzy critters, author, speaker and certified Kitchen Witch. When I'm not creating Culinary magic, I can usually be found writing stories, reading books, relentlessly tweeting, knitting or delving into fringe Physics. Super geek? Oh, yeah.
I'm obsessed with the Science of Physics, particularly Particle Physics, although in the last few years I am drawn more and more toward Astronomy. I’m fascinated with Outer Space and what’s going on out there. Hubble and the Mars Rovers have sparked a passion in me that goes back to the first time I saw Star Wars. And that was a long, long time ago. I’m a curious person by nature. I want to know everything about everything, I want to see it. I want to understand it so I can understand the origins of our universe. But, then again, I want to understand everything in general.
In short, I’m a happy person. I’m not perfect and I’m not entirely sane, but I don’t pretend to be. In the end, when I look back at my life I will see an amazing smear of color. All the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the strength and weakness that was me. I’ll see all I did and all I failed at. And I will sigh and I will say that I lived. I really, truly lived. I was real. I wrote books. And that, I think, will be good enough for me."
When Melodie is not writing, staring at the stars or conjuring in the kitchen, she can be contacted at:
Website: http://www.melodieramone.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Melodie_Ramone
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/melodie.ramone
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6540025.Melodie_Ramone
Thank you Melodie for a superb article which presents a refreshing look at the writer's relationship with the reviewer. Best wishes for 'Burning Down Rome'.
Eric @ www.ericjgates.com
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