Reviews, critiques and objectivity

Was just reading a blog about the Amazon review process and its make or break influence.  It’s unfortunately true that a bad review in the early stages can do great harm to the success of a book.  Whilst it would be nice to think everyone might consider this when posting a review, we haven’t yet reached Utopia and everyone is not going to rate more highly than they’re first inclined out of sympathy.

What rattles me about Amazon reviews is the helpful and unhelpful rating scheme attached.  Now, from my perspective a review is helpful if it presents the reading experience of the reviewer.  However, many people will rate a review as unhelpful simply because they also have read the book and don’t agree with what you felt about it.  A die-hard fan will rate you unhelpful if you rate 4 stars and say it lacked a certain spark but was otherwise great.  Where is the room for objectivity in writing a review in that case?

A review needs to be objective.  It needs to describe your experience of a book and nothing more.  A review is neither a synopsis or a critique.  Synopsis is for the author and/or publisher; critique is for the literary circle meeting or the classroom, maybe some broadsheet literary pages.  In a review, by all means say whether the language was brilliantly poetic and maybe give one example, but do not write an essay about it.

But how do you retain objectivity when you’re conscious of helpful and unhelpful ratings on your opinion?  Well the simple way to look at it is this.  If it would stick in your throat to say it to the face of the author, don’t write it.  If 4 stars makes you swallow your pride, don’t rate it.  As much as I might be hurting my own future ratings by encouraging honesty, I see no point in dishonesty.

Amazon have huge power over the self-publishing world.  But who has power over the quality of what we Indie authors put out there?  The reader.  It’s now up to the readers to ensure the good books thrive and the bad ones wilt.  The reader must enable the cream to rise to the top.

Now, am I that confident about my own writing?  Of course not.  No-one is.  It’s a simple fact for me though that if I write something and publish it, the reviews should tell me whether I’ve hit the mark or not.  I should read reviews and see what readers like and dislike about my work, take it all onboard whether positive or negative and use it to my advantage for future work.  If you walked into a door and everyone laughed but it didn’t hurt, you’d keep on walking into doors for the comedic value without realising you were slowly destroying yourself.  Feedback in any respect is a gift that we can’t afford to dissuade anyone from giving.  It might hurt sometimes, but how can we avoid the same mistake in future if it doesn’t?

So write your reviews, give your star ratings and if you’ve been completely honest, you’ve done it right.  If you choose to bear in mind the harm a three stars or below rating might do to an author, then you have an altruistic heart and you’re very kind, but have you been honest?  A little white lie can do as much harm as a hurtful truth because you’re withholding the means for someone to become better.

Be objective.  No two people read the same book, so they say.  Your experience will of course be subjective in that respect.  But your review should have no agenda other than to share your experience and that is wholly objective.  That then, is my objective take on the subject!

Step it up there!

Oh my, it's July 2nd already and time is ticking by fast.  Set myself a deadline of the end of this month to get Inkredible ready for beta reading and since I did that, I swear the seconds halved in length.

First advance beta sections went out last week and feedback was fantastic, so feel pretty good about what I have written.  It's the bits I haven't written that bother me.  So much more to do and available hours are hugely reduced starting Wednesday.

In about six weeks, my writing hours go down to two or three a day in which time I also need to eat, keep house and theoretically rest as well.

So why are you wasting time blogging, Miss McHugh?  Well because I've been so focused on writing I haven't done any writing about writing and I can't let everyone think I just gave it all up now, can I?

Favourite line from this morning's burst of activity: "Let’s just say I have a hunch, Wilkes, and it’s not the weight of this coat." William Walker, out on site and bundled up against the cold.

Back to it while I'm on a roll!

Well that's a relief!

"Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia" E L Doctorow

I did wonder whether it was safe to admit that I hear my characters talking in my head and assume their personalities when I write them.  I suppose it's all about how you actually say it!

I was in a little shop in Whitby (yes, the Whitby, it's not far from where I live really) and someone asked what I was getting.  I replied "thtuff" in a deep, dopey but enthusiastic voice.  The woman behind the counter heard and looked at me strangely.  I looked at her, grinned and said "sorry, that's just the dog's voice in my head".  Silence, tumbleweed, was that the sound of ambulance sirens?

What I should have said was "that's the way I imagine my dog would talk if she could" but no, I had to make myself sound as unhinged as possible.  I paid and left quite quickly then waited until I was a distance from the shop before howling with laughter.

I do attribute voices to characters as I imagine them.  My dog was actually the smartest dog I've ever met and an incredible judge of character.  I really wish I'd listened to her about the builder - she was right!  To my mind her voice was quite deep because her bark was big and she spoke bluntly and with an innocence that made her sound quite dopey.  She also had a lisp.  No creature with a tongue that could lick your face at fifty paces could fail to have a lisp.  She therefore liked thocks and thoap and thponges and thtuff.  It became a common thing among friends and family to refer to thtuff in the dog's imaginary speaking voice.  It was perfectly acceptable for me to say that to a complete stranger "it's just the dog's voice in my head".  Only it wasn't really acceptable, was it?!

I'm laughing just thinking about the Whitby incident.  It sprang to mind the minute I read this quote.  As a writer I create characters in every detail inside my head and then project them onto the page.  They have conversations in my head (not with me, with each other).  That may well tap in to the same areas of the brain that conjure up voices to the schizophrenic.  It might be schizophrenia itself safely channelled.

I admit I'm neurotic, I admit sometimes even mildly psychotic (in a non-violent think it but don't do it sort of way).  The difference between me and the person that looks at me funny is that I don't try to pretend that my brain does nothing unusual.  I write it all down, call it my art, and no-one bats an eyelid.  I say it to someone and that makes me weird, maybe slightly dangerous, definitely to be watched, possibly even sedated.

Where is the line drawn between schizophrenic and creative?  If a schizophrenic were given the means to write would they create the most amazing characters ever written?  If they'd written all their lives, would the characters have stayed on the paper instead of usurping the mind of the creator?

This quote means so much to me on so many levels.  I can laugh at myself and understand why people might give me a wide berth when I come out with things like the dog's voice in my head.  I bet those same people do very little in their lives that's creative and passionately so.  Food for thought.  I wonder what the dog would have said?