5 Reasons You Want Harsh Reviews: How to Take Negative Reviews (3 of 3)

Wait wait wait—you want harsh reviews? Harsh reviews?

Yes, you do. Even if you can't handle reading them. You want harsh reviews, be they earned, partially earned, or entirely unearned.

Ask me why. *waits*

Glad you asked. The reasons are fivefold:

1. Harsh reviews balance the effervescent ones. You know that gushing 5-star review from your MMO guildmate that you just know people are assuming came from your sister?** (Especially if you don't have a sister.) A harsh review provides a dissenting opinion, letting folks consider the feedback and decide what matters to them.
2. Harsh reviews help you nail your target audience. Oh, I'm sure you think you know who your target audience is, but there's nothing like a harsh review to make you realize that a particular type of person is not part of it. Or maybe that there's a disconnect between what you're writing and the audience you intended to reach.
3. Harsh reviews can help you grow as a writer. A harsh review can be like a highly critical critique partner, except the space constraints generally force the reviewer to focus more on big-picture issues than getting hung up on the details. Like any critique partner, the critic won't always be right; sometimes they'll attribute a problem to the wrong source, or they'll be entirely off-base about a problem. But sometimes they'll be spot-on.
4. Harsh reviews can strengthen you. I don't just mean as a writer; I've already addressed that. I mean as a person. Nobody likes accepting blame, but forcing yourself to evaluate negative feedback for the germs of truth that might be buried within it can help you handle mistakes you make in life, too.
5. Harsh reviews provide you with resource material. If you have the nerve to study them, even a troll can provide handy content for you to pull from the next time you need to make a complete donkey of a character. I honestly used to beg for flames when I was a teenager; they were so inspiring.

Now, I'm aware that some people are so depressed by a single harsh review that they'll mope and fret over it and possibly ruin their writing trying to make that single reviewer happy. Don't do that.

There's a secret to being able to handle harsh reviews: You can't make everyone happy.

Got that? You cannot and will not make everyone happy, even in your target audience.

A good friend and I have similar tastes in reading: we both like particular story types, genres, and plot elements. You would think that we share favorite authors.

We don't. In fact, we generally hate each other's favorite books. She loves Vicki Peterson; I prefer Patricia Briggs.

It's taken many attempts to read each others' favorite authors and more discussions on the matter for us to realize: We like different writing styles. On a technical level, something between Vicki Peterson and Patricia Briggs makes each of us love one and dislike the other. Both are fantasy authors who write snarky characters, subtle development, and great humor.

My friend isn't a writer. Okay, so she dabbles with writing, but she's actually an artist. Her paintings are gorgeous.

Imagine if we both were giving feedback to some poor writer. As soon as one of us was elated about a story, the other would go "Meh" or "Ulgh." That writer would have to pick and choose which pieces of our advice to listen to.

Remember: You will not please everyone. Don't try to.

Have you ever entered the "Please everyone" trap?

—Misti

**If you're reading this, Shallon, I do love getting your reviews. I just know that some folks don't take 'em seriously.

A Case Study on Earned Critique: How to Take Negative Reviews (2 of 3)

Some of y'all might remember my post on why I pulled my self-published short "Butterfly Boots". The long answer went into my exposure to fan fiction vignettes and international literature making me produce something that didn't fit my audience.

The short answer? I screwed up.

Now, I realize most of you haven't read "Butterfly Boots", but that shouldn't be necessary. My 2 critical reviewers kindly gave me permission to reproduce their reviews here.

This is a Real Story? July 13, 2011

[by Michael P. Gallagher]

I'm not really sure what this was, although I do know I was struggling to figure out what was going on while reading it - and when the ending came I mentally said, "huh?" This something really had no plot, no beginning, and no end. It's almost as if someone just cut and paste a section from something and slapped it into an eBook.

I found it ironic, and chuckled a little, at the end of the story: there is a brief snippet on the author and it says the author is described as a person that "...took her a while to figure out that `finish a story' thing." No kidding. Can I have my five minutes back?

As I type this review, this book is free in the Amazon Kindle store but that shouldn't make you want to try it - there are several hundred short stories for free right now (just type in "short story" as your search term in the Kindle store section of the Amazon website, and sort from lowest to highest price); most of them are pretty good. This one deserves a wide berth, free or not.

Well... the cover is pretty... July 15, 2011

[by Betty Dravis]

I like the cover and the title of this "little offering," so thought it would be a fun read, one that I could pass on to my granddaughter Melissa's mother to read to her. She loves butterflies and has some cute boots of her own.

I've been warned that some E-books are not up to industry standards and can slip between the cracks easily, but this is the first time I've encountered one. Well, I have seldom been so disappointed in a book. It actually doesn't make much sense, which is too bad because the germ of an interesting idea is here... It is just not developed; the dialogue is jerky, it has no structure, and the punctuation is definitely not up to par. :-(

I hate to look a gift horse in the face (since "Butterfly Boots" - a short story (Aleyi) (Tales from Aleyi) was one of the FREE Kindle offerings), but I simply can't give this a good rating. I'm sorry to be so critical, but I will be happy to read something else by Ms. Wolanski after she takes a few more writing courses. She does, indeed, have a good imagination. :-)

Reviewed by Betty Dravis, July 15, 2011
Author of E-book "1106 Grand Boulevard" and other books

Now, before anyone jumps in and calls these two "mean," remember what I said in my last post, about bluntness not necessarily being mean.

Looking into these reviewers, I find it interesting to note that they're both significantly older than I am. I doubt they read fan fiction, where vignettes are popular. In fact, just the complaints on the lack of structure told me that these two weren't familiar with the vignette form of writing. My first impulse was therefore to dismiss their critique, because "Butterfly Boots" was a vignette.

But, after letting the sting subside, I gave "Butterfly Boots" another hard look. Yes, it was exactly what I'd meant it to be. Yes, it was a vignette. Yes, vignettes aren't a standard literature form (in English, anyway).

…And I had set "Butterfly Boots" up everywhere as a short story. Not vignette. Short story.

That's like calling first person POV "stream of consciousness". Yes, there are come similarities, and yes, they're related, sort of—but they aren't the same thing. Not at all.

I had screwed up.

I faced a choice. I could repair all the blurbs and descriptions everywhere for "Butterfly Boots" and still frustrate those readers who don't know what a "vignette" is supposed to be. Or I could pull "Butterfly Boots" until I had something more significant to pair it with. As a vignette, it didn't make much sense if you weren't already familiar with the world of Aleyi.

So why on earth had I released it as a stand-alone, a free introduction to my world? I have no clue. I've done stupider things, but I like to think that most of them haven't been as public.

At any rate, I therefore decided to pull "Butterfly Boots" until I could stick it as a bonus with something more substantial. Some folks have expressed disappointment that it's no longer available.

Now, one line in Betty Dravis's review still does bother me: "The punctuation [in "Butterfly Boots"] is definitely not up to par." I follow the Chicago Manual of Style with one British modification that didn't show up in "Butterfly Boots"—but "Butterfly Boots" did use dialect. Professional opinions differ on how to punctuate dialect and how to use it properly.

It was tempting to privately grumble (after checking "Butterfly Boots" again) that someone obviously didn't understand proper apostrophe use with dialect. And while that might be the case, something else occurred to me: I like em dashes and ellipses.

It used to be that those symbols (and accented letters) only showed up properly online if you happened to use the HTML code that matched that special character. OtherwiseÀyour symbols got all messed up.

But web applications have improved in the past 5 years. I'd gotten lazy. I'd left the special characters in "Butterfly Boots", so it's possible that they'd messed up and caused Miss Betty's comment. Possible. That's something I can try to fix with some basic use of TextWrangler and the Find… Replace function.

So I earned those critical comments. I also suspect that some folks will consider me "unprofessional" for sharing this story.

I say "Tough." Negative reviews don't have to crush your soul. Take a deep breath and see if you can learn something from it. It may not be what the reviewer intended, but there's a lesson in that review if you care to learn it.

The line between "professional" and "unprofessional" behavior has always confused me, anyway… probably because opinions differ on where that line is…

Post 3 to come: Why you want harsh reviews.

Have you earned a critical review? How did you handle it?

—Misti

Attitude and Negative Reviews: How to Take Negative Reviews (1 of 3)

When I first started writing online, it was fan fiction, most of it in the Star Wars section on FanFiction.net. I was MistiWhitesun for quite some time, and I was a bit notorious for being "rude and a little mean".

Not that I intended to come across that way. But I didn't mind receiving forthright critical reviews, so I gave them, too. After my feedback left an in-person friend offended and hurt, I approached her to figure out why she was upset. I realized:

1. Most folks don't see 100% negative feedback as an implied positive. Me, I knew how much time that took to create, so I knew the critic had to see something worthwhile if they bothered to spend their time reviewing.
2. Folks take negatives better if you couch them between positives. Open with a positive, put the negative in the middle, and close with a positive.

Yes, I actually had to learn that. I'm from the North (of the US), a region that's renowned for being blunt. If someone doesn't like you, they're mean to your face. They aren't all sweet to your face before they backstab you with gossip later. (Yeah, I live in the South(east), now. Talk about culture shock.)

So when folks told me point-blank that a story sucked, I was more inclined to take it as honesty (as they saw it) than meanness.

I have a point to this rambling. A lot of advice online says "Don't read the negative reviews" and "If you must read them, don't reply—and definitely don't agree."

But here's the thing. Negative reviews can be anywhere. Even if you actively try to avoid them, someone will helpfully send you a link to a lackluster review. Someone will send a poorly-formatted rant into your inbox. Your fans may comment on your social media site about this terrible review that they lambasted.

You'll get negative reviews. You'll see some of them, whether you want to or not. So why not learn from them?

Think of negative reviewers as critique partners in a writing group. Some will be wrong. Some will misidentify a problem. And some will be spot on.

What if someone reads your short story and is squicked by the characters who are cousins and lovers? In some regions, that situation doesn't bat an eye. In others, it's legally incest. (And no, the Bible does not have any regulations against first cousins marrying; I mention that because some folks assume it does.)

A reader might be so grossed out by the cousin-lovers that they can't enjoy anything about the story and leave a 1-star review. They may harp on the (presumed) illegality of the relationship. They may call you a pervert and say all sorts of unnecessary things that makes your blood boil.

But what's the actual problem? They can't handle the cousin-lovers. That is not your fault.

I fail to see what's wrong about replying to that person to say "I'm sorry that those characters disgusted you so much. Just so you know, sexual relations between cousins of the first degree is legally permissible in the state of South Carolina." That way, someone else who reads the review gets both sides of the issue.

Now, what if a reader sometimes couldn't keep track of who was speaking? The reader gives the story a 1-star review, saying you don't know how to write, need to take some classes, etc.

A retort "I DO know how to write! I've written professionally for years!" wouldn't help matters. Their opinion of your writing ability isn't the problem. The problem is that one of you wasn't paying attention: either the reader missed some speech transitions, or you didn't put them in. That could be your fault.

So take another look. Maybe the reviewer is way off-base, or not your target audience—or maybe you did screw up the speech transitions. There's even a line in Black Beauty where the wrong name was attributed to the speaker in a conversation. Confused the heck out of me when I was in grade school, until I figured out what had happened.

And then there are the 1-star reviews that complain that the story was a complete waste of time. Those bite, and I've gotten two of them. (I also earned those, and we'll get into why in my next post.)

But consider: What makes someone consider something a waste of time?

When what they get doesn't match what they were expecting. And that, folks, likely is your fault. You (or your publisher) screwed up. The cover, the description, the blurb, the excerpt—something mislead the reader. The reader feels cheated, and you've wasted their time. The chances of them intentionally reading anything else you ever write are slim.

Are there exceptions? Certainly. I know some folks were furious upon getting a graphic novel when they ordered Homecoming by Patricia Briggs, even though it was clearly marked and marketed as a graphic novel. That was their fault, not the author's or publisher's.

Then there are the hateful trolling reviews that are just someone's attempt to tear you down to make themselves feel better, but we'll get into how to approach those in post 3.

Do you read your negative reviews? Why or why not? Do you respond?

—Misti