writers and thick skins
Today I have words of encouragement for new writers.
The other day, I got a bad review for one of my books. I thought it was amusing and shared it with someone, expecting to elicit a laugh.
Instead, the reaction was more along the lines of “OMG are you okay?!?!?” and an expression of sympathy, which wasn’t what I thought would happen.
I thought it was funny!
But I sort of forgot that for most people, anonymous criticism over the Internet is an experience both novel and horrifying. But for me, I’ve been doing this for so long now it’s background noise, sort of like when someone across the street is mowing the lawn – vaguely irritating, but you sort of forget about it.
Every now and again you see a writer flipping out over a bad review on the Internet, and it’s usually the first bad review for their first novel. I understand, I really do – the first bad review always stings. I still remember the first bad review DEMONSOULED ever got.
But that was a long, long time and something like 100 novels ago. Since then I’ve been fortunate enough that my books have gotten thousands of reviews on several different sites, more than my brain could physically hold. So after the hundredth or the thousandth bad review, it sort of bounces off.
Writers are a bit like dragons – the older they get, the thicker and harder the scales become.
So, take heart! If you do this long enough, eventually the bad reviews sort of fail to make an impact to the point where people find it moderately off-putting. đŸ™‚
-JM
Don’t bad reviews affect sales? While I can see your (dragon) skin getting thicker relative to being personally upset at a bad review, even old dragons dislike having their piles of gold reduced.
It depends. If the first review is a bad one, it can hurt. Then again, bad reviews can help sell a book – if the bad review says, for instance “no explicit romance! Disappointing!” that would be a positive for people looking for a book with no explicit scenes.
I’ve payed for books based on bad reviews. What the reviewer saw as downsides were what I was after in a story. My main gripes with entertainers and story tellers start with plot holes, continuity and Mary Sue characters. Game of Thrones season 8 for example with plot holes. Rey from Starwars for Mary Sue. Just where is the character growth coming from? she is already good at everything.
I think GAME OF THRONES provided an excellent example of how not to end a long series, and I’m pretty sure STAR WARS EPISODE IX will provide a similar lesson later in the year.
GOT fell for the visuals. Cavalry charging with flaming swords? awesome visuals but insane tactics which made the experienced character warleaders look like novices. It could have been done, a young hothead disobeying orders. As for episode IX I’ll be giving it a miss.
If I ever get around to writing that nonfiction book about how to write a novel, GAME OF THRONES and the recent STAR WARS movies will make good examples of what not to do in terms of storytelling.