On Criticism

With the release of Michael has come a storm of reviews, all this past week. Michael garnered two five-star reviews, Airel took down one of those plus a couple of one-star scorchers, and I’ve heard back from various people and fans through unofficial channels on some of my other works, like K: [phantasmagoria]. All of it has combined into a critical wave that has given cause for pause. I took a walk last night, reflecting on all of it.

I want to touch on the subject of Bad Reviews here. It’s something all published authors have to deal with, and it’s something arguably made worse by technology—anyone and everyone that wants to can leave poisonous black barbs in the creative part of the author’s heart, and at a whim. I’ve seen quite a lot of it. One of my favorites was a young lady’s one-star review that must have been ten paragraphs long, poorly written natch, at the end of which she basically said she was on her period in finals week so she probably shouldn’t be writing reviews while she’s in a bad mood and isn’t it funny, lol! Yeah well. Pardon me for not laughing. And perhaps I used the term “lady” too loosely. I’ll leave that to you to judge.

I’m not bitching. That’s first. I’m not. I can take the bad with the good. I have to. And while I wish there weren’t so much bad and so much eagerness on the part of readers (or jealous authors?) to launch it at me and others like me, I have a right to say something about those bad reviews. For my fellow author, I have a responsibility to address the elephant in the room, because nobody tells you how to deal with bad criticism when you’re setting out on your journey. Too often, we authors set out on that journey with rose-colored glasses anyway, only to have them ripped from our faces at various points as cold reality shoulders its way into our lives.

Here’s the thing: I know I still have a lot to learn about writing. Perhaps some of my one-star reviewers think I’m haughtily earning millions as I scourge the market with tepid mass market drivel. “Get an editor!” they say, not realizing that I devoted more than two years of my life to the project, not realizing that me and my family made sacrifices to be able to afford the $4k+ bill our incredible editor sent us. It was all worth it, by the way. My critics may not realize that I sat at book signings skimming the print version of the First Edition, finding errors, resolving to go back through and find them and fix them for the Second Edition, which is already on sale. Perhaps my more disaffected reviewers are just pissed that I’m able to make a living as a writer, full time. Maybe they’re jealous, though I can’t imagine why. Truthfully. I’ve seen my life. It’s not ready for prime time. I’m not going to be featured on MTV Cribs anytime soon.

Nevertheless, I’m in a bit of a storm here, and I’m trying to figure out what makes the one-star critic tick. Let’s play devil’s advocate for a sec: Usually, at least on Amazon, for some magical reason all the five-star reviews are some kind of conspiracy against True Art. In other words, they’re meaningless because obviously, the author has a huge network of minions who do his bidding in regard to reviews. This gang of indiscriminate five-star reviewing superfriends boasts perfect Tom Selleck moustaches, you can bet, and they are well supplied with three dollar bills by us rich author types, so that they can buy our eBooks again and again and again, thus sending our crummy unworthy books up the rankings undeservedly. Anyway, if all this were true, and the five-star review should be ignored because it’s so obviously skewed, then all one-star reviews ought to share the same fate. Hell, we learned about bell curves and means and medians in junior high, for crying out loud. Why not apply it here.

There’s been a lot of assumption in our culture, too, about what “Mainstream” is. On the conservative side, there has been name calling. Conservatives label the traditional powers in the press the MSM, or Main Stream Media, but that’s a misnomer. NBC and CNN aren’t mainstream. Hollywood tree huggers aren’t mainstream. Eco-terrorists aren’t mainstream, and “artists” who defecate into jars and then display it in galleries aren’t mainstream. What’s mainstream in America is by and large a Biblical sense of morality, a Christian outlook on how the world should work.

As that relates to our stories, that means we like the kinds of books and movies where the bad guy loses and the good guy gets the girl. Why do you think Princess Bride is a classic? Because that’s what most people want. The best criticism I got about Airel this year was this: “A good light read.” Why? Because it means I’m on target to reach the largest audience, giving me the best chance for success and giving my art the widest distribution. Some people resent that. Some people possess a morality that goads them on to fight against the actual mainstream; they resent most of us as backward, rednecks, gun-toters, religious nut jobs, evil conservatives, or just plain old intolerant and uneducated idiots. But I think it’s plain to see who’s really intolerant.

Their kind of morality demands that they fight in shrill tones against any mention of God, any writing about Biblical scripture without some kind of apology or prequalification. Their view of true art is exclusive, it must be edgy, it must be “realistic” (i.e. hopeless and self-serving), it must contain ever more gratuitous sex, foul language, denigration of women, attacks on traditional values, and it must be a crutch to ever more extreme splinter groups and radical factions of our society—in short, they don’t believe all of us were created equal, their morality insists that we be forced to be equal. My writing is decidedly outside that mold.

I think that could be one reason why I must suffer the attack of the one-star review from time to time.

But what else might have filled my one-star reviewers with such angst, God love them? Allow me to posit another theory, based on how most of these are composed, because probably about 80% of all one-star reviews are filled with spelling and grammar errors. I submit to you the idea that they’re not themselves authors, or even writers. How many critics of literature have historically been writers? How many food critics are chefs? How many motorjournalists, who eagerly criticize the iron they test drive, have ever worked the manufacturing lines, have ever set foot in a design studio, are able to engineer a car? I think it’s reasonable to say that it’s easy for a connoisseur of food to criticize the chef, especially when he doesn’t know how to cook the dish. I’m not trying to insult you, one-star critic, but I think it’s a fair question to ask: have you ever written and published a book? If not, do you think it’s intellectually honest for you to ask again and again, “Howe does this carp git pulbished?” I think it’s a question that begs an answer.

All my books have errors in them. I am trying to find them all, but it’s difficult to ferret them out from the hundreds of thousands of words in which they’re buried. For example, I just read Rainbow Six, by Tom Clancy this past week, and I found errors in it. I found turns of phrase that I would never use. I came across bits of writing that struck me as awkward, but I loved the book. I realized that it took Clancy probably a couple of years to put that one together. Lots of people had their hands on it, trying to make it all work right. It does. All that work, and I digested all 738 pages in a week, easily. It’s striking to the point of filling me with reverence for the man. And though my tastes as a writer are different than his, I won’t be blasting him with a one-star review on it. No way.

I have to admit something. If I’m hurt by one- and two-star reviews on my own work, I should be more careful criticizing others’ artistic expressions. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I should be more careful. If I’m standing before a work that doesn’t speak to me, that doesn’t mean the work is crap. It just means it doesn’t’ speak to me. I should move on. It may not be a case of bad art. It may be a case of bad taste. Or at the least, missed opportunity.

I humbly state here that I am not finished. I am still learning how to write. I love that I have loyal fans, I love that there are people out there who get what I’m trying to do, that I’m able to connect with somebody through my art. I know I won’t be able to connect with everyone. My art won’t speak to all to read it. Some won’t get it. Others will be repulsed by it. The reaction will be different every time. But what momma taught you, or should have taught you, about not saying anything if you can’t say something nice, holds true here. If you’ve got a negative reaction to the work, don’t hold the worker responsible for your reaction. A truly free society needs no police.

In the end, I write because I choose to, and I write about what I want to write about. And how. I take all the risks on publishing it, too, knowing full well that I will bear the wounds of the critic’s arrows. I could hide my work under a rock, but I don’t want to. I want to share it. I have to give some weight to the criticism I receive, but I also know what I’m trying to do here. If I were swayed by these breezes, I wouldn’t be worthy of the mantle God gave me. There’s probably nothing worse than a man who abdicates his life’s pursuits to the whims of popular sentiment. Bill Clinton was that kind of president. I’m not that kind of man.

So, to my fans: fear not. I will continue to write what you love. I will continue to learn my craft and hone excellence into all that I do. Thank you for your undying support.

And to my critics: I humbly thank you for your input. You’re entitled to your one-star opinions. All I ask of you is that you remember and consider, as you criticize me, that I’m an artist who takes my work seriously, who labors over it, who tries to make it as good as I can, not only for my fans, but also for little ol’ me. As such, please consider how you’d feel if someone said those things about your work. If you indeed have any work. If you do, please feel free to send me the links to it, so I can read it in turn, and give you my unsolicited opinion on it. I do believe that’s what would be considered “fair.”

The Incorporate Editor

Good editors don't tread on you or your sacred process.

To be incorporate is to be united or mixed, not having a material body. That’s what, lately, I have realized is the best role an editor can have with his client. The idea is of an invisible influence upon the hand of the writer in the sense that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole, that editor and writer work as one, to singular purpose.

It’s fascinating to me to be able to continue to learn as life goes on. I have a passion for it, though I never was really a good student in the classroom—too many questions on too many divergent rabbit trails—but a life lived contends against the most forcible teacher known, and one doesn’t go far without learning something.

And sometimes it comes in degrees, like it did for me just the other day. It wasn’t an epiphany, just a realization. Finishing up a rather large editing project, I realized how integral to the process of publishing and writing an editor really is. This isn’t to glorify the editor, either. It’s just to say that certain things that happen in life are archetypal, like the truth that two heads are better than one, that we cannot achieve excellence without sharing our ideas with people who can help us develop them into something beyond us; something transcendent, something that’s only producible by more than one person.

This is why so many writers fail before they start: because they miss that connection with a competent editor. Their work is passable as-is, but it’s not exemplary. And so many writers want the logical end that their hard work can provide (if done well), but they don’t perceive the steps that will take them there, ending up instead on a siding somewhere out of the way of any chance of real success. The author writes the book, but the editor tunes the writing in the same way that the cover artist tunes its marketability and mass appeal.

Look at writing then as a team sport, or as an artist laying down tracks in the studio for a new record. There’s a production team working hard behind every writer with a finished book. Far from being segregate or abstract, the editor is integral to the production process—when things are working correctly—and he performs his job with confidence and boldness, deleting, adding, correcting, making suggestions, asking questions, finding holes in the plot, wondering why characters are doing or not doing certain things, and on and on. And if the editor finds flaws, Dear Writer, rejoice. Even guys like James Patterson can’t do what they do without theirs.

This business of ‘self-editing’ is a bit risky. We’re meant to share our work with people who can make it better alongside us. For a writer to miss his connection with a good editor is a shame. His work won’t ever be what it could be…what it should be. Writers: a good editor is far more important than a publisher. If the effort writers exerted on shopping their manuscripts to publishers was instead used on vetting a competent editor, I personally believe things would be different for lots of us. Unfortunately the world is upside down.

How to Be a Good Writer, Part 8: Publishing

Real power.

My good friend Aaron Patterson recently posted up a comment on Facebook about this: what’s it take to sell your book (basically)? I mean, some of us are selling and some of are not, and it’s not as if it’s cut and dried that the nonsellers are shitty writers. Pardon me, but come on. And there’s plenty of hot-selling total crapola out there. So it’s not simple.

Adding to the complexity is the free market, which I adore. The rise of the eBook confounds the Big Six publishers today just the same way Napster and iTunes changed just about everything in regard to the music business about ten years ago. Well…when I say everything…the point is that Bob Dylan was right about how times change, but only insofar as they don’t really, which was King Solomon’s counterbalancing bit of sagacity.

Aaron and I secretly agree that for the business-minded author, the entrepreneurial, the indie author, pssst, there’s really no need for a publisher. The dirty little secret is that the Big Six will expect you to work just as hard for them as if you were going it alone, and in exchange for that gigantic favor they will be taking about 85% of the pot, thanks. At least. I personally don’t want to shove against that wall. Someone else can shove it, if you get my meaning.

The facts, therefore, have been distilled down to these: editing, cover design, publishing, and marketing strategy. Those are the things that matter most, and the things that any competent publisher (even if he’s just a one-man operation, i.e. an indie writer) will spend the bucks on. Let’s have a look at ‘em one at a time.

Editing is the process, often painful, whereby you as the author pay large amounts of cash so that your work can be pulled apart by someone wiser than thou. It’s also so that you can be emotionally abused about it. A good editor will do that so nicely that you’ll catch yourself saying, “Thank you, sir, may I have another.” Remember that editing isn’t just spelling and grammar; it’s content, the creative bits, pacing, character development, plot, and so on. It’s my personal opinion that the best editors are a one-stop shop. Spelling and grammar are fixed pretty well by Word itself. Anyway, editors who only do spelling and grammar are often called proofreaders, not editors.

Cover design is something at which I suck. Just being honest. So few authors are double-edged swords, able to produce literary and graphic excellence. I recently posted on Facebook a cover I did for my upcoming novella The Marsburg Diary, alongside another cover that was professionally done, and asked people to vote. It was something on the order of 20:1 against mine. Not to say that I can’t learn eventually, but for now, I’ll be leaving it to the professionals. I’d counsel you to do the same. It’s almost impossible to spend too much on a good cover. Don’t be afraid to “focus group” it with your friends, either.

Publishing just means that you’re taking your work public. That’s all. And right now one of the best ways to do that is to convert your Word .docx (or .doc, if you’re Vincent Zandri) to Amazon’s eBook format. There are rumblings that Kindle devices will soon open and read any eBook file format, by the way. And guess what. Once you pay for the file conversion, there’s no more overhead, really, and Amazon pays out 70% royalties on eBooks, provided you’re within a certain price envelope.

But what of marketing strategy? What about print? What about eBooks? This is such a loaded subject that I think it might be best to broach it in a separate blog. There’s so many opinions on it. But you’ve got to know that all the work you’ve done before this point will rot like something nasty on the underside of a café table if you’ve not got a marketing plan, and a good one. Also bear in mind that, hello, technology, love it or hate it, is a very important part of how well you’ll do as far as sales are concerned. It’s my opinion, and Aaron will probably back me up on this, that social media is still a large part of the best marketing plans for eBooks, and rightly so. Until the sea changes again, Facebook and Twitter are necessary evils at worst, and powerful tools at best.

Look, folks, the marketplace is changing everyday. It’s been that way ever since uncle Abu was hawking fish in the square in Mesopotamia and keeping the accounting ledger in Cuneiform. I love to write. In order to keep doing that, I have to sell the books I produce. While it’s not rocket science, there are certain requisites. I hope this longish post helped to illustrate some of those, and that you’ll be applying some of these tips to your own journey as a professional. Look alive; it’s a wonderful time to be a creator and artist.

How to Be a Good Writer, Part 4

Let’s talk about attitude. As in, “I’m a professional creator and I couldn’t care less about the business aspects of my career.” Or, “You publisher-type people ought to know how lucky you are to be talking to me.” And there’s, “Editing is for amateurs. Don’t you dare critique me.” As acquisitions editor for an indie publisher, I can tell you for a fact that whenever I run across even a hint of this kind of sentiment my finger hovers precariously over the delete key.

It’s not professional. It’s not even realistic. And I daresay, if you suffer from this kind of thinking and yet persist in calling yourself a writer, perhaps you should consider getting in touch with reality. And a vocational change. To something in government. Tyrants and thieves are peas in a pod.

Right. On with it then. We know what’s not productive. The question is, how do we purge this blackness from our minds and professional careers? I don’t think successful people set out daily with the intent to cause as much pain and suffering as possible everywhere they go. Quite the opposite, in fact. But after writing your one-hundredth query letter, after you reach your one year anniversary for your blog and still have only two followers, after you have attempted to sit down and write that sticky part of your current project once more—only to be interrupted yet again—it’s difficult to remain optimistic about much of anything, let alone remain professional.

Once thing you can do is exercise your second amendment right to keep and bear arms and take up a new hobby—obliterating old milk jugs at close range. If you’ve got a twelve gauge I recommend rifled slugs and rotten produce. Downrange effects with that combination are like an all-Taco Bell diet: explosive. The point of it is to blow off a little steam whenever necessary.

Once you’ve done that and you’re feeling better both about yourself and your (indispensible) work, what then? I strongly recommend a group setting that is both supportive and honest. Join up with fellow writers who are actively writing, who are unafraid to read their work for critique and are eager to return that courtesy to you. Professionals are not defined by their salaries in any given field. Professionals are, at least in part, defined by their bearing and comportment, their civilized kindnesses. What you’re looking for then is fellowship.

My old 1890 Webster’s unabridged dictionary defines fellowship as “partnership in act or suffering, profit, success, or loss.” Well, that’s one of the definitions. My point is to assert that in order to be a successful writer you’ve got to have a good attitude—and the best way to have that is to surround yourself with quality, like-minded people.

Next week we’ll talk about investments, plus a little dry mechanical nuts and bolts action. Until then, writers, write boldly.