aaaaaand... delayed author reaction!
7 Apr 2010 12:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouI probably shouldn't find this so amusing, but I do. Okay, I take that back. I have every right to find this amusing.
On September 29TH, 2007 -- did you miss that? we're talking almost three years ago -- I posted a novel critique: for those times when wiki just ain't enough. It's linked over on the sidebar (on my DW layout) because it remains a fond favorite for no reason other than how the story is an absolute wealth of amusement on all the ways exoticization -- of another culture and of the inscrutable homosexual -- can lead you wrong, though when writing the review I was too busy being amused in general to bother with the fancy words for the philosophical side of things.
Tonight, I got this anonymous reply. Not only did I write this post thirty-one months ago, it was also on a different journal-site, and before I changed to my current username, even! I mean, hell, that's positively ancient, in internet time.
No, sweetie, I sound like someone absolutely enthralled with the trainwreck of a story I'd read, and glorying in all the ways the story was so terribly, atrociously, hysterically, inaccurate. (Unless, of course, Ms Not Entirely Anonymous really does mean to direct her comment to the other reviewer who'd replied to my post, which makes no sense seeing how the reviewer wasn't on LJ thus had to sign it anonymously, and thus will probably never even see this reply.)
I bring this up so we can all use it as an object lesson: when you are published, DO NOT RESPOND TO NEGATIVE REVIEWS. You're just asking for it. Really. All you're gonna get is a whole lotta people laughing at you. They're already laughing at you thanks to the negative review -- this happens to all of us, face it, it's a rite of passage or a flaming hoop for publishing anything anywhere -- but now your little tantrum is only going to add fuel to the fire.
(Exception: if you can manage humor, preferably at yourself, then go right ahead and respond to negative reviews! See one witty response to low-grade reviews on SBTB for example of how to do it right.)
But an equally important reason to remain silent on negative reviews is because the only thing you achieve by answering is drawing more attention to the negative review.
Frankly, I'd mostly forgotten about the review, and the book, for that matter. But this sudden defensive reaction has me not just going back and rereading to figure out what post is getting this comment -- it's now got me mentioning it as a point of humor to an entire circle of readers who weren't even around when I first posted that review. That's right! Reminding me of the review gets the result of me in turn reminding readers who'd seen it, and linking to it for the benefit of all the folks on my dwircle and flist, not to mention on my network and foaf-pages! It's like exponential reminder badness!
Being an author -- in terms of one's interaction with the public -- is a lot like being a cat, I've figured out. When you forget yourself for a moment (or for an entire book) and do the equivalent of raising your leg to lick your own ass and then promptly fall off the sofa, you do not pop up with fur flying to hiss at the humans laughing at you. No, a public-skilled author is like a cat, barely a ruffle and at most an attitude of, I meant to do that. Perhaps a bit of self-grooming just to look like the cat, err, author is simply Too Busy to deign to react to the silly humans' reactions, and then a calm and self-possessed stroll from the room, tail in air. No words are needed for the cat to make it clear that We Will Never Discuss This Again.
The authors I respect as professionals, that's pretty much how they react to negative reviews, at least publicly: they don't give those reviews the time of day, because doing so is only guaranteed to make the humans laugh even harder.
Let this be a lesson to you, kids. Don't go replying to negative reviews -- and if you do, keep in mind that taking three years to get around to (a) discovering the review and (b) getting all self-righteous is only going to lead to (c) a bunch of folks rediscovering the fun all over again. Which, I would hope, is not the author's intended outcome.
[I especially like the part about "try and write a mystery novel"... because I have, and I find it a lot easier if you write it without excessive references to wispy hair. What kind of hair, you ask? Why, just read the review to find out!]
ETA: and another response, in comments, scroll down to enjoy. *rolls eyes*
ETA 2: please remember to sign your comment if you're replying anon... well, unless it's really obvious who you are. And I mean really obvious.
On September 29TH, 2007 -- did you miss that? we're talking almost three years ago -- I posted a novel critique: for those times when wiki just ain't enough. It's linked over on the sidebar (on my DW layout) because it remains a fond favorite for no reason other than how the story is an absolute wealth of amusement on all the ways exoticization -- of another culture and of the inscrutable homosexual -- can lead you wrong, though when writing the review I was too busy being amused in general to bother with the fancy words for the philosophical side of things.
Tonight, I got this anonymous reply. Not only did I write this post thirty-one months ago, it was also on a different journal-site, and before I changed to my current username, even! I mean, hell, that's positively ancient, in internet time.
DATE: 2010-04-07 12:09 AM (LOCAL)
From: (Anonymous) IP Address: (65.8.149.146)
I get it. You hated the book. There were many inaccuracies. First of all, I did a shitload of research and not just wikipedia. Second it was only my second m/m and first mystery ever written. Three years later I would pull the book and rework it to be more correct but I'm not in a position to do that. Third, if you've never tried writing a mystery novel, try it and see how hard it is and then maybe you'll cut a writer a bit more slack. You sound like a raving anal-retentive lunatic!
No, sweetie, I sound like someone absolutely enthralled with the trainwreck of a story I'd read, and glorying in all the ways the story was so terribly, atrociously, hysterically, inaccurate. (Unless, of course, Ms Not Entirely Anonymous really does mean to direct her comment to the other reviewer who'd replied to my post, which makes no sense seeing how the reviewer wasn't on LJ thus had to sign it anonymously, and thus will probably never even see this reply.)
I bring this up so we can all use it as an object lesson: when you are published, DO NOT RESPOND TO NEGATIVE REVIEWS. You're just asking for it. Really. All you're gonna get is a whole lotta people laughing at you. They're already laughing at you thanks to the negative review -- this happens to all of us, face it, it's a rite of passage or a flaming hoop for publishing anything anywhere -- but now your little tantrum is only going to add fuel to the fire.
(Exception: if you can manage humor, preferably at yourself, then go right ahead and respond to negative reviews! See one witty response to low-grade reviews on SBTB for example of how to do it right.)
But an equally important reason to remain silent on negative reviews is because the only thing you achieve by answering is drawing more attention to the negative review.
Frankly, I'd mostly forgotten about the review, and the book, for that matter. But this sudden defensive reaction has me not just going back and rereading to figure out what post is getting this comment -- it's now got me mentioning it as a point of humor to an entire circle of readers who weren't even around when I first posted that review. That's right! Reminding me of the review gets the result of me in turn reminding readers who'd seen it, and linking to it for the benefit of all the folks on my dwircle and flist, not to mention on my network and foaf-pages! It's like exponential reminder badness!
Being an author -- in terms of one's interaction with the public -- is a lot like being a cat, I've figured out. When you forget yourself for a moment (or for an entire book) and do the equivalent of raising your leg to lick your own ass and then promptly fall off the sofa, you do not pop up with fur flying to hiss at the humans laughing at you. No, a public-skilled author is like a cat, barely a ruffle and at most an attitude of, I meant to do that. Perhaps a bit of self-grooming just to look like the cat, err, author is simply Too Busy to deign to react to the silly humans' reactions, and then a calm and self-possessed stroll from the room, tail in air. No words are needed for the cat to make it clear that We Will Never Discuss This Again.
The authors I respect as professionals, that's pretty much how they react to negative reviews, at least publicly: they don't give those reviews the time of day, because doing so is only guaranteed to make the humans laugh even harder.
Let this be a lesson to you, kids. Don't go replying to negative reviews -- and if you do, keep in mind that taking three years to get around to (a) discovering the review and (b) getting all self-righteous is only going to lead to (c) a bunch of folks rediscovering the fun all over again. Which, I would hope, is not the author's intended outcome.
[I especially like the part about "try and write a mystery novel"... because I have, and I find it a lot easier if you write it without excessive references to wispy hair. What kind of hair, you ask? Why, just read the review to find out!]
ETA: and another response, in comments, scroll down to enjoy. *rolls eyes*
ETA 2: please remember to sign your comment if you're replying anon... well, unless it's really obvious who you are. And I mean really obvious.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 7 Apr 2010 06:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Apr 2010 06:20 am (UTC)... and then revives again at yet another (anonymous) indignant reply from the author, below.
*dies all over again*
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Date: 7 Apr 2010 07:58 am (UTC)and dug herself in deeper while tryingto explain herself further.Anonymously.
young peoples these days.
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Date: 7 Apr 2010 06:57 am (UTC)Also, not just replying out of anger, but replying ANON? Classy!
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Date: 7 Apr 2010 07:13 am (UTC)turning it into an addendum of funturning it into a srs instruction! And stuff!*duplicated, even, with another reply, to this post! The stick-poking, it is of the amazement.
no subject
Date: 7 Apr 2010 07:00 am (UTC)See some of the wittier responses to low-grade reviews on SBTB for examples of how to do it right.
Very true.
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Date: 7 Apr 2010 07:15 am (UTC)Except... see reply! Below! I'm not sure whether to laugh or, uhm, laugh. I think I'll settle for laughing, because, wow. This is too much.
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Date: 7 Apr 2010 07:12 am (UTC)However, about Toshiro Mifune - he lived in Manchurian as part of a colony of Japanese citizens, who during the war were relocated to Japan many of them. Also, Mifune flew for Japan and returned to Japan after the war where his acting career began accidentally when he went to the film studio to apply for a job there, not as an actor. He was Japanese, not Manchurian even though he'd lived there. Moreover, it didn't seem like a huge stretch that the character would be named for him considering Mifune was one of Japan's great treasures and his collaboration with Akira Kurosawa went a long way toward restoring JApan's dignity in the world view after WWII.
As for real estate, I spent a good deal of time poring through real estate in Japan and found there are 2 bedroom apartments there for sale. It wasn't just something I made up.
Yes, I made plenty of errors as your knowledge points out but to some degree your criticism bordered on slander, saying I didn't research. I did hours and hours of research and not just wikipedia. I put a lot of work and a lot of care into writing the book. I just wish I hadn't been so inexperienced writing it. If I wrote it now, I might even have passed muster with you! I didn't mean to invade your blog with what you probably consider nonsense but I've always wanted to at least pointo out those few points to you and refrained from it all this time.
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Date: 7 Apr 2010 07:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Apr 2010 07:20 am (UTC)I find this entire momentary amusement rather amusing, somewhat baffling, and utterly counterproductive. Especially seeing how... well, read the reply directly above yours, and then you tell me. I'm not saying I ever counted myself among the crazy shrieking monkeys, but dude, this is so totally like poking me with a stick.
My icon is EXTRA APPROPRIATE right now.
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Date: 7 Apr 2010 02:52 pm (UTC)That's... wow. I hate mocking people as a person, but the whole thing reeks of butthurt. "It may not show, but I did tons of research, so your negative review is slander. Slander, I tells ya!" And of course the call of slander makes me think of the quote from J. Jonah Jameson in Spider-Man. "It is not! In print it's libel."
no subject
Date: 7 Apr 2010 03:41 pm (UTC)Which is why I find it humorous to be told what I wrote (and am writing) is slanderous (other than your very pointed and correct observation that it'd be libel, if it were actually false) -- because I had lots of fun dismantling the story, and sure, there's a personal attack but it's predicated on the conclusion that the story is full of holes. In other words, if the story were decent, there'd be no grounds for saying anything at all about the author. Libel and slander would be if I claimed the author obviously cheats on her taxes, which I have no grounds for saying; a critical review that says it's obvious the author doesn't research... well, if you can demonstrate your statements are true then it's not libel. Duh.
However, to then followup on a bad review and act like a self-defensive and self-defeating twit throwing personal accusations at the reviewer... well, that's kinda opening the door to all sorts of reactions, I think. Reactions I don't need to spell out, though, because I know I have a dwircle/flist that's smart enough to draw those conclusions on their own. All I have to do is point, and people are perfectly capable of laughing on their own.
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Date: 7 Apr 2010 03:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Apr 2010 03:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Apr 2010 04:42 pm (UTC)Of course, it doesn't make me giggle half as much as the fact that replies, plural, exist.
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Date: 7 Apr 2010 07:28 am (UTC)Oh if only. XD
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Date: 7 Apr 2010 07:33 am (UTC)*dedfromlol*
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Date: 7 Apr 2010 08:29 am (UTC)....was she?
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Date: 7 Apr 2010 02:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Apr 2010 02:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Apr 2010 03:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Apr 2010 04:49 pm (UTC)...Yeah, okay. Massive. But you have to admit, it sounds kind of fun. Or at least like it would be kind of fun for about 20 minutes before we got bored and moved on to something else.
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Date: 7 Apr 2010 05:59 pm (UTC)I see you know me well.
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Date: 7 Apr 2010 09:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Apr 2010 02:50 pm (UTC)Not to mention it was a huge sign of lack of research to me, author's insistence aside, because a major red flag -- for me at least -- of the lack of research is a certain kind of flatness in the details. When your world is populated by "shogun", "samurai", and "everyone else", then: not enough research! Because even without knowing anything else about the history, it's still pretty safe to say that any culture is going to be far more complex than just three social classes. A story that practices such simplistic reductionism fails right there, because a fictional world needs to reflect the complex variation present in the real world. Well, at least a good fictional world needs to.
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Date: 7 Apr 2010 12:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Apr 2010 02:42 pm (UTC)For an example of how to do it right that remains one of my favorites, see SBTB's review of Pregnesia, and the author's reply. Now that's classy reaction that mitigates the negative and creates a bit of positive.
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Date: 7 Apr 2010 02:15 pm (UTC)(Having said that, from her wording in the comment here, her grip on the English language seems a little uncertain; I wonder if English is her first language?)
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Date: 7 Apr 2010 02:33 pm (UTC)Not to mention, it's rather self-defeating (from an observer's standpoint) to argue the miniscule details. That just makes one look defensive -- an unattractive stance on anyone -- especially when one is is defending while insisting on ignoring the glaring elements that are the true source of humor in the review. Like, say, naming your character John Holmes. Twelve inches, baby!
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Date: 7 Apr 2010 02:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Apr 2010 02:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Apr 2010 02:30 pm (UTC)*dies laughing at review*
Don't know how I missed that the first time around, but I thank you mightily for the link and the amusement to start my day. And your author/cat/negative review behavior advice is probably the best I've seen. Publicizing one's wounded ego is just asking for more of the same from all those "heartless reviewers"... yeah. But hey, like mikkeneko said, attention, even negative attention, is still attention, and maybe that's the point. (Though wounded-ego-author would never admit to that, I'm sure.)
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Date: 7 Apr 2010 03:03 pm (UTC)Possibly. As I said to Mikke, I think this is a rather counterproductive way of going about it.
Thing is, I don't really care enough about the story, and I've learned that it's very hard to be put on the defensive when you don't actually care. Despite the author's shrill accusations, my dislike was never personal nor was it so strong that I'd expend any effort outside that one review to make the book fail, let alone the author's career. I think of Scalzi's analogy of poking the shrieking monkeys with a stick -- if you stop poking, the monkeys find some other source of humor -- and I've realized, he's right, because the monkeys are in it solely for the humor. If you're not being humorous, then the monkeys get bored.
The problem is that this requires the author to see hirself as not that important -- to realize that lack of poking means no shrieking from monkeys. If you firmly believe the monkeys originally shrieked because they dislike you, personally, and are Out To Get You -- then you're likely to believe that poking makes no difference, because the monkeys have never stopped plotting against you and thus you might as well defend yourself.
Of course, nothing disarms laughing monkeys (or dogs) faster than laughing along with them, but that requires a sense of humor, and that in turn seems to have a fundamental requirement of not taking yourself so seriously.
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Date: 7 Apr 2010 03:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Apr 2010 03:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Apr 2010 05:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Apr 2010 05:58 pm (UTC)Why, thank you. I'm rather proud of it myself, which I find amusing in and of itself, because the metaphor is a pretty obvious one.
no subject
Date: 7 Apr 2010 09:11 pm (UTC)