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.
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.)
no subject
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.