Category: Musings

A large part of being a writer is dealing with criticism both good and bad. It’s not just from professional criticism, but also from fellow writers, beta readers, family and friends, and the general public. We all need that feedback; how else are we supposed to improve? The trick as a writer is to recognize some people are better at doling out criticism than others are as well as learning how to receive criticism.

Too often it is easier to focus on comments about negative aspects of our work. This could range from fixable things like technical errors to character development to clunky dialogue to more subjective comments such as ‘I hate this. You have no talent. I find this offensive.’

On the flip side is positive criticism. It’s great to hear what we are doing well whether that’s being told our descriptions transport the reader to another world or that our story made someone cry to hearing ‘I loved this! You’re my favorite author. Thank you for writing this.’ It’s this positivity that should fuel our creativity and encourage us to continue with our work.

What should a writer give more weight to? Personally I think it is vital and massively important for a writer to pay more attention to constructive criticism of their work. Deficiencies can be improved or strengths brought out more.

More subjective comments should be taken with a grain of salt if not flat out ignored. Nobody is going to like everything you write, not even your closest family and friends, and to write with that fear in the back of your mind is only going to stifle your creativity. I once read a rough estimate of people who read your work is 1/3 will love it, 1/3 will be indifferent, and 1/3 will hate it. As a reader, I don’t necessarily like everything I read even by my favorite authors.

Unfortunately it seems like it is just too easy for people to tell others what they do wrong or what they hate rather than to be praiseworthy. And it’s too easy for writers to focus a lot of energy on working on what we do wrong that we sort of forget to focus just as much attention on our strengths.

I find this is difficult for me when I’m doing critiques for my writing group. I have to frequently remind myself to comment on passages or sentences I like. At the end of each story I do make an effort to always list what I think were positives. Even if I didn’t like the story I try to be constructive and helpful. Sometimes my reasons are subjective so I know the author can disregard what I say. A lot of times why I don’t like a story is it just didn’t work for me or is lacking something that if present, I might change my mind. Even if the particular piece isn’t well written I never tell the author that. In that case it is a perfect opportunity to really come up with those helpful suggestions for improvement. Writing is hard and is hard work to do well as it requires a lot of practice.

While everyone may be a critic it is crucial to remember how you construct your criticism. Are you being negative for the sake of being a jerk or out of anger or are you critical out of place of hoping the other person improves? If you answer in the affirmative for the former than please, keep your thoughts to yourself. If your comments are the latter, than carry on but don’t forget to let the writer know their strengths.

For writers it is important to keep in mind you ultimately decide what comments you want to keep or chuck. Developing a thick skin takes time and each of us must figure how we choose to deal with those harsh words. Do we yell and scream? Do we throw things? Respond back with a harshly worded diatribe (please don’t do this. Makes an author appear childish.)? Or do we just let it slide off our skin? When we get those words of praise we should celebrate in whatever way feels right but it is important to focus on the positives as well as the negatives.

Historical romance? Dystopian young adult sci-fi? Epic medieval high fantasy? Good old-fashion western? Cozy mystery set in New England? Whatever your favorite genre(s) is/are hopefully you can find plenty of books to keep you happy. Some genres, though, are always popular while others seem to cycle in and out of popularity. So why do some remain champs atop best-seller lists while others frequently teeter on the verge of being almost cultish in popularity?

The top-selling genres currently are romance, crime fiction including thrillers and mysteries, young adult, and sci-fi/fantasy. Within each of these are a myriad of subgenres, some of which are more popular. Romance and crime fiction have consistently been top best sellers for a very long time. Clearly people enjoy an escape to romance land as well as the gritty realism and heroics of solving a crime. With the rise in e-books this hasn’t changed. If anything it has probably increased the popularity of these genres because no one can tell what kind of book you’re reading if they can’t see the cover. Consider yourself a manly man but would like to read The Notebook but don’t want to carry around the physical book? Load it onto your cammo covered e-reader. Are you an above average intelligent woman curious if those bodice-ripper romances are any good but fear the librarian will judge you? Put it on your e-reader. No one will ever know!

I understand why romance and crime fiction are popular but what about young adult and sci-fi/fantasy? Both are incredibly new genres, both not popping up in publication until the 20th century. I think a lot of the appeal of sci-fi/fantasy comes for five reasons:

1) Man has always been fascinated with the stars and could there be anything out there
2) An entire generation grew up with the space race, eventually seeing man land on the moon and watching shows like Star Trek
3) Within these genres, writers and readers can explore age old questions about what it means to be human, what is compassion, what does humanity and mercy look like, racism, sexism, etc. through made up worlds
4) Every culture embraces mythological creatures and gods to help explain life
5) Much like romance these genres offer pure escapism.

The appeal of young adult I think is due in large part to better quality writing that elevates the genre to such a level that adults can enjoy them as well. There’s also more of an emphasis on presenting teenagers as real people with real problems. This is refreshing because I remember when I was in elementary, junior high, and high school reading what would be considered juvenile/young adult books, and not being that impressed. The characters, themes, and situations were often ones that neither my friends nor I could relate to. One could argue a series like The Hunger Games couldn’t be realistic due to its setting but when you think about the characters and themes they act and feel like real people more than say, Sweet Valley High. As a result, I gave up on young adult books deciding it probably meant I was old enough to move onto adult books.

What about those genres that have a niche audience? Why do they seem to be stuck with a relatively small but incredibly loyal following? Two genres that pop to mind are westerns and inspirational fiction. Brainstorming possible reasons I’ve come up with the following:

1) A finite amount of writers in each so there is less to choose from
2) Being too niched with little desire to expand appeal to the masses

Yet neither of these reasons makes sense to me. I have a hard time believing it could be because of any themes or tropes unique to each. There are popular historical romances set in the old West. The trope of the heroic lawman is something not exclusive to westerns. A main character guided by their faith or finding faith for the first time is not a theme popular genre fiction shies away from. Plenty of books incorporate these things.

Is it the style of writing? Perhaps, yet I hesitate to think that is an answer because each genre comes with a certain style many authors within employ. I’m sure there are just as many quality writers as the popular genres. It truly stumps me why either of these genres aren’t more popular. Seems rather unfair to me.

Us readers should be more willing to expand our habits to incorporate a new genre, might even discover a new favorite author, or perhaps the dark horse genre may wind up winning the crown.

Before I began writing, I considered myself a fairly competent reader. What I mean by that is due to the critical thinking skills learned in junior high and high school, I felt comfortable reading a book and being able to pick apart what I liked and didn’t like. Simple as that.

This approached changed as I started writing and learning more about writing. This changed how I approached reading transitioning from employing two mindsets. Depending on what I’m reading, I’m either reading from a writer’s point of view, this is most of the time so I can learn, or purely from a reader’s point of view, usually for books I consider fluff and don’t want to ruminate on.

Because of this, I’ve picked up on certain patterns from my favorite authors employ. Some greatly annoy me, like trite plot lines, overused tropes, and various other tricks. Other patterns I’ve noticed are not limited to my favorite authors just stuff I’ve noticed in my overall reading selections.

One of my biggest grumbles is an author pulling a fast one toward the end of a book. An author whose work I really enjoy is Deanna Raybourn. She has a series set in Victorian times featuring Lady Julia Grey who works with her at times contemptuous husband to solve murders. I love these books yet I’ve noticed that in every one of Raybourn’s stories she has a tendency to throw in random subplots at the end. For example, in one of the Lady Julia Grey books, she is shot in the stomach and mentions as she is falling down that she’s worried about the baby. Um, what? When did this happen? There were no indications our main character was ever pregnant. No mentions of nausea, missed periods, corset being too tight, absolutely nothing. I’m not sure why Raybourn felt the need to throw this in there. It did nothing for the plot whatsoever. Unfortunately this isn’t limited to just Lady Julia Grey. In the book A Spear of Summer Grass , a minor character suddenly announces to the main character she is marrying another minor character because she had sex with yet another minor character which she regretted and this was her way to atone for that sin. Not that she loved either man. My first reaction was ‘So, what? Who cares about all these minor characters that I didn’t like anyway.’ It also didn’t do anything for that particular character’s development since she was essentially the same. It didn’t add to the main plot and if it was meant to commentate on societal expectations then it really didn’t need to be in there. We got plenty of that with the main character.

One of my favorite authors, Ken Follett, has a certain character trope that has popped up in quite a few of his books and that is the inclusion of a homosexual minor character. This isn’t bad and it’s great since he writes in a variety of time periods including various levels of society. Through those characters he is showing how homosexuality has been treated and expressed. The only time I thought it didn’t work or was necessary was in World Without End (a book I admittedly did not finish because it was a huge disappointment to me) because one of the main characters suddenly engages in a homosexual relationship when she enters a convent despite still being madly in love with her male lover. If this had been hinted at earlier in the book it wouldn’t have been so grating.

This next one is probably going to sound contradictory and perhaps it is, but it is a character trope that pops up in a good chunk of what I read. Naturally the burden is on me because I’m the one who picks books with this yet I do wish for something different. It’s the intelligent, plucky, usually bad-ass, lonerish female lead. I know why I’m drawn to those characters; a steady diet of strong, intelligent women who could take care of themselves without a man portrayed in many TV shows in the ’90s as well as in music and books. They were the answer to the other side of the spectrum of female leads whose entire world revolved around landing a husband, having children, and who weren’t allowed to possess a contradictory thought.

Now that I’m older, I appreciate seeing a different type of strong female. One that doesn’t have to literally kick ass like say Buffy the Vampire Slayer or who is a lone wolf. It’s okay to have a female lead fall in love. It doesn’t make her weak necessarily for wanting someone in life. It’s okay to have a female lead that isn’t necessarily blowing through the glass ceiling. It just depends upon the story.

Why the literary world can’t find some kind of consistent middle ground is beyond me. An example of a book I’ve read recently that I think tries to do this is Whistling Past the Graveyard by Susan Crandall. Set in 1960s Mississippi, the protagonist is a nine-year-old girl who runs away from home to go live with her mother in Nashville. She hates her grandmother’s rules and rarely sees her father as he works on an oil rig most of the year. She hitchhikes and along the way a very fragile, frighten woman picks her up and takes her back to her home. This woman is married to an abusive tyrant and has no self-esteem whatsoever. Eventually she winds up accidentally killing him since he tried to kill the protagonist. She is devastated by this and wants to turn herself in. Eventually she is convinced not to but throughout the book she struggles mightily with depression and others around her have to work to get her to believe in herself and that she didn’t deserve the abuse she went through. By the end of the book the reader gets a sense that this vulnerable, some would say weak, woman is going to be all right.

I hope that by paying more attention to these patterns I can either avoid them in my own writing or feel free to experiment with a different type of character. With all the rules, advice, and sins of writing practically every book and, ahem, opinionated writer speaks about it makes me wonder how many well-known professional authors can get away with some of this. When an amateur writer violates the rules it supposedly reeks of weak writing. I guess the difference is if you are so-and-so making gobs of money for the publisher than you can get away with it.