Author Reviews (Part 2)

 Now that I have officially finished editing this second book (I don't know why I chose to use the word "officially" because other than saving and closing the document, nothing signified the end). It feels strange to have another polished book under my belt. I would definitely say that it no longer intimidates me to write a book. I do think it's still a lot of effort, but now I can trust myself to get to the end of the story, and even go over it once or twice.

I have submitted for the Author Mentor Match so I will find out in a couple of weeks whether I've been chosen for that. If I haven't, my goal this summer will probably be to go through it superficially one last time to make sure that I've caught any small inconsistencies, before trying to query it.

Writing query letters is my biggest struggle so hopefully I can write one that is great. I'll start researching the best tips and tricks soon.

But now that I have finished this edit, I am automatically brought back to the sequel of my first novel, Kingdom of Sand. I've already started the sequel, Ascent into the Mist, but it has been a while so I will have to reread some passages and get back into that headspace before I can continue. But with the summer coming ever closer, I am excited for all the free time away from school I can use for my writing.

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So in the first part I wrote about authors interacting with other book reviews other than their own. Now I'm going to talk about their interaction with their own reviews.

This should be very short because there is really one answer to this. When someone says anything negative about your book you have to find out who they are and send them nasty emails...joking. Of course, whether you read them or not (completely your choice) YOU SHOULD NEVER ANSWER/COMMENT ON A REVIEW OF YOUR BOOK.

And yet it still happens. I am now going to share with you a few of the craziest stories I have heard of authors getting involved with reviews:

1. Kathleen Hale, an American author, exposed herself to have confronted a reader who had given her a negative review by writing an article for the Guardian. There have been many responses to this from the reading community and most seem to see this as a lack of judgment in her part. 
2. A booktuber, Literary Diversions, was hounded by not only the author for which she posted a negative review, but also the author's family and friends. 
3. A self published author, Dylan Saccoccio, was upset when a reader gave him a one star review on Goodreads. 

Basically, at the end of the day, however tempting it is to respond, it will never end well. Everyone has a right to their own opinion and if as an author you weigh in, you are only going to turn more people off from reading it.

I want to quickly break down the reasoning behind responding to a negative review. Obviously the reader did not enjoy your book. What is the point in responding? What could you possibly have to say? That they didn't read the book properly?

If you tell them that they should take it down/change their review then you are only making them more certain in their desire to make it a low rating because they now feel attacked. Then they are also likely to tell other people about this experience and make your situation even worse because you have reduced your potential audience by even more. It's only a downward spiral.

Readers aren't giving out low ratings because they are mean and want to make authors feel bad about themselves, they simply didn't like the material. Their review will be fair and justified no matter the review because decent human beings won't insult a book just for the fun of it. But if you reply back to them it will only come across as an attack and make the situation personal.

So don't reply to reviews.

Author Reviews (Part 1)

 I am right on track with my editing! I have twenty six pages left to edit and the last chapter is really well written already since I spent so long rewriting it. I've reduced the word count from its original 80,000 to 65,000. I might try to do a bit more before I am satisfied but I'm scared of losing too much. But as I'm rewriting scenes I can't help but want to get back into writing. As much as I love editing (which isn't really that much) I love doing my first drafts. 

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There are two important topics that come up when you talk about author reviews. The first is whether an author should review other books, and the second is how authors handle reviews for their own book. I'm going to tackle the former today.

It used to be that an author was a faceless entity writing books with no other connection to the reader. But with the advancement of technology it becomes incredibly easy for them to take part in the social aspects of the book community. Every author writes because they love stories so they are as part of the reading community just as much as the writing one. They all grew up reading books and deciding which ones they liked and which ones they didn't.

It has started to occur to me in the last year or so that when you become an author, you might not be able to express said opinions as thoroughly. Let me explain. If a reader is not an author then they don't have to worry about what they say affecting any type of future relationship because for them, their only interaction will be in buying the book.

But for an author, they can't express negative opinions about a book because it might reflect poorly on them later on if they are involved in any kind of drama. When you're an author there is an unwritten rule that you are part of a community of writers who are meant to support each other.

Even though I self published a novel, I am nowhere near that level where I would need to worry about something like this because it is unlikely that anyone would notice if I were to rip apart a story. But I still feel like there is something holding me back now, that when I review a book on Goodreads I can't give in anything less than three, four, or five stars. So when there is a book that I dislike I simply don't rate it, or even say that I read it.

So is that fair? Should I only say which books I enjoy and hide the ones I don't?

I have been following some of my favourite authors for years now and I've always wondered why they have barely any books on their "shelves" on the website. Or if they do read a book, they only write a review and they never rate it. And only for those they have great things to say.

Now I understand that they are reading books - but perhaps they are unable to freely share those feelings with the reading community.

Mentors and Critique Partners

My writing has always been very self contained. Only I read what I write, sharing it with a select few friends and family members, before I submit it for a class or I self publish it (I still can't believe that happened). I've often heard while scouring the internet for advice from established authors, that a critical part of the writing process is critique partners. Often the best people to read your work before it is submitted somewhere, is someone who either writes - or reads - a lot of fiction.

My only exposure to writing communities was through my creative writing course in high school. I am considering taking a creative writing course to satisfy my pesky arts credits at university but that won't be for a while.

Now that I have enough patience to want to do this properly - go through the right steps to make sure that my stories are as awesome as possible - getting critique partners has piked my interest. The video that really convinced me that it was time was one done by a debut author Alexa Donne. I mean, why wouldn't I want to have a lifelong buddy to write with?

But I will start slow. Right now I am halfway done my edits of my novel (undecided on the title) and I am working hard to finish before March 15. The reason is that I am planning on applying to a mentorship program pairing unpublished authors to published authors. It's called Author Mentor Match and the application opens March 16th.

I have no idea whether I will be chosen, but it also gives me a deadline for my editing. I am aiming to get through, on average, five pages a day. So whether or not I get a mentor, my book will hopefully be edited before the end of March.

My plan after that is still undecided because I am trying to take this process slow, instead of my usual desire to race through it all. I seemed to have developed a single-minded determination to make this current book as great as I can before I ever decide to publish or query it.

But I do know that I want to start writing the sequel to my published book when university is done at the end of April. So with that on the horizon, I can take my time and enjoy writing - because that's the true reason I do this.

The Goal of 2018

It's hard to believe it's already the new year. You put your head down at the beginning of the school year and when you finally have a chance to breath - to really look up for the first time - months have flown by. It's been a crazy-fun time, don't get me wrong. But if I'm not careful, certain aspects of my life have a tendency to slip by unnoticed.

I have one main goal for 2018. I have been slowly working on the sequel and as a way to increase my own excitement, I even posted the new title for the second book on Goodreads: Ascent into the Mist. But while I work on that, I have a secondary project that I've grown more and more excited about.

This will require a bit of a backstory. I have probably spoken of this in bits and pieces but here it is in the whole.

When I was in grade eleven I took a creative writing course in my high school. I was obsessed. It was so much fun to be part of a community of people so excited about writing. Each class was a new adventure. So I decided to take part of Nanowrimo that November. At the time I hadn't had any periods of intense writing in years so I had some trouble plotting.

I finally decided on a simple plot about a girl who lived in Vancouver - like me - and enjoyed hiking - like me. Though her personality is far from mine. I loved writing descriptions because I could finally put my beautiful home in words. I wrote about 60 000 words in November, and then finished it up in December at around 80 000 words. At the time I was sick of my characters and the story that when I was done, I didn't want to look at it anymore.

But I still wanted to do something with it. In class we had started learning about the querying process so I thought that I might as well send it off to literary agents. I only edited the first few chapters, mind you, so I knew the back half was a bit of a train wreck.

It still hurt when rejection letters came through but it was easier then because I knew that I hadn't really given it the time it needed. I did get one request for a full manuscript which was very exciting. In the end it didn't work out, but the agent mentioned that perhaps it would work better as a middle grade book rather than a young adult story.

I didn't do anything with it because having finished one book, I was excited to get on to the next. Especially since I was finally giving in and writing a fantasy for the first time. But it has always ruminated at the back of my mind, the idea that I could somehow rework this story I had poured so much time into. I ignored it for a long time because I had heard about so many authors saying that your first book was no good, so I thought that this was my no-good book.

Recently I started to look back over it and I've gotten excited about the story. There are some bits that I'm really excited about and others that I can't help but cringe when I read it. So I have undertaken the project to go through the entire thing as thoroughly as possible and make it as good as I can.

I still don't know whether I want to query it - though I probably will. But it has been a thorn in my side that I've left this book less than complete. Even though all the words are there, they aren't the best that I could have made it.

So my goal by the end of 2018 is to finish editing this novel. The editing process was really fast through the first few chapters because I had worked them over so long ago when I was first querying, but after that it has been slower. I am basically rewriting entire passages because I need to condense the word count from 80 000 to 60 000 which is a more reasonable word count for a middle grade novel.