A hazing ritual: The bad review
September 10th, 2009 by Allison Winn Scotch
There comes a time in every author’s life when he or she will receive the inevitable: the terrible, horrible, so-bad review that you want to jump inside of your computer and rip it off the web so no one who ever knows you, much less anyone who has never met you, will read you and judge you by it.
Welcome to the life of a public figure. It’s almost a hazing ritual, it’s so common.
I remember receiving my first truly terrible, TERRIBLE review, even almost three years later. My debut book was coming out that week, I was admittedly a bundle of frayed nerves, upset intestines and barely-coherent brain waves. But – until that point – all of my reviews had been positive, and frankly, let’s be honest, I thought my book was pretty damn good. So there I was, on a lazy Sunday morning, surfing the web, when my google alert came on. “Ooh, I’m in the Washington Post!,” I thought. I scrambled to check it out.
O.M.G.
Blood rushed to my cheeks, time stood still, I probably screamed.
Not only did this reviewer not like my book, she EVISCERATED it. Just gutted it inside and out. It was so bad that my agent called me to see if I knew said reviewer and had personally wronged her at some point in our lives. (I’m serious. And I didn’t and I hadn’t.) Once my pulse returned to semi-normal, I tried to put it out of my mind. I deleted my google alert email, vowed never to pull up the review in my browser again, and may or may not have also wished a few terrible things on the reviewer, all the while contemplating a voodoo doll or something similar.
A week later, I was almost laughing about it, and a few weeks later, I definitely was. And now, I’ve even gone so far as to tweet about it (when the hilarious Josh Malina -@joshmalina -called for people to post their worst reviews) because, well…with time, comes perspective. And this is what I’ve learned:
Not everyone is going to love your book. Hell, not everyone is even going to like your book. Some people are going to think it’s a big pile of dung.
There is nothing you can do about this. You can’t convince them otherwise, you can’t tell them not to say this publicly. You can’t, even, get them to delete their Amazon review. You HAVE to realize that just as you’ve read books in the past and thought, “eh,” someone, somewhere out there is going to think the same of yours. This is part of the game of putting yourself out there. I think this gets easier with every book you publish. With your first one, you think, “I AM A GOLDEN GOD,” and with your second one (and so on), you realize that you’re a good writer who some people love…and who some people do not. That’s just life, that’s just the nature of our business. If reviews truly bother you, try to limit reading them. To be honest, I only check out Goodreads a couple of times a year because people seem to enjoy writing truly horrific reviews there, so…why bother? I mean, again, what am I going to do about it?
The answer is nothing. I wrote my books as well as I could have written them. The end. That’s all. I remind myself of this whenever someone posts a lovely 1-star review on Amazon (I’m talking to you, lady, who couldn’t take my “fowl” language), or whenever someone is having a bad day and feels like taking it out on my book. The goal of an author can’t be to be universally loved – it just has to be to write books that you love. The rest, as they say, is gravy.
(And now, I expect a lot of high praise and positive flattery – raves and applause are welcome – in the comments section!) Hee.
22 Responses to “A hazing ritual: The bad review”
Hi :)
Thanks for the great post.
I love the voodoo doll picture.
When I get a bad review I will try to remember your wise words that I wrote the best novel I could.
:)
Thanks for sharing.
All the best,
@RKCharron
xoxo
Sending you high praise and positive flattery!…(quickly followed by raves and applause!)
Allison,
Good advice, and some I’m sure I’ll need next spring when my own debut novel is published. It mirrors what I heard many years ago, something I’ve had to recall time and again since then: “I can never be universally loved and respected.” Nevertheless, I think all authors and most humans still seek that status. Thanks for the reminder.
“Fowl” language, lol! Yes, you are a rather fowl person, Allison.
So true. It is hard to take and then, Allison, you are right, it is time to move on. I had someone complain that the recipes in my new book were great but too easy. HUH? Isnt that a good thing?
I love your statement that we all do the best we can. It is hard to please everyone.
Thanks for this post! There’s nothing like a bad review to knock you down a bit…
I DO giggle when the 1-star Amazon reviews are written ALL IN CAPS–as though the person is shouting their hatred for your book. And definitely laugh when they say things like, “right to her publisher.”
This is the worst blog post I’ve ever read. Seriously, guys, if you’re going to waste your time reading and commenting on this fecal blather, why not just off yourself with a 12-gauge?
Kidding.
I’m delighted that you take even the harshest of criticisms with such grace! I look forward to someday having a novel that’s worthy enough to be slammed in the Washington Post! That’s when I’ll know I have arrived! Well done, Allison!
A super post, made me cringe visibly!
Your comment about writing books that you love reminded me of a lovely clip I heard in an interview with J.B. Priestly:
“I’ve never spent five minutes in the whole of my life wondering what audiences wanted, because my view is they don’t know what they want, so how can I puzzle my brains finding out something they don’t know. I’ve always pleased myself, I really have”
LOL, Craig! Well-played. :)
Kristan – chirp, chirp. Yup, that’s me!
Or you could take the approach that writer Brad Meltzer does – in his hilariously charming YouTube video “Everybody Hates Brad Meltzer.”
http://sarainvermont.blogspot.com/2009/09/what-to-do-when-you-get-bad-reviews.html
(Sorry, not sure if I can embed links in these comments or not.)
Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. Your approach to bad reviews is sane, Allison. Because, really, what can you do if someone wants to hate on your book? It’s just one person’s assho–I mean, opinion anyway.
I pray to the Writing Gods I’ll have to deal with a bad review one of these days (uh, oh – be careful what you wish for!). And, WHEN I do, I’ll email you to remind me why I shouldn’t take my life.;-)
For an unpublished writer, I think we tend to assume that everything will be all roses once we cross the threshold of publication. We forget all the negative reviews passed by peer critics, agents, and editors before publication. Why should it be any different afterwards? The savvy writer knows it’s a subjective industry. Any reader is a testament to that–no one reads everything. Why do we delude ourselves?
This was a very good post, Allison. A very real reminder that things don’t really change all that much.
Great article. I’m still waiting for my first truly eviscerating review, but I know it’s bound to come. And I’m bracing for it!
As I’m constantly reminded, there has never been a statue erected for a reviewer.
Alison, can I have your voodoo doll for future use? Please?
I had a bad review on Amazon.co.uk from someone who bought my book, mistakenly thinking it was non-fiction, and who felt the need to vent her disappointment. I would love to have suggested she wear glasses when she reads the descriptions in future.
But is there not an old adage that you can please some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time?
Great article, Alison.
This should be required reading for all newly published writers! We all get our hopes so steamed up in the frustration of even getting published, that our often-swelled egos can use some pressure relief. Of course, I mean besides the stings that editors provide.
Now if I could only get even a one-star review, it would mean that somebody actually read all the way through the book! Besides myself, wife, children, mother, etc.
Oh, man. I’ve got an amazon review for my novel that compares it (unfavorably) to a bean burrito from Taco Bell. One other said it would be more better to watch grass grow than to read my book.
Of course, most people have been positive about the book, and a few people have actually been fair.
I don’t mind so much when the review is bad as long as it actually points out real weaknesses in my work.
Anyway, I’ve mentioned it before elsewhere, but Stephen King has described his own work as the literary equivalent of a Big Mac. If that’s the case, I guess I’m okay being a bean burrito.
I am so glad you posted this, Allison. I get hives just going to my critique group meetings. Can’t imagine what it would feel like to be skewered in front of the world. Lordy!
The part about “fowl language” made my day. You know you’re not ever supposed to write about chickens! ROTFL
And the rest of it is wise wisdom, too.
I myself find fowl language quite disturbing. All those dang feathers flying, eggs splattering everywhere. Really, I think this is quite an abuse of poultry.
It’s so much easier to discount people when they can’t even spell – but I’m a snob that way.
[...] 20th, 2009 by Sophie Masson A few weeks back, in her post, A Hazing Ritual: the bad review, my fellow WU contributor, Alison Winn Scotch, feelingly described the agony of a bad review. [...]