Something Learned about Writing from Reviews

May 23rd, 2008

Writers have to have thick skins to reach success.   Rejection and criticism are a daily experience, even after being professionally published.   On a good day, it isn’t a big deal.   On a bad day, it’s depressing.

One of the reasons that some writers achieve success is because there are things to be learned from the criticism.   One person saying something isn’t often useful, as any given person can be a sloppy reader, or just an annoying sourpuss more generally.   Seeing something repeated by several people, easier to do with a lot of feedback, is something to pay attention to.

One of the things I’ve seen in reviews of Spider Star is confusion over a few things that I think ought to be obvious, and that I thought I made obvious, but apparently aren’t.   The Specialists who trigger the doomsday weapon, for instance, have been described as “archaeologists” several times when they intentionally back off their initial discovery to make way for the archaeologists.    I’ve seen a couple of other comments that make it clear that similar plot points weren’t well appreciated.   Subtlety doesn’t work for a lot of readers, or at least some fraction who read quickly, and I need to rethink my presentation, especially for things that happen offstage.   One paragraph buried in inner monologue isn’t the place to bury a key bit of information.

I was thinking about this in part because of the New York Times article I blogged about earlier this week, which discussed some changes at the Sci Fi Channel to reach larger audiences.
“Generally speaking, the feeling within the science fiction community is that a lot of the shows on the Sci Fi Channel are watered-down versions of the real thing,” said Michael Capobianco, the president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

Mr. Capobianco said the success of science fiction on television and at the movies has not been matched by similar success for writers.

“One of the things we’ve discussed is, ‘Should our books resemble the media works that are out there?’  â€ he said. “Should they be dumbed down or watered down to appeal to a wider audience?”

So, I don’t really plan to dumb down my writing, but I do plan to work much harder on clarity and the word count and presentation given to key plot elements.   I don’t think Harry Potter is especially watered down.   Rowling has complex plots, and she does a really good job reviewing necessary information to make sure everything is clear without making readers (at least me) feel like she’s belaboring a lot of old stuff.   I can aspire to do better myself.

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