Writers and their "friends"

Facing said:
I tell myself it is due to time constraints but my insecurity, with respect to the value and reach of my opinion, plays a large role as well.
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You are a good critiquer. You should not be insecure about reviewing any book or story. It is really nothing other than your perspective and as valuable as anyone elses!
 
RX-79G said:
Andrew, you seem to be clashing with people because you are confusing helpful editorial criticism with literary criticism/product reviews of published works.
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Nope! I know the difference. My earlier post was about feeding back on not-yet published work; the long one above was post-published reviews; never the twain shall meet. Also, we're talking about three instances of weirdness from a social circle of writers that I can't put a quick number on, but is at least ten or twenty times that number--I'm not worried that I'm burning bridges left, right and centre.

RX-79G said:
If you help someone write a better book by telling them how bad it is in the editing stage, that's supportive. But if you publicly trash a published work when it is way too late to change anything about it, I don't see how that is "constructive criticism". You're just damaging the sales of that work and limiting the author's future ability to sell better written works in the future.
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While I don't disagree with your starter here, I'd like to know where I said I publicly trashed anything. Quite the opposite, I noted that in all three cases the content of the reviews was generally supportive. In the case of the 2- and 3-star reviews, the context justifying that was in the website, but if you'd read the texts in question they were clearly supportive.

With the 2-star guy, the fact that I rolled a review summary over into Goodreads maybe made it seem a more urgent issue to him than I thought it was--but even then, in none of these cases was I slaughtering anyone. It's for that very reason that "reviewing friends" has become something I think extremely carefully about before doing so.

Having said that, though: when anyone puts a piece of work out in the world, they're implicitly acknowledging the right of other people to consume and respond to it--we buy that right, along with our copy. A reviewer has no responsibility to keep their feelings silent if they don't like what they paid for, just as an incompetent writer has no responsibility to keep a clumsy, ham-fisted work unpublished for all eternity for fear of receiving a justifiably bad review; but when you put it out, it's time to sink or swim and learn from what happens (and I don't accept the assertion that a bad review of Book A rings the death knell of Book B, and so on (unless it's a series, then you're in trouble)). But hell, you don't even have to be bad--all the great classics get 1-star Amazon reviews as well...

Speaking of Amazon: they may have massively over-reached in recent times when they erased countless reviews due to outlawing any detected social connections between authors and readers, but the core of that goal (to strip away the you-scratch-my-back / five-star-review-farm strategies that suck in so many indie authors) has my total support. A review that doesn't reflect anything but good wishes to my friend the writer is basically pollution to me.

Anyway, if anyone, friend or otherwise, says to me, "Hey man, help my career, gizza five star, no questions asked!" I'll almost certainly say, "Sorry, no, I don't do that." If they say "Please write a review of my book," and now depending very much on who they are and what the book is, I might say "Sure." But they'll get my honesty (or, possibly, my non-reviewing mercy if their work really sucks that bad - in which case the honesty will be delivered privately). I acknowledge that I've a double-standard here, because if there is no relationship I'll happily wade in and have my say about some piece of trash novel. Not to troll the author, to express my readerly dissatisfaction.

My general opinion (though it's largely intuited, due to the near-total lack of reviews for any of my books!) is that a stack of five-star friend-reviews do you absolutely no good whatsoever. I can say that clicking through to an Amz page and seeing twenty-plus 5-star reviews of Joey Newcomer's first ever novel and nothing else never fills me with confidence. If those reviews have a 3-to-4-star average, say... now it looks like people actually read it and had a mix of things to say. I may check out the preview then (though the cover art makes a big difference too!).
kennychaffin said:
I disagree. A criticism is a criticism is a criticism.
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I could only agree more by removing the a's: Criticism is criticism is criticism.
kennychaffin said:
You are wrong. A fair criticism IS a favor. A lie is not.
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This I cannot improve on.
 
Andrew, it is certainly possible that I misunderstood you, but you seemed to be surprised that your friend didn't appreciate getting a negative review on Amazon.

If it wasn't a friend, then it really isn't what the thread is about. And if it was a friend, then Amazon would not be as-yet-unpublished critique.


As a general statement, it is virtually impossible to publicly criticize anyone and not lose their trust.
 
RX-79G said:
Then you missed what I wrote. I said that a friend would simply withhold a public criticism if they wanted to maintain a friendship. Failing to publish a criticism is not "lying", it is civil.
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Nope. Publishing is a public business, not a social club. You'll learn.

I said nothing about withholding criticism. I said give fair honest criticism.
 
RX-79G said:
Andrew, it is certainly possible that I misunderstood you, but you seemed to be surprised that your friend didn't appreciate getting a negative review on Amazon.

If it wasn't a friend, then it really isn't what the thread is about. And if it was a friend, then Amazon would not be as-yet-unpublished critique.
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You did misunderstand me, twice: Still not negative reviews. Still nothing to do with as-yet-unpublished critique.

And not on Amazon in these cases, either.
 
kennychaffin said:
Nope. Publishing is a public business, not a social club. You'll learn.

I said nothing about withholding criticism. I said give fair honest criticism.
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You didn't say anything about withholding criticism. I did. Then you brought up "lying" in reply. I don't understand where you read anything in my posts about lying.

All I'm getting at is that the "if you don't have something nice to say..." rule is useful to keep in mind when it comes to public criticism and maintaining friendships. I thought the thread was mainly about friendships.
 
RX-79G said:
You didn't say anything about withholding criticism. I did. Then you brought up "lying" in reply. I don't understand where you read anything in my posts about lying.

All I'm getting at is that the "if you don't have something nice to say..." rule is useful to keep in mind when it comes to public criticism and maintaining friendships. I thought the thread was mainly about friendships.
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So given this (and Andrew's last post) you admit that you are the one that's confused. :)

I won't discuss this further with you, but you are off base. As I said you'll learn.
 
kennychaffin said:
I won't discuss this further with you, but you are off base. As I said you'll learn.
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Think that sounds a bit rough, Kenny (though I'll save further critique of your post for a PM...).

Anyway, since I see it's almost exactly a year since I abandoned that blog I mentioned, I'm going to out myself in the safety of the forum as The Sample Reader. It was fun while it lasted, and was actually read by two or three people!

That's an exact figure, by the way.

The reviews that brought it to its knees aren't there any more, of course.
 
[MOD HAT ON]

Everyone's opinion is VALID. No one is "wrong". We may disagree, but we'll leave it at that - we disagree.

[MOD HAT OFF]
 
RX-79G said:
I thought the thread was mainly about friendships.
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It is about friendships and family. How the people closest to the writer, end up hurting us.

So I think your point is valid (and possibly right). Should we give our writer friends a good review and nothing else? In other words, they are FRIENDS, shouldn't they get better treatment than what we'd show to strangers?

I have a friend who sings in a chorus. I can't stand her voice. It is, to my ears, terrible. But I don't tell her that. Singing is her art. It is what makes her happy. Why should I rain on that parade?

Similarly, with my writing friends, when asked to review their books, I tell them I'll review it, but only if I can give it a three-stars or better (thee-stars means I liked it). Otherwise, I just won't review it. I extend that courtesy to pretty much all writers.

I think what Andrew is saying, is that some writers think anything less than a 5-star review is a negative review. That is where, I think, the disagreement stems from.
 
I think the big hurdle when it comes to people we care about is the line between "being critical" and constructive criticism. You can't help your friend sing better, so nothing you have to say about her singing is worthwhile.

You likely can help a decent writer write better, and only through specific suggestions about structure, detail, voice, etc. Telling them (privately) that their writing is just "poor" isn't constructive, and they will react poorly for good reason.
 
Andrew Leon Hudson said:
It was fun while it lasted, and was actually read by two or three people!
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Oh how fun! Now you have four readers.
RX-79G said:
Telling them (privately) that their writing is just "poor" isn't constructive, and they will react poorly for good reason.
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I don't think anyone (purposely) does that here - privately or not.

Though someone did tell *me* that before! Or something similar.

It was on Critters.org. One of the critiquer's critique was exactly this:
Stop. Just stop.

At first, I laughed, then I realized that was the critique. And then I was just sad. My piece made them feel so bad, that was all they could say. :(
 
It's one thing to ask for a private critique, but if someone requests a public review, they can't complain if it's negative. Well, they can complain, but too bad.

I refuse to do reciprocal reviews for the very reasons Andrew lists. I've seen too many fractured friendships. I do read and review some books written by friends, but they are always unrequested (they mostly don't know I'm reading their novel) and I only post them if they are positive. It's easier that way.
 
RX-79G said:
Telling them (privately) that their writing is just "poor" isn't constructive, and they will react poorly for good reason.
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Sorry, but you seem to be deliberately taking me over literally here. Would you like me to imagine a chain of detailed, constructive criticism for an imaginary author to privately receive from me? You're challenging me over an argument I haven't presented...
N. E. White said:
It was on Critters.org. One of the critiquer's critique was exactly this:
Stop. Just stop.

At first, I laughed, then I realized that was the critique. And then I was just sad. My piece made them feel so bad, that was all they could say. :(
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Anyone who offers that as a critique is the one who should be sad, not you. That's pathetic.
 
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N. E. White said:
Oh how fun! Now you have four readers.

I don't think anyone (purposely) does that here - privately or not.

Though someone did tell *me* that before! Or something similar.

It was on Critters.org. One of the critiquer's critique was exactly this:
Stop. Just stop.
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That's not a critique, good, bad or otherwise. That's an individual being deliberately hurtful rather than helpful.
 
Andrew Leon Hudson said:
Sorry, but you seem to be deliberately taking me over literally here. Would you like me to imagine a chain of detailed, constructive criticism for an imaginary author to privately receive from me? You're challenging me over an argument I haven't presented...
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Not at all. What you quoted from me was not directed to you in any way. I was agreeing with NE White.
 
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