I read reviews. I read reviews because I want to be a better writer. Now, I’m not saying that I read all of my reviews — that would be impossible — and I’m not saying that I follow suggestions in reviews (some sound physically challenging). But yeah, I read them. A lot of them, especially release week. I know many writers can’t read their reviews, and I can understand where they’re coming from. Five star reviews can create pressure. One star reviews can create depressive bourbon drinking. I’m not reading them for the rating, though. I don’t want to say that I don’t care whether or not the reader loved the book, because that’s not true. But when I’m reading reviews, I’m just looking to see if I am doing my job. Books like The Scorpio Races and The Raven Boys would have been impossible for me to write if I hadn’t been reading my reviews since 2008. They are strange books, with strange plots, strange characters, strange worlds. I love very many strange novels, but the risk one runs writing a strange things is that it will only find a niche audience. The Scorpio Races is a novel about killer water horses emerging from the ocean and the island that races them — it would have been a very simple thing to write a version of it that was only appealing to readers interested in Celtic mythology, or a version only appealing to horse-lovers, or a version that was appealing to no one at all. This is where reading reviews comes in. No story is too strange if you tell it right. And the only way to know if you’re telling stories in a way most readers understand is to listen to the readers. This is the point where several writers will sneer and scoff at me, and that’s completely within their right. There’s a longstanding history of authors writing stories only to please themselves, and I’m not going to say that’s wrong. But for me, writing has always been performative. I get a burst of enjoyment from creating the story, and a second, equally large burst from sharing it with readers. Maybe larger. As much as I love a story, it’s what it becomes in someone else’s head that drives me to write. Sometimes people ask writers “would you write if you couldn’t get published?” and I’m not sure I would. I think I’d jump ship to another medium where I could tell stories to an audience. I’m a story-teller, not a writer. Performative. And reviews tell me what I need to hear to improve. I skim across them to see what story they’re telling me. Patterns emerge: readers don’t understand this character, readers love this scene I didn’t expect, readers fixate on this side character, this sort of wordplay is or isn’t working. One review won’t shift me. But a wave of reviews will. I’m not going to change the stories I’m telling, but I will constantly learn how to tell those stories in a way that is more universally successful. My goal as a writer is to make the reader see the story as I’m seeing it in my head, and every step I take is towards making those pictures the same. Towards reducing the translation errors. Do they hurt my feelings? Nah. A review is a weather report. Well, I take that back — sometimes I run across reviews of me, rather than the book. Those’ll dig under my skin. I remain unwilling to revise my person to make other people more comfortable. But my novels? They are just a version of a story in my head. I’ve got lots more, and I can do better if this one didn’t work. Musicians, comedians, stage actors, and performers of all sorts are always watching their audience to see how their performances are landing. And so am I. I reckon I always will.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 14:14:01 +0000
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