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I used to say, when I worked in the comic book business, that I did my first textual analysis in the pages of DC comics. My brother and I were letter-hacks--the kids who wrote in the Batman or Green Lantern and attempted to explain what worked or didn't work in a given issue. It was the first time I'd really understood that understanding and explaining how a story worked was--well, maybe not a noble goal, but a worthy one.
When I got to high school and they wanted me to do the same thing with straight text, I already had some of the skills (**that** to my mother's insistance that comic books would unsuit me for real fiction and real discourse). And of course, the more I started writing, the more I started thinking about what fiction was and how it got made. For me, fiction is one of those areas where, unlike working in a sausage factory, the more you know about how it works, the better it is. I realize that many people don't read that way. I do. I watch TV and movies that way too. It's just the way I am.
When someone writes a thoughtful negative review of something I've written, it's a gift. It may not be a comfortable gift. I may feel I'd really rather have had a jug of high-end hand lotion from The Body Shop. But if I've written something that didn't work for that reader, and the reader took the time to explain why it didn't work, that's a good thing. It might even be a useful thing. And it's a thing I've done all my life, give or take. So why would I complain about it? And if the critic also knows enough about their own buttons to acknowledge them, that's useful too. I don't read much heroic fantasy--it just doesn't do much for me as a genre, although I've loved some individual works (this may be because I am such a relentless urbanist. I dunno). If I'm going to complain about an epic fantasy book, I'll lay that out on the table first, because it's a data point, and in order for the rest of my comments to be honest, I need to be honest about that.
The sorts of reviews that irritate me (although I will not fire back, because there's really no point or use) are the ones that communicate the writer's dislike without any rationale: this book sucks. I'd rather see a review (like one I got on Amazon for my Daredevil novel) which was unfavorable because the reader thought he'd be getting a graphic novel and where the hell were the pictures? That wasn't a useful review to me, but at least I understood where his vehement dislike comes from.
If I've broken someone's heart by not writing the book as they wanted it written--well, at least I got them to fall in love in the first place. And I've gotten my heart broken that way scores of times: "I had such high hopes for this book and then it fell apart and disappointed me" was actually one of the impetuses (impetusi?) for the first Sarah Tolerance book. A review that tells me how I disappointed my reader gives me data. I may disagree and I may be puzzled, but it makes me think, just as my work made the reader think in the first place.
Put it this way: I wrote those letters to Green Lantern and Aquaman because I loved the comics enough to stay indoors and put down my thoughts about how an issue had failed me...
When I got to high school and they wanted me to do the same thing with straight text, I already had some of the skills (**that** to my mother's insistance that comic books would unsuit me for real fiction and real discourse). And of course, the more I started writing, the more I started thinking about what fiction was and how it got made. For me, fiction is one of those areas where, unlike working in a sausage factory, the more you know about how it works, the better it is. I realize that many people don't read that way. I do. I watch TV and movies that way too. It's just the way I am.
When someone writes a thoughtful negative review of something I've written, it's a gift. It may not be a comfortable gift. I may feel I'd really rather have had a jug of high-end hand lotion from The Body Shop. But if I've written something that didn't work for that reader, and the reader took the time to explain why it didn't work, that's a good thing. It might even be a useful thing. And it's a thing I've done all my life, give or take. So why would I complain about it? And if the critic also knows enough about their own buttons to acknowledge them, that's useful too. I don't read much heroic fantasy--it just doesn't do much for me as a genre, although I've loved some individual works (this may be because I am such a relentless urbanist. I dunno). If I'm going to complain about an epic fantasy book, I'll lay that out on the table first, because it's a data point, and in order for the rest of my comments to be honest, I need to be honest about that.
The sorts of reviews that irritate me (although I will not fire back, because there's really no point or use) are the ones that communicate the writer's dislike without any rationale: this book sucks. I'd rather see a review (like one I got on Amazon for my Daredevil novel) which was unfavorable because the reader thought he'd be getting a graphic novel and where the hell were the pictures? That wasn't a useful review to me, but at least I understood where his vehement dislike comes from.
If I've broken someone's heart by not writing the book as they wanted it written--well, at least I got them to fall in love in the first place. And I've gotten my heart broken that way scores of times: "I had such high hopes for this book and then it fell apart and disappointed me" was actually one of the impetuses (impetusi?) for the first Sarah Tolerance book. A review that tells me how I disappointed my reader gives me data. I may disagree and I may be puzzled, but it makes me think, just as my work made the reader think in the first place.
Put it this way: I wrote those letters to Green Lantern and Aquaman because I loved the comics enough to stay indoors and put down my thoughts about how an issue had failed me...