Do you remember that feeling from school when you raised
your hand and waved it madly because you knew the answer but the teacher picked
someone else? I don't. I spent most of grade school sitting on my hands and
trying to be invisible. But that's another story.
I had an urge to wave my hand and shout Pick me! during one of the panels at the recent GRNW panels. The
question was: Do you read review and do
they influence your writing? All the authors on the panels basically said
they didn't.
I read reviews. Sure occasionally a bad one stings, but I
get over it. Some even make me laugh. I went to art school and having my work
ripped apart is not a new experience.
Overall, reviews help me gage if I was successful or not
getting across what I wanted. And there's something else too. No two people
take away the exact same thing from a book. Readers bring with them their own
past experiences and their personalities, and those influence how they
interpret the story. Reviews give me a glimpse at those different points of
view, and it's fascinating.
Occasionally a reader sees something in my story I didn't
realize was there. It doesn't make them wrong. I believe the audience is an
active participant of the creative process. It's true to all art forms, but
especially story telling. Authors would save themselves some headache by giving
into this fact. I suspect many author meltdowns have to do with the person not
being able to let go of that exact image of their stories they have in their
heads. Well, okay, every once in a while a reviewer is so far out there that
you start to wonder about their planet of origin, but c'est la vie, right?
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