Reviewing Your Reviews

I have to confess, I check on my reviews daily, actually, more than once throughout my day. Obviously I want to see more reviews, but every time I do see the number go up, I cringe. There’s no question that you want everyone to love your work, but the fact is, not everyone will. I have discovered that’s okay. I am fortunate that I haven’t had any nasty reviews, but I have had some negative comments. Instead of focusing on the negativity, I try to learn from what is being said. Sometimes I think it’s just a matter that the reader didn’t like my style of writing or they didn’t like the characters and the choices they made in the story (which I can’t change because both of my novels are based on real people and real-life events).  But I do want to gain some insight into those comments because I feel that can only help to improve my writing skills.

I have been writing for many years, long before I got into writing novels. My prior writing was relative to my former career of medical transcription. Even so, my skills improved over the years. I am definitely not the same writer I was when I first started back in the early 1980s. My husband, who happens to also be my editor, used to tease me that I used way too many exclamation points. I would sometimes use three or four at the end of the sentence because I thought that would help to make whatever point I was trying to make. When I look back on that writing, I completely get what he was saying.  The content of the sentence or paragraph itself makes the point—proper wording is all you need, not the extra punctuation. I still use them from time to time, but not nearly as often as I did. I took his critique seriously, even though he did it teasingly.

  

 Along with reading my own reviews, I also read reviews of other authors. I don’t read everything, nor do I look at every book they have written. What I will do is read some positive comments and some negative. I do that because I like to see if the author has gleaned anything from those reviews. A case in point is an author whose first book I read and reviewed. I liked the story very much, but there were some punctuation errors, a few grammar errors, but mostly there was a lot of wordiness I felt was not necessary. It kind of weighed the story down. In other words, there were times when a few sentences would have worked well where instead a long paragraph was written. I noted that on the latest work, very similar comments were made.  That indicates to me that the author is ignoring those negative comments.

Now I’m not saying you should agree with every negative comment made about your work. What I am saying is that you should take a hard look at what is being said and ask yourself if there is room for improvement. As I said, I am not the same writer I was several years ago, and my hope is that I will continue to improve with each new work I publish. Even though I have two books published, I’m currently taking an online writing class. They are a set of 24 half-hour lectures, and even though I have only listened to a few of them, I have already learned a few things I hadn’t thought of before. I also sit down with my editor to discuss where he has suggested changes, and I don’t take any negative comments personally. The whole point is to make it better. I look at classes, articles, message forums, and reviews all part of my continuing education.

In that vein, I have decided to do a review of this entire blog. I’m going back over each entry, reading it, adding a title so it will be easier to search should you wish to go back and read an old post, and even adding a picture to most of the notes just to spiff it up a bit. It’s going to take a while because there are over 50 posts, but I’ll enjoy it, just as I enjoy all my projects. It’s all about doing it better, getting it better, and growing as an author.

Enjoy your day, and never stop learning, growing, and writing! Uh oh, wonder if I should take out that exclamation point? Think I’ll keep it this time. Thanks for stopping by.