Writers rating works of other writers

[psychotick]

Hi Jo,

It's as Fishbowl says - yes you absolutely have the right to review other books. No one can stop you. No one should. But it's not about your rights, it's about how you're percieved in doing it. Look at the OP. This is a well respected author who has been hauled over the yard arm for doing it. It's not about whether his reviews were fair or balanced or even accurate. It's simply that he's an author and therefore everything he says about another author's work is going to be called into question. It is a no win situation - unless of course said author was aiming for some negative PR.

And no. It is exactly the same in most other professions. Peer review and all of that stuff is great and works well. But it's not the same as going on a public forum and advertising what you think about a fellow professional's work.

Look at it this way. As a writer no one would give a toss if you went on a forum and critiqued a restaurant or a hotel. Good or bad it would just be opinion. If however you ran a restaurant or a hotel, you'd be pilloried. Someone would say - I know that guy, and the next thing you know you're either a toady or a jealous rival. Reality as they say is perception.

It's like that other great rule people keep telling authors. Don't respond to reviews. Yes you have the right to do it. No one can or should stop you. And yes you can be utterly professional about it. But you're almost certain to end up going down the gurgler if you do.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

As my gran used to say - if you can't say anything nice, say nothing. I think that particularly applies in the professional field.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

There’s also a tendency in some quarters – perhaps especially in SFF, and particularly, I think, in big-name fantasy – to absolutely rave about books and to regard anything negative as a serious attack.

This is so true, and mystifying to me. I'm sure it must be a consequence of the kind of interaction fostered by the rise of the internet.

 

[MWagner]

I struggled with this a while back. Since then I've decided that as an aspiring writer it's fine to express opinions, but to ensure they are balanced - and if there's nothing good to say, better to say nothing.

Thanks for the link. But what does balanced mean? I read some books I strongly dislike, and I have legitimate reasons for disliking. I'm not going to pretend it's better than it is just to avoid hurting people's feeling, just as I wouldn't give a restaurant with terrible food and poor service a decent rating just to be 'fair' to the owners and staff. Some things are just bad, IMHO.

It also seems from that thread that some people feel criticism itself has no value, or is a kind of hostility. I couldn't disagree more. I add about 50 books a year to my 'to read' list. I read about 15-20 books a year. So what I want out of ratings and reviews is to winnow that list of 50 down. The most valuable contribution to a book site, to me, is a well-argued negative review from someone whose tastes I share and whose opinion I value. Those reviews save me from wasting time and money on books I won't enjoy. I simply don't have the time to read everything that interest me, which is where I probably differ from a lot of the fans of the genre. It seems a lot of SFF fans read two or three books a week. They read everything new in the genre that has any kind of buzz. I can't do that. Of the 15 or 20 books I read a year, half are non-fiction, and the fiction is divided between historical fiction, literary and classic fiction, and SFF. And since I'm a picky reader as well, it takes a lot of care and research to avoid wasting what little time I have altogether.

Abercrombie has previously said that he hadn't read much fantasy fiction, and that most of his reading was in other genres.

Patrick Rothfuss's favourites and his TBR pile barely includes anything published after the 1980's.

Guy Gavriel Kay has said that he doesn't read the fantasy genre.

I was beginning to think that big names don't read fantasy, but George R R Martin recently said he reads a lot. Everyone else seems to be keeping quiet.

I've seen similar comments from other successful authors in the genre. I think they were all voracious readers of fantasy when they were young, but tapered off as they got older, and/or became writers. I've also seen comments from non-genre authors along the same lines - they read less and less fiction as they get older. And GRRM has said that at the time he wrote Game of Thrones he was dissatisfied with the genre, and was reading mainly history and historical fiction.

Which is another interesting thing about epic fantasy authors; a lot of them have abashedly confessed they read more history and historical fiction than fantasy. I think it's an interesting difference between most of the readers in the genre and many of the writers. Readers read voraciously and almost strictly in the genre; writers read much less fiction but more widely. I feel a new thread coming on.

And then there’s the no pooing where you eat issue. You might have to end up on a stage with one of the guys you’ve attacked, who might be way more charismatic than you, while his fans demand to know why you’re such a horrible person.

This is one of the reasons I have very mixed feeling about fandom. That enthusiasm for fiction is encouraging. But the cult of personality around the authors makes me uncomfortable. I'm wary in general of group identities and movements based on emotion. I fear that entertainment and fandom have taken on some of the less attractive features of religion in peoples' lives today.

Anyway, at what point do we say we're a writer and shouldn't award ratings? As an aspiring writer, once something is out? Personally, for me, provided I'm balanced in what I say - for instance, I rarely rate things I've betaed (although I did for @Mouse because the book had changed a good bit) - and I try not to comment on people whose writing I don't like online, although I might join in a discussion, in which case I'd be very clear that it was what didn't work for me, not what made the piece bad.

Yes, the lines between who is a writer and who is a reader are blurry, and getting moreso. Should everyone who aspires to be a writer hold their fire and eschew criticism? That's a pretty hefty portion of the genre fans out there.

(And I think that's a way out of it, in a manner - making it clear it's personal taste...)

But isn't everything we write about books simply personal opinion and a matter of taste? I see no need to qualify every opinion with "and this is just my opinion." Surely there's an implied 'IMHO' prefixing everything any of us writes on social media.

This is so true, and mystifying to me. I'm sure it must be a consequence of the kind of interaction fostered by the rise of the internet.

I think the rise of the internet and social media, a generation with very fragile sensibilities around criticism, and a new entertainment model where the creator has to market and sell themselves as part of the product, have combined to cause a sea change in how we talk about entertainment. If I mentioned to someone reading Shogun on a beach in 1987 that I wasn't terribly impressed, that it did not present Japanese culture faithfully, and that Blackthorne was not a believable character (none of which I believe, by the way) , I'd probably get a shrug. Say that on social media today about the newest hit YA of SFF book and you'll unleash a firestorm from loyalists with a deep emotional investment in the author and the work. As I said earlier, I don't think this is an especially healthy change in how people regard their entertainment.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

But it's not about that - it's about balance. I'm a writer - does that mean I shouldn't be allowed to post a review? I'm also a reader. Don't I have the right to be both.

The key is professionalism. Don't diss people for the sake of it, give a balanced argument, be as fair and generous as is appropriate. And then you're not s***tting anywhere (and I work and live in a small vacuum and totally dig that).

But to not have a right to comment? In no other professional walk of life would I uphold that. Writing shouldn't be any different.

This.

If I ever do get published does my very negative review of Agatha Raisin come back to bite me (I entitled it "I can't attribute enough negative adjectives to this book" but I did go on to give a review explaining why)? Or the fact I made it quite clear I did not find Parks and Recreation funny (I didn't laugh once) to a producer who thought it was fantastic. And actually I find Salman Rushdie exceedingly dull. I have also given very positive reviews and some in the middle.

To give writers no right to comment on the works of others unless it is positive makes their comments useless when they are plugging a book for a mate or one from the same publisher.

Just because it is what is does not mean it should remain the accepted way of doing things.

 

[Toby Frost]

Which is another interesting thing about epic fantasy authors; a lot of them have abashedly confessed they read more history and historical fiction than fantasy. I think it's an interesting difference between most of the readers in the genre and many of the writers.

About 10 years ago, I decided to write a fantasy novel (1st 3 chapters on website, plug plug). I looked at the fantasy novels I owned and felt that none of them really reflected the sort of thing I wanted to write about. I found myself reading a lot of le Carre, Chandler and historical books about the Renaissance. Things have changed somewhat in the genre, but I still find books not quite being what I want them to be, although some have got close. So I'm still trying to write a fantasy novel!

 

[MWagner]

About 10 years ago, I decided to write a fantasy novel (1st 3 chapters on website, plug plug). I looked at the fantasy novels I owned and felt that none of them really reflected the sort of thing I wanted to write about. I found myself reading a lot of le Carre, Chandler and historical books about the Renaissance. Things have changed somewhat in the genre, but I still find books not quite being what I want them to be, although some have got close. So I'm still trying to write a fantasy novel!

Writing a novel because no one else is providing what you want is about the best reason I can think of.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

For me, the best reason is because there is a specific story that you feel compelled to tell. Whether similar stories have been done a thousand times or never doesn't matter. Writing a story for any other reason, no matter how admirable, can result in something that feels too mechanical -- a fact that reviewers (those who are not in love with the whatever it is that isn't being provided elsewhere) will be sure to point out.

I always say: write the story you would love to read if somebody else had written it. That may or may not be the story you want to read but have to write it in order to do so, because nobody else will do it for you. Not infrequently, it is.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

For me, the best reason is because there is a specific story that you feel compelled to tell. Whether similar stories have been done a thousand times or never doesn't matter. Writing a story for any other reason, no matter how admirable, can result in something that feels too mechanical -- a fact that reviewers (those who are not in love with the whatever it is that isn't being provided elsewhere) will be sure to point out.

I always say: write the story you would love to read if somebody else had written it. That may or may not be the story you want to read but have to write it in order to do so, because nobody else will do it for you. Not infrequently, it is.

This. Exactly, exactly this.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Writing a novel because no one else is providing what you want is about the best reason I can think of.

Again - so true. Even if it is "challenging" for the reader.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Interesting read, this thread...

Of course, there's no empirical answer, and we all follow our own compass, but I would like to think someone who has been published and earnt their stripes may be sensitive enough to leave a review that is professional, if not necessarily positive.

As far as Goodreads is concerned (and any reviewer for that matter), I can't really think of a time I have used a review to inform my choice of art - famous author or not - and people I respect in the music, dance or writing field often praised or slated other professionals that I've disliked or liked. Furthermore, whenever Goodreads figures on my RADAR it has, so far, been in respect of some hot potato; the journalist who was blacklisted by a negative review, this Rushdie thing, and so on. I give it a wide berth even though I am part of the Great African Reads and Horror Aficionados reading groups there.

Funnily enough, I mentioned in the reading outside your genre thread that I'll read what I want, regardless of its relevance to my preference for supernatural fiction, and lo! Toby kindly recommended a title based on the fact I love stories about Haunted Houses (is that phrase a proper noun? It should be ). Now it could be a slog, it could be a great read, but knowing the subject or theme is something I like is enough for me to give it a try.

pH

 

[Toby Frost]

I hope you enjoy it! I did review it somewhere, a year or two ago.

I'm not sure when I would review a book and give it a terrible review. I've just finished Fevre Dream by George RR Martin, and, while I think it could have been a 9/10, certain aspects brought it down to 8/10. I'd be happy to say that, because really, that's a real success. If a book was rubbish, then I don't think I'd bother making any comment on it at all. I suppose it might be different if the book was very "important" somehow, or it raised some larger moral point, but I think that's more for an article rather than a single review.

 

[Phyrebrat]

I hope you enjoy it! I did review it somewhere, a year or two ago.

Look what I got through the post today ...

pH