tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43644211595271722412024-03-05T10:14:29.944-08:00Be Still, My HeartThe Adventures of a Resurrected Romance NovelistUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger210125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4364421159527172241.post-15675899747138933302022-04-29T22:01:00.002-07:002022-05-02T18:14:29.212-07:00Why some words get read and others don't<p> Life has a way of intervening in the best laid plans. When the plans are less than best-laid, the intervention can result in massive chaos. My life the past several years has been, you guessed it, massive chaos.</p><p>I put on a good front, I think. Most of my online companions would be aghast at what goes on behind (or in front of) the screen. While this post is not intended to elucidate that reality, I'm using it as a justification.</p><p>Justification for what?</p><p>You'll see.</p><p>In the spring of 1999, as I was enjoying my much-delayed return to higher education at Arizona State University, I began collecting the research material for my proposed honors thesis, an examination of the cultural impacts of romance novels. Completion of the thesis was planned for May 2000, so I had plenty of time.</p><p>I amassed a considerable library, though much of the material was a bit on the disappointing side. Few of the academic analyses of romance fiction actually included much romance fiction. Oh, there were references to it, of course, but little actual analysis of the texts. "How," I thought, "can you even hope to explore the impact, whether positive or negative, of romance novels if you don't even offer some examples? How can you support your thesis -- pun intended -- if you don't present any evidence?"</p><p>So I set out, over the next twelve months, to write my thesis on that foundation.</p><p>I had what I thought was a reasonably unusual, if not unique, vantage point from which to write. Not only was I an avid reader of romance, but also a published writer thereof. I had sold seven historical romance novels to four different New York publishers between 1984 and 1996. Not a particularly prolific career, but it certainly put me into the "published" category, rather than just an aspiring scribbler. (Yes, that's a pejorative, to be explained later.)</p><p>I had also been a member of Romance Writers of America for well over a decade, had served on the committee for the RWA national conference, founded a local Phoenix chapter of RWA and served as its president. Through that chapter I organized a contest for unpublished romance writers and judge in that contest's first three annual iterations. I also founded a special interest chapter solely for published authors. As president of that latter chapter, I organized three national conferences -- two in New York and one in Los Angeles -- focused on the professional interests of professional writers.</p><p>Even after leaving RWA -- and my romance writing career -- in 1998 to return to college after a 25-year hiatus, I continued to read romance fiction. And though I had given up on ever writing more of it, I retained my interest in the genre beyond just a means of entertainment, escape from the daily grind of housework, parenting, and study.</p><p>If there was one quote that focused my endeavor, it was this line from Dale Spender's <i>The Writing or the Sex, or why you don't have to read women's writing to know it's no good</i>:</p><blockquote><p>I have long wanted to place a D. H. Lawrence novel between the covers of Harlequin/Mills and Boon, and to test its status when seen in this light. (p. 79)<br /></p></blockquote><p>Because I read Spender in 1994, before I even thought about going back to college, and because I had read <i>Lady Chatterley's Lover</i> decades before that and recognized it as a romance novel, her statement struck deep. Romance novels, far more than Rodney Dangerfield, got no respect. They didn't when she wrote it in 1989. They didn't when John Cawelti gave the entire genre only one-and-a-half pages in his <i>Adventure, Mystery, and Romance</i> in 1976.</p><p>I proposed to change that in 2000. Of course, life intervened and my thesis, titled <i>Half Heaven, Half Heartache: Discovering the Transformative Potential in Women's Popular Fiction</i> ended up being much, much shorter than originally planned. It was still more than enough to grant me my honors degree, and also more than enough to surprise the members of my committee when I defended it.</p><p>And that's what really surprised me. </p><p>Two of the three were professors of English, the third of history. They had known the subject matter of the paper for weeks ahead of time, and one had known for several months. I gave them copies a week or two before the defense, anticipating tough questioning because I knew the topic was at least mildly controversial. But their questions were more founded in curiosity than in an attempt to prompt a serious defense of a serious position. <i>They knew nothing about romance fiction. Nothing.</i></p><p>Well, I take that back. They knew enough to be somewhat befuddled by the idea that all romance novels aren't Harlequins, and they knew enough to ask what, if any, difference there was between romance novels and television soap operas.</p><p>(If you rolled your eyes at that, please, pick them up off the floor so you can continue reading.)</p><p>But again, that was 2000. I had a serious nibble from a respected publisher on a book-length version of the thesis, but life intervened and I was never able to put it together.<i> </i>I went on to graduate school and got my master's, and shortly after graduating I found myself suddenly widowed and forced to focus on the harsh realities that accompanied that change in status. Even so, that long personal involvement with romance fiction never left me. I continued to read in the genre, though not as extensively as I had before simply because I couldn't afford to buy all the books!</p><p>And I kept all my research material. There were those who urged me to "clean house," so to speak, but I resisted.<br /></p><p>Then came digital self publishing. I knew nothing about it and discovered it almost by accident. I found it more than a little intriguing.<br /></p><p>In 2011 and 2012, I explored the possibilities of re-issuing some of those historical romance novels I'd published in the 1980s and 1990s. I had no budget for hiring someone to do the work for me, so I did everything myself, except the cover art. I blew more money than I could afford on covers for re-issues of four of the seven, with mediocre results. But I was reasonably happy. I was in control, and I found that to be a very heady experience.</p><p>My last publisher, Pocket Books, would not revert the rights to me, so neither <i>Moonsilver</i> nor <i>Touchstone</i> were mine to re-issue. After the horrible experience I had with that publisher, the horrible editing, the beyond horrible cover art, the utter lack of promotion, I already disliked them intensely. Their refusal to allow me to republish the books sealed the deal, and when they put trade-paperback editions on Amazon with outrageous prices, I knew they didn't want to sell the books; they just wanted to keep me from doing likewise. I lost what tiny little bit of respect I had for traditional publishing.</p><p>I took a little gamble and put a digital edition of <i>Half Heaven, Half Heartache</i> on Amazon, with cover art I did myself. It wasn't an effort to make money so much as it was self validation. How many copies has it sold? I don't know, but I'm sure it's fewer than a dozen. I don't care. It's there.</p><p>Around the same time I was putting my thesis on Amazon, I engaged in some online conversations with credentialed academics on the subject of romance fiction and feminism and empowerment, but I felt somewhat dismissed, if that's the right word, because I wasn't in their world. When I questioned the tiny sample of romance fiction used in one academic research project, the researchers told me they didn't have sufficient budget.</p><p>Hello? You can pick up used paperback romances at thrift shops and used book stores and church rummage sales! Check them out of the library! (Personally, I think it was just an excuse: they really didn't want lower their academic selves to actually read romance novels.)<br /></p><p>I rolled my eyes and picked them up off the floor, then silently wailed that I <b>still</b> didn't have the means, the time, or the academic reputation to pursue the project that had been lurking in the back of my head for over a decade.</p><p>Instead, the writing spark touched me again and in 2016 I finished a novel I had begun in 1994. <i>The Looking-Glass Portrait</i> went up as a Kindle edition on Amazon with a cover I made myself using artwork purchased on Etsy. I had no advertising budget, wasn't even on Twitter or Goodreads at the time, but over the next year or so I made more income from that book than from any of the traditionally published books I'd written. In fact, more than from the first five put together!<br /></p><p>I not only made more money, but I made it quicker. None of this waiting weeks before signing a contract, waiting months for the advance money, then years for publication, then more years for royalties (if any). </p><p>"Why," I wondered, "would anyone still mess around with publishers who pay maybe at best ten percent royalties when I can collect seventy percent from Amazon?"</p><p>To my way of thinking, digital self-publishing should have meant a massive revolution to the romance fiction industry. I began thinking about that analysis of mine again.</p><p>One thing held me back, and one thing only. </p><p>In 2003, Pamela Regis published <i>A Natural History of the Romance Novel</i>. I knew I couldn't compete with a real, credentialed academic. No way. For a long time I couldn't even afford to buy a copy of Regis's book, and I would have been secretly humiliated to read it. Was this imposter syndrome at work? Probably. But then I found an inexpensive used copy of the book and grabbed it, even though I still expected to be humiliated within the first few pages.</p><p><i>You're not good enough,</i> my inner critic warned with a malicious chuckle. <i>They're all professors of this and professors of that, and <b>you're not.</b></i></p><p>The problem was that as I began to read Regis, I found myself immediately disagreeing with much of what she wrote. Of course that meant my ideas were wrong and hers were right and I needed to just go back to being a failed romance writer no one paid any attention to.</p><p>Maybe, just maybe, some of that changed today, all as a result of a serendipitous post on Twitter that led me down a research rabbit hole, where I discovered a few books and a doctoral dissertation.</p><p>The books for the most part are outrageously, even obscenely expensive. Over $50 for a Kindle edition? Paperback nearly $60? <b>Hardcover over $200?!</b></p><p>But as I looked at the sample of that $50+ Kindle edition, I recognized something I hadn't thought of before, not when I was writing my little thesis in 2000, not when I was reading Regis in 2016, not when I was reading that dissertation a few hours earlier. </p><p>These are all books written by professional academics <b>for</b> professional academics. They're priced out of the reach of readers of romance fiction and probably out of reach for many of the writers of romance fiction.</p><p>And then there's another academic on Twitter tonight:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnWbsmPq-r8MhO26Zj6CQMeuL-rf3Hn505lWFR6P-xZIooS7VuQlNf3F68W0sGxfz4N7ckLOc1rMLhDFqbabj5rt9bBdBd-ATePXvBQB15Jl0MK6YhI0x0QqPPKvStuvmv69hCSlQp7699KX-gZsXFJVz4Yr1JJ5zow1k0Zk1w0bE59-iEMtkBTYG8/s851/2022%2004%2029%20Tweet%20re%20making%20history%20more%20popular.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="396" data-original-width="851" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnWbsmPq-r8MhO26Zj6CQMeuL-rf3Hn505lWFR6P-xZIooS7VuQlNf3F68W0sGxfz4N7ckLOc1rMLhDFqbabj5rt9bBdBd-ATePXvBQB15Jl0MK6YhI0x0QqPPKvStuvmv69hCSlQp7699KX-gZsXFJVz4Yr1JJ5zow1k0Zk1w0bE59-iEMtkBTYG8/w505-h235/2022%2004%2029%20Tweet%20re%20making%20history%20more%20popular.jpg" width="505" /></a></div><p></p><p>"Make our work more public facing." Hmmm.....</p><p>How can the public afford a $200 book? How many romance readers can afford it? Or have the academic language to appreciate it? Oh, wait, it's not written for romance readers. Or for romance writers. It's written, published, and <b>priced</b> for other academics. I guess they think if we don't have PhD after our names, we're not worthy of their lofty opinions.</p><p>So I bought Laura Vivanco's $0.99 Kindle edition of <i>Faith, Love, Hope and Popular Romance Fiction.</i> </p><p>When I wrote <i>Half Heaven, Half Heartache</i> I intended it to be understandable by the average romance reader and romance writer, people just like me. I had been a member of those often overlapping groups for almost all of my life. In the spring of 2000 when I was defending that thesis, I was 51 years old. I had read my first adult historical romance at the age of 12 or 13, maybe younger. I began writing adult historical romance at the same age. I wrote my first complete contemporary romance in 1963 at the age of 15. It's not very good, but I still have most of it.<br /></p><p>One of the things that bothered me enormously through the five years I spent at ASU was that academia loved studying popular culture, but generally turned up its collective noses at the producers and consumers thereof. In a course on 20th Century Women Writers, I made the remark that it seemed everything we read in class was depressing and discouraging. "Doesn't anyone believe in happy endings?" I dared to ask. The professor was horrified at the mere suggestion.</p><p>No, I did not tell her I wrote romance novels. I think she found out eventually, but by then it didn't matter. </p><p>In another instance, I gave one of my professors a copy of one of my books. She knew ahead of time that I wrote romance, but she told me later that as she was reading the book, she kept thinking it was more of a mystery than a romance. There was a murder, after all, and romance novels don't have serious things like murders in them! Well, sorry, but yes they do. Even in 2001 they did.</p><p>Then there was that dissertation I found online today. At least that was free! I downloaded the PDF file. It purports to be an ethnographic study of the popular culture of romance focusing on communities and feminism and fandom and all sorts of other things. It's over 200 pages long, and I admit I only read about the first 25 before skipping ahead to the bibliography.</p><p>A lot of the sources the author used were very familiar to me; I had used the same references in 2000 writing my thesis. Others were newer, published since then, or on different subjects. What was missing, however, were actual romance novels. <i>She cited only one romance novel.</i> </p><p>Listed in the extensive bibliography were Charles Dickens' <i>A Tale of Two Cities</i>; Jane Austen's <i>Pride and Prejudice</i>; and Kathleen E. Woodiwiss's <i>The Flame and the Flower.</i> While I personally consider both the Dickens and the Austen works to be legitimately classified as romance novels, I'm seriously disappointed that there's any assumption that romance novels went into some kind of hibernation in 1859 and didn't emerge from their slumber until 1972.</p><p>But then I remembered that Kelly Choyke, the PhD candidate who wrote "The Power of Popular Romance Culture: Community, Fandom, and Sexual Politics," was writing for an academic audience who (probably) didn't care about the romance novels that preceded <i>The Flame and the Flower</i> or those that followed, and almost certainly didn't give a rat's behind about the readers or the writers thereof.</p><p>That phrase "sexual politics" jumped out at me. Politics, the study of government, of power, of citizens collectively. (My definitions, not formal.) <i>Hoi poloi</i>, as we learned in classical Greek at the University of Illinois in 1966, the people, the common people, the source of "politics." But when it comes to romance fiction, the <i>hoi poloi</i> are just peasants unworthy of notice. Oh, sure, college professors read mysteries for the intellectual challenge, and we all know science fiction is "the literature of ideas." Romance, on the other hand, well, no one who is really educated would be caught dead reading a romance novel.</p><p>Now, you and I know perfectly well that's nonsense, but if you try to read <i>Romance Fiction and American Culture: Love as the Practice of Freedom?</i> I think you'll find that it's not addressed to the <i>hoi poloi</i>. We're not worthy. It's over our little heads.</p><p>My dear goddess, could they get any more patriarchal, any more hierarchical, any more condescending?</p><p>Born in 1948, I came of age in the storied 1960s, when popular culture impacted politics in a very direct way. I wonder now if the true and transformative power of popular culture has been co-opted by the Establishment, who has in turn given us . . . influencers.</p><p>The romance novel has undergone changes through its lifetime, and even since 1972 when <i>The Flame and the Flower</i> burst on the scene. But the romance novel as a genre does not exist in a vacuum. As convenient as it may be to isolate it as an object of academic study, it is to the detriment of the readers, the writers, and the overlapping, intersecting, interdependent communities they inhabit.<br /></p><p>Isolating romance fiction as an object of academic study, and to a further extent isolating its subgenres from each other, serves to limit and reduce its power. Jayne Ann Krentz, in putting together the essays that comprise 1992's <i>Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women</i>, tried to bridge the gap between academic analysis of the power of romance and popular creation and enjoyment of romance. Krentz came from the romance community, not academia. Her work caught on with the romance fiction community in a way I don't think any other has.</p><p>Academia may lament, as Dr. Ashley Prybil did on Twitter, that they aren't having sufficient impact, but I haven't seen much effort on the part of academia to make their work accessible, by which I mean affordable and understandable. <br /></p><p>In the thirty years since <i>Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women</i> was published, has there really been anything written from inside the Romancelandia community, by and for the residents of Romancelandia? I don't recall any. I think it's time for something new.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4364421159527172241.post-4097585983539643882021-06-28T17:27:00.000-07:002021-06-28T17:27:40.919-07:00Words That Go Bump in the Night: Does anyone even care about reviews?<p><span style="font-size: large;"> Full disclosure: I obtained the Kindle edition of <i>The Ghostly Grounds: Murder and Breakfast</i> by Sophie Love on 8 May 2021 when it was offered free on Amazon. I do not know the author nor have I ever communicated with her about this book or any other matter. I am an author of historical romance, contemporary romantic suspense, and assorted non-fiction.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I have no way of knowing how many copies of any given author-published book are actually sold or at what price. Whether Sophie Love made a profit on this book is her business. How much she paid FreeBooksy.com to promote it is also her business. (That's where I got the link to the free Kindle edition.) How many reviews the book got from that promotion and the ratings on Amazon, Goodreads, and other sites is also her business.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">As of today, Monday, 28 June 2021, the book has 1450 ratings on Goodreads for an average of 4.0 stars. The written reviews number 160. The breakdown by ratings is as follows:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">5-star -- 500</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">4-star -- 558</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">3-star -- 299</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">2-star -- 79</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">1-star -- 14</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">On Amazon, it has 2361 ratings for an average of 4.3 stars.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So here's my first mostly rhetorical question:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">If 1357 people liked it -- that's three stars and above on GR -- why is the author still paying a promoter to give it away for free?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The obvious answer, of course, is that by giving away the first book in a six-book series, she will interest readers in buying the subsequent books. They will love Book #1 so much that they will plunk out from $2.99 to $5.99 each for the sequels. That answer may or may not be accurate.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1BBA4q8zMKNBAXw89iEBcx8wjp0vbsxHy-o6VVxGuaMRyjbgfCpQg7uHxl7pFab831MPMEVBhHfeC4ZmFeSczOI0QVci-RvrENP78rl6gualFbvQDczKIcIZPJha6CCmROHkn9XEkJyM/s1327/2021+06+28+Amazon+also+boughts+Murder+and+Breakfast.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1327" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1BBA4q8zMKNBAXw89iEBcx8wjp0vbsxHy-o6VVxGuaMRyjbgfCpQg7uHxl7pFab831MPMEVBhHfeC4ZmFeSczOI0QVci-RvrENP78rl6gualFbvQDczKIcIZPJha6CCmROHkn9XEkJyM/w640-h272/2021+06+28+Amazon+also+boughts+Murder+and+Breakfast.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">Look at the huge drop-off in just the number of ratings for those sequels! From 2361 Amazon ratings for the first book to just 180 for the second? The sixth book, <i>Disaster and Dessert</i>, has only been published for a few weeks -- 8 June 2021 -- and only has 21 ratings on Amazon (none of which contain reviews that passed Amazon's criteria to actually be shown) and 16 on Goodreads. The only text review on GR is a 1-star, in which the reviewer cites continuing problems with typos. One might wonder why the reader continues with the series if this is a situation that bothers her enough to include it in a review, but she's absolutely entitled to leave that review.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Which leads to the second mostly rhetorical question: Who pays more attention to reviews -- readers or self-publishing authors?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I learned a long time ago, long before Goodreads and Amazon and Kindle Direct Publishing, that reviews are always suspect. They were questionable back in the days of <i>Romantic Times</i> and <i>Rave Reviews </i>and I knew that from first-hand experience. Fast-forward from those 1980s and 1990s print reviews to the system-gaming swap groups and fiverr shills of the 2010s, and the writing should have been on the wall that no review is to be trusted on its face. There were too many verified examples of fake reviews.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Do readers continue to trust them? I have my doubts.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I don't choose books based on reviews. Not ever. I may go by the recommendation of a friend whose opinion I trust, but not by strangers' reviews. Am I typical? Probably not.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When I read reviews, I almost always start with the one- and two-star opinions. In fact, I can't remember when I've ever started with the five-stars. From my earliest experience with Amazon reviews in 2012 and then Goodreads, I knew the five-star reviews were far more likely to be bogus than the one- and two-star criticisms. To this day, I can read one-star reviews that overtly state they don't know where all the great reviews come from because the book in question is lousy.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I suspect, therefore, that few readers actually rely on published reviews when deciding what books to read. They may look at the number of reviews and maybe even the rating, but the text review is far less important than genre and price. Yes, price, because free is attractive to the voracious reader. I personally download anywhere from five to twelve free Kindle books every single day, thanks to FreeBooksy.com. (Don't ask when I'll read them. That's for another blog post.) When Kindle books by established, traditionally-published genre authors cost $12.99 and up, all that free stuff is mighty attractive.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Often a four or five or nine book series is available for free. Even if the writing is utter garbage, it's reading material. And for the non-discriminating reader, the person who just lies on the beach or curls up on the couch to while away a few hours in another place and/or time, quality may not be a priority.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Do (traditional) publishers care about reviews? Oh, maybe, as long as they're good reviews that promote the book and drive sales. Publishers are less interested in quality and more interested in quantity; their only concern is the bottom line. Publishers -- and of course this includes self-publishing authors and small press independents -- do not appear to care if the reviews are honest. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Can a reviewer collect free books from NetGalley and post the exact same five-star review, not changing a single word, not indicating anything about the book, multiple times and get away with it? Sure, as long as she has a 4.99 average rating on Goodreads over approximately 5000 titles. No one cares if she actually read the books or liked them. As long as she puts down at five-star rating, it's all good. Three, four, five books a day, every day, five stars here, five stars there. It's all good.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So then comes the third somewhat rhetorical question: Do the authors care?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Okay, that question goes beyond rhetorical and into facetious.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Authors, and particularly the self-publishing ones, only want five-star reviews. They don't care how they get them, and they don't care if they're honest opinions or not. They will buy them from fiverr and other shill outfits. They will solicit them from friends and family. They will establish sock puppet accounts on Goodreads -- less easily done on Amazon, but not impossible -- and rate their own books the best evah. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">They will insist that no one should ever rate a book -- especially their book -- negatively without reading the whole thing. If the book is so bad the reader can't get past the second chapter, is the reader not allowed to say so? Apparently not. Maybe it gets better in Chapter Five. Or maybe not. Regardless . . . .<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">No negative reviews.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">They will insist that no one should ever post a one- or two-star review who hasn't also written a book, because only someone who knows the work that goes into writing can be justified in criticizing a fellow writer's work. But they will also insist that no fellow writer should ever do anything but support a colleague. So if you're a writer, you're only allowed to post positive, supportive reviews even if they're untrue.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">No negative reviews.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Writers will say -- on Twitter, on Facebook, on Goodreads, on Amazon -- that they welcome constructive criticism. Negative reviews are allowed (of other writers' work) if they contain suggestions for improvement. Of course, the reviewer has no way of knowing if the author will pay attention to those suggestions. And the writer has no idea if the reviewer is qualified to make those suggestions. And then there are the readers: Do they want to take a chance that the author ignored the advice? Do readers even know what's good writing advice and what isn't?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I know, I know, I know. We've been down this road before. At the end, we always come up against that great big huge gate where the reviewer is accused of being a gatekeeper -- or just a plain hater, or even a jealous hater -- and nothing is accomplished. Turn around, go back the way you came, pick up another book that's got 1500 five-star ratings on Goodreads and hope for the best. If it's not the best, or not even good at all, don't say anything. It's not allowed.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">If you're one of those readers who has been discouraged from writing honest, critical reviews and who has increasingly turned to traditionally published books that tend to get more honest reviews or to old favorite comfort reads, do you ever wonder if there are new authors you might be missing? Or do you weigh that loss against the risk of finding just another piece of crap?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Okay, that's not a rhetorical question. It's legit. Even though the odds against finding something good are rather high, there is always the slim chance of finding a good freebie.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But even less rhetorical is the question to the authors who aren't being read. The authors who are being pressured to give away twenty thousand free copies of their books in the hope that someone will read them and give a good review and prompt other people to buy the book. That question is, How do you feel when you see all the freebies going out and the five-star reviews coming in and you know the books are crap?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Which gets us back to the book mentioned in the opening disclosure.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I forced myself to read just about half of Sophie Love's <i>The Ghostly Grounds: Murder and Breakfast</i> before I gave up in disgust. The first two chapters were lively and interesting, and introduced the main character Marie, who is 39 going on 12. Marie is locked in a dead-end job -- the book's description paints her as a successful dog groomer in Boston, but she's a down-trodden employee of the groomer -- and in a dead-end relationship. All the dead-endedness comes to a head, and Marie quits both job and boyfriend and takes off for Maine. She inherits a seaside mansion from her great-aunt and decides to turn it into a bed and breakfast. Three weeks later, she's up and running. Sort of.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Marie has no clue what she's doing. Though she claims to have had this dream of running a B&B since childhood, she's never apparently done any research on how to do it. She sets up a website in half an afternoon or so and expects reservations to come pouring in immediately.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">How is she taking payments? What laws govern B&Bs in Maine? Does she have insurance to cover liability if her guests get hurt? What is she going to do for money?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Most readers won't notice any of this and won't care.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I noticed and I cared.<i> </i><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She starts major renovations on the house almost immediately; where is the money coming from? Her savings? She had savings working as a dog groomer? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Her contractor quits, or just fails to keep showing up, and Marie does nothing for several days until finally his assistant just starts doing the rest of the work. The renovations in question are not one- or two-day jobs, yet she's planning to have guests in less than a month.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Oh, there's also a dog. Named Boo. Halfway through the book I don't know if he's a ghost ("Canine Casper") or not.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Halfway through the book, there's no murder, no breakfast. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Halfway through the book, Marie gets her first paying customer and he does something to upset her to the point that she runs out of the house and heads for town, <i>leaving this guy alone in her B&B.</i> I'm not sure if she runs to town or drives -- she has an ancient but reliable Saab (they stopped production in 2014) -- but she gushes out her tale of woe to her friend and no one suggests she go back to her business and, you know, take care of business.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It's not just Marie who is, well, TSTL. Her paying guest, Brendan Peck, is just as bad. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">“I’m a photojournalist on assignment to sort of… well… hold on. Let me start again. Because I only tell people I’m a photojournalist when I don’t want to embarrass myself.” </span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">“So then what are you?” </span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">Brendan sighed and said, “I’m a paranormal investigator. I’m on assignment for a television network<br /><br />Love, Sophie. The Ghostly Grounds: Murder and Breakfast (A Canine Casper Cozy Mystery—Book 1) (pp. 80-81). UNKNOWN. Kindle Edition. </span></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: large;">He's on assignment. He's some kind of professional. He has some kind of experience. Or at least that's what I thought.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But then he gets video footage of something paranormal inside the B&B <b>and he posts the video to Twitter.</b></span></p><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">“I know, I’m so sorry. I should have gotten your permission first.” </span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">“You really should have,” she said. She wasn’t angry… not yet. She was more disappointed than anything else. “Did you post where it was taken?” </span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">He frowned, his eyes still on the ghost on his laptop. “Yes. But I can delete it! No harm, right?”<br /><br />Love, Sophie. The Ghostly Grounds: Murder and Breakfast (A Canine Casper Cozy Mystery—Book 1) (p. 85). UNKNOWN. Kindle Edition. </span></blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><b> </b>Of course, it's all going to work out in the end, isn't it? None of his 31K followers will have seen it, other than the 26 or 27 who liked or retweeted it . . . .<p></p><p>That's when Marie runs out and leaves him there. She runs into town -- I don't know how far it is and I'm not interested in looking it up -- to have lunch with her friend. While they're eating, the reservations come pouring in. Brendan's tweet has saved Marie's business! The one she doesn't know how to operate! The one she just literally ran away from!<br /></p><p>That's when I gave up.</p><p>Those are the structural issues, and they're serious. The stylistic issues are less serious, but they're not inconsequential. At one point Marie reminisces about sliding down the balcony in the house when she was a child visiting her great-aunt who lived there. No, one slides down a banister. Marie constantly refers to the house as a "manor." Well, maybe it is, but there are other words, too, and just using manor over and over and over makes it stand out. </p><p>These are fine details a good critique partner probably would have caught and fixed. Or a good editor. It's pretty obvious to this reader that Sophie Love had neither.<br /></p><p>I can't leave a negative review on Amazon because I'm an author of romantic suspense/gothic romance. I can't leave a review on Goodreads because I'm banned there -- for writing honest but negative reviews.</p><p>Mostly I write reviews for readers, because I believe readers deserve honesty. They also deserve to know there are better books out there and they don't have to settle for crap. Sometimes that means writing a review based on one page, which invokes all kinds of anger from the self-publishing authors. The writing problems manifested on page one are almost never resolved later in the book. Writing problems that manifest on page one are problems with the writer, and the writer doesn't change.</p><p>But now I'm also reviewing for writers. For those writers who really do want to improve, who don't want to be relegated to giving away boxed sets of a dozen full-length novels or selling them for $0.99 on Amazon. Maybe they're making a lot of money via page views on Kindle Unlimited, but if so, why are they giving the books away for virtually nothing?</p><p><i>The Ghostly Grounds: Murder and Breakfast</i> might actually have potential. I got notice that there's been an update just since I downloaded it six weeks ago, but of course I have no way of comparing the two versions because Amazon will erase the old one when it downloads the new one.</p><p>I'll continue to write reviews like this. Read and follow them if you like. Respond if you care to. I won't tolerate abuse, and I won't edit for free.</p><p><br /></p></span><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4364421159527172241.post-41220556788672259412021-06-22T12:49:00.007-07:002021-06-22T18:47:40.929-07:00The Same Words, Over and Over, or why you need to be your own best editor<p><span style="font-size: large;">Reviews are for readers. Writers should be readers.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Of course, not all readers are writers, but a sojourn into the swamp that is author-published genre fiction quickly makes one believe that many writers are not readers.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I often ask myself what attraction does writing have for a person who doesn't read? Is it the prospect of easy wealth? Fame? The easy wealth thing is easily (pun intended) dispelled: Writing a book isn't easy and too few writers achieve great wealth. Fame? How many really famous writers are there?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Maybe some of these non-reading writers have read a book or two, enjoyed it, and thought they could do the same. If they don't understand the basic structure of fiction, the rules of writing, the elements of style (without capitals), it's not likely that they will enjoy much success in the way of wealth and/or fame. Those skills have to be learned, and they have to be learned through reading until they become a part of who and what the writer is. It's not enough to lean on your middle school classroom writing exercises. They may have taught you the rudiments of grammar and punctuation, but the writing of successful popular fiction requires much more than knowing when to use a comma and when to use a semi-colon.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Nor is it enough to rely on an editor. <b>If you don't have the requisite skills yourself, you won't be able to recognize their lack when you hand your book over to someone who claims to be an editor.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It doesn't matter what the editor's credentials are. They may be a retired English teacher or a multi-published author. What matters is <i>your</i> ability to determine if their editing will make your novel better or worse.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Let's look at the opening paragraph to one book as an example. Even though we don't have the original text and can't see what the editor has changed, if anything, we can at least look at the final (?) result.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">The book in question is <i>Not in the Cards</i> by Amy Cissell, published by the author in October 2018.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And we know this book has been edited because the author made sure to thank the editor!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">Special thanks to my editor, Colleen Vanderlinden and my cover artist Daqri Combs for helping put together such a polished book. No woman is an island, and a writer is nothing without a great editor and fantastic cover artist.<br /><br />Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Locations 66-67). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition. </span></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Disclosure: I obtained my copy of <i>Not in the Cards</i> when it was offered as a free Kindle book on Amazon on 21 June 2021. I do not know the author nor have I ever communicated with her in any way about this book or any other matter. I am an author of historical romance, contemporary romantic suspense, and assorted non-fiction.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Now, about that opening paragraph:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">Sandy unlocked the front door to the little shop she’d just rented and pulled the string on the sign that hung in the window, the sign that had brought her here— to this shop, to this business, and to Oracle Bay. The buzz of the neon broke the near silence. She walked outside to look in at her shop. From the outside, the windows appeared to have been cleaned with shortening. A large triangle of yellow neon framed the words “Alexandra’s Tarot Readings.” A red Eye of Horus and the outline of three cards took turns blinking on and off at the top of the triangle.<br /><br />Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Locations 76-80). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition. </span></blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">As a reader, I came to the first line and saw Sandy walking up to the door from the outside. I don't yet have any mental image of her or of Oracle Bay, but I do see her approaching the door from the outside. She unlocks the door, walks in, and turns on the sign.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The "walks in" isn't stated, but I inferred it because that's the scenario my years of reading have prepared me for. So when Sandy instead walks <i>outside</i> in the third sentence, I have to adjust my mental images. It takes a tiny bit of effort to do that and settle into the new scene of Sandy standing outside, perhaps on a sidewalk, looking into her new shop.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I could understand the sign having brought her to the shop, but did the sign in the shop in Oracle Bay bring her to Oracle Bay? I'm already figuratively scratching my head. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She pulled a string, so now I'm envisioning a swinging sign, perhaps wooden, perhaps cardboard, that hangs in the window. I have to alter that image when the author informs me it's a neon sign. Now I think maybe "cord" would have been a better word than string, to indicate she's turned on a switch of some kind for this electric sign.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then comes that third sentence where I realize she's been inside and walks outside. Instead of additional information being revealed with each subsequent sentence to clarify an established mental image, the narrative keeps changing what the previous text has implied.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">If the windows looked like they'd been "cleaned with shortening," are they cleaned at all? Wouldn't "smeared" be a better term? Are they just dull or do they look greasy and dirty? Shop windows that are made of acrylic sheets -- Plexiglas (r) and other trade names -- can easily be scratched when cleaned with anything abrasive and over time become dull and lose some of their transparency. But that wouldn't make them look "cleaned with shortening." Would it?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">That description interrupts further description of the neon sign, again disrupting the flow of the text.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">After just one paragraph, I'm having doubts about the qualifications of the editor.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Now, before you jump all over me for being picky, let me clearly state that yes, I am <i>very</i> picky. And yes, it's possible for a writer to become very successful without my suggestions! If you as that writer, however, aren't as successful as you'd like to be, maybe stop and step back from the emotional reaction to my criticism and look at the work -- it's not yours, after all -- objectively.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Did the editor make <i>Not in the Cards</i> so much better that there weren't obvious weaknesses? Even if we don't know what the original version was, is this the best it can be? </span><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The next two paragraphs are backstory, narrative explanations of how Sandy came to be here outside the shop. I had some issues with the phrases "it'd belonged to" and "Sandy'd made" because I thought "it had belonged to" and "Sandy had made" would have flowed more smoothly, but they weren't big issues.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then came</span> </p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">She turned the sign back off, opened a bottle of wine, and grabbed the cheese and cracker plate she’d picked up at the local supermarket. She made herself a floor picnic, complete with a couple candles to help add light to the dim room, and toasted herself and her newfound freedom. </span></blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><blockquote>Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Locations 87-89). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition. </blockquote></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Wait, what? When did Sandy go back inside the shop? We left her standing on the sidewalk, but there isn't a single word about her going back inside. Did she have to open the door again? Why did she go out in the first place?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Was the action of going outside just a device for the author to introduce the sign?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">An editor or even a good critique partner could/should have caught that. It's not a major thing in and of itself, but an author should be able to make sure the characters' actions are fully and clearly understood. I stopped reading when I came to that fourth paragraph and went back to carefully reread the preceding three to see if there was any mention of Sandy returning to the interior of the shop. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There wasn't.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Interestingly enough, a few pages later, Sandy does the outside-and-back-in-again routine, but it's spelled out.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: large;">She walked outside and watched [the sign] cycle through its neon advertisement a couple times before shrugging. [Did the sign shrug?] It was what it was, and there was no going back now. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Sandy went back inside, pulled a book out of her expansive beaded hemp purse, and sat down to wait for her first customer.<br /><br />Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Locations 114-116). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition. </span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: large;">In due course, Sandy's first customer arrives.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">Her breath caught in her throat as <b>the woman</b> paused<br /><br />Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Location 121). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition. </span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The woman </b>paused and squinted<br /><br />Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Location 122). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition. <br /><b></b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b> the woman</b> took a tentative step<br /><br />Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Location 125). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition. </span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"> <b>the woman</b> jumped<br /><br />Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Location 127). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><b>the woman</b> instinctively grabbed<br /><br />Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Location 128). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition.</span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The woman</b> blinked</span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Location 129). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition. </span></blockquote><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: large;"> <b>The woman</b> hesitated<br /><br />Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Locations 133-134). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">note of <b>the woman</b>’s name.<br /><br />Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Locations 135-136). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The woman</b> did as requested,<br /><br />Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Location 139). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>the woman </b>sitting<br /><br />Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Locations 139-140). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>This woman</b> was<br /><br />Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Location 142). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>the woman</b> as she drew<br /><br />Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Location 143). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition. </span></p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><b>the woman</b> asked.<br /><br />Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Location 149). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition. </span></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Did you keep track? If not, it's thirteen times in less than four pages that the client is referred to as "the woman." Only once is she called a customer and one more time a client, as well as a few times by her name, which Sandy has learned is Ann. The rest of the time she is "the woman."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Is this wrong? No, not really. But it isn't good. It isn't polished and professional and evocative. As a reader or as a writer, can you think of other words that might have been used? Customer and client are valid possibilities, and each was used once. What about "stranger"? "Visitor"? "Guest"? Any others?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But the multiple repetitions of one word are only one thing that's awkward -- I'm trying to avoid saying "wrong" -- about this scene of Sandy welcoming her first paying customer.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Ann isn't her first customer.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Remember how the previous scene ended? <b> </b>Sandy goes outside, comes back in, and waits for her first customer. It's normal to assume, then that the woman who walks in the door in the very next paragraph is in fact that first customer.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Sandy prepares to do the tarot card reading for Ann, but in the midst of those preparations, we get this:</span></p><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">The clients who’d come in earlier that day had all been vacationers looking for some happy news.<br /><br />Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Location 142). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition. </span></blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">Wait, what? <p></p><p>The mental sequence of Sandy settling down to wait for her first customer, reading a romance novel while waiting, and then greeting the woman who walked through the door <i>as her first customer</i> probably should have been revised. The story action isn't flowing smoothly. It's been interrupted by the reader questioning what she's already read.</p><p>Could the editor have suggested that Sandy reflect on her first couple of clients as being vacationers and that this tarot-reading gig was going to be a lucrative cinch before Ann comes in? Well, if I were the editor, I certainly would have. As a reader I noticed the bumpy sequence right away. </p><p>Do most readers notice things like this? To be perfectly honest, probably not. If you look at the reviews and ratings author-published genre fiction gets on Amazon and Goodreads, the numbers skew very high. Few of these novels average less than 4.0 stars, and the one- and two-star ratings are few and far between. Is that because the books are so good? Or is it because over the past few years negative reviews and their writers have been so often attacked? Is it because positive reviews are encouraged? Do readers who have negative reading experiences resist writing reviews because there are so many pressures not to?</p><p>One of the most common and most vociferously argued is "Don't write a negative review unless you've read the whole book." And if the book is so bad you can't finish it, writing a review saying so is therefore strongly discouraged. Result: badly written books don't get negative reviews. Subsequent result: authors of badly written books don't improve because they don't know their books are badly written. Or, in some cases, badly edited.</p><p>(As an experiment, look at some of the reviewers on Goodreads who don't leave reviews but post five-star ratings. How many of them have very high average ratings, 4.5 and above?)<br /></p><p>To continue. The first chapter of <i>Not in the Cards</i> contains two detailed tarot readings, one that Sandy does for her paying customer Ann and another she does for herself. Tarot cards aren't all the same; today there are dozens, maybe hundreds of different decks featuring themes such as dragons and witches, angels and fairies, dogs and kittens, and in styles such as Native American, feminist, pagan, and so on. To someone even slightly familiar with the Tarot, the lack of description of the deck used and especially of the individual cards that turned up in Sandy's readings was noticeable. <br /></p><p>Sandy is apparently using "her old college tarot cards" (Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Locations 83-84). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition.) Nothing between that statement and her ushering Ann in for a reading suggests Sandy has obtained any other tarot deck. So the reader doesn't know if the deck Sandy obtained in college is the familiar Rider-Waite deck or some other.</p><p>The reader is also assumed to be familiar with the cards and with the whole method of tarot divination. None of that is given the slightest explanation in the text. <br /></p><p>For instance: What does it mean when a card is reversed? What is the Celtic cross layout? What does The World card look like? What does The Fool card signify? What are pentacles and cups, wands and swords and rods? (I assume she meant rods and wands to be interchangeable, but I don't know for sure.) A novel doesn't have to give all the details, but it should give . . . some.</p><p>I managed to get through the first full chapter but wasn't enticed to read further. There were other minor issues that bothered me in addition to those cited above. The one that stood out most was Ann described as <br /></p><p></p><blockquote>her skin was the rich shade of brown.<br /><br />Cissell, Amy. Not in the Cards (An Oracle Bay Novel Book 1) (Kindle Locations 123-124). Broken World Publishing. Kindle Edition. </blockquote><p>"The" rich shade of brown? Is there only one? <br /></p>I can overlook the occasional punctuation/capitalization/grammar error, but things like that pull me right smack dab out of the story into "Huh? Ugh!" territory.<br /><p></p><p><i>Not in the Cards</i> was published in 2018 but only has 26 reviews on Amazon, and 64 ratings on Goodreads. When it was offered free on 21 June 2021, it shot up to #20 in the Kindle Free listings, so it will be interesting to see how many reviews it picks up on both Amazon and Goodreads as a result.<br /></p><p></p><p> </p></span> <br /><p></p><p> </p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b></b> </span><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4364421159527172241.post-23054063609237383982021-06-19T18:50:00.001-07:002021-06-19T18:50:43.981-07:00Words of Confession, but not Words of Guilt<p><span style="font-size: large;">I have a confession to make: I used to review books online under another name in order to hide my identity.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">My confession is not complete, however. I won't tell you the name I reviewed under or where online I reviewed. All the books I reviewed were traditionally published romances, so all you self-publishing authors who think you know who I was on GoodReads or Amazon or anywhere else can quit hating on me now, because that wasn't me. I never reviewed self-published authors.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It all happened quite innocently, and somewhat desperately. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In the late 1990s I worked with a woman who had connections in the mystery publishing business. Review websites were still pretty new, and she was trying to establish a group of reviewers who could read books quickly and provide semi-professional quality reviews on a reliable basis. She received anywhere from fifteen to twenty books a week, sometimes more, directly from the publishers. They wanted quality reviews and they wanted them on a timely basis, generally within a week or two of the books' arrival. There was no compensation other than the free, usually hardcover books. The idea was that the books could then be sold -- this was before eBay so I'm not sure where they would have been sold -- and the proceeds provide income.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">At the time I joined her stable of reviewers, she had half a dozen people lined up. She had me select three or four books from the stack on her living room coffee table, which I did. The reviews, she told me, were due back to her in a week, which would give her just enough time to reformat the email text for the website. I dutifully read the books, wrote my reviews, and emailed them back to her.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> She was overjoyed. It wasn't that I had read the books and written the reviews and got them back to her in time.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"You actually know how to write a review!" she told me over the phone. "A review isn't a book report! How many more can you do?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I think I did a total of ten or twelve for her in that first bunch, and one or two more similar batches before the whole operation collapsed. Her stable of reviewers proved unreliable and full of excuses. The local web person she hired couldn't maintain the website. Her husband lost his job and she had to find something more remunerative than the part-time retail work both of us were doing at the time. The publishers stopped sending her books.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Thus ended my second stint as a book reviewer, circa 1997.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But I wrote those reviews, as well as the ones I had done for <i>Rave Reviews</i> magazine in the late 1980s, under my own name. The pseudonymous reviews came later, in the very early 2000s. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I had given up on writing fiction and gone back to college in 1998, but after graduation, I was having difficulty finding a full-time job. One night while cruising online, I stumbled on a website devoted to romance novel reviews. All the reviews were gushing; nothing got less than four big red hearts. The Big Name Authors always got "I'd give this ten hearts if I could! It's wonderful!"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This bugged me, because I had read some of the books and thought they were, um, less than wonderful. I also noticed that authors who weren't household names usually got only a paragraph or two about their books, but the aforementioned BNAs always got a nice big long review. I went looking for other review sites.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This was entirely an exercise in curiosity. I had been away from the writing game for five or six years or more and had no intention of going back to it. I'd been away from RWA just as long. But I remembered that stint of reviewing mysteries and thought gee, maybe I could review books online again and make some money selling the hardcover copies. After all, now there was eBay!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I had reviewed science fiction and fantasy as well as non-fiction for <i>Rave Reviews</i> and mysteries for the now-defunct website of 1997, so I didn't limit my search to just romance. As luck would have it, however, I found a website devoted to romance novel reviews that actually advertised they were in need of reviewers. More books were being published each month than they could handle, and both authors and publishers were pushing them to review more.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I offered my services, but for a couple of reasons, I did so under a pseudonym. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The main reason was that of course I still had a history in the romance publishing world. I didn't want someone at Kensington or Leisure to complain that I only gave their author a bad review because I was still angry at the publisher. (I never had any bad feelings toward either house; Pocket Books was another matter entirely.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Nor did I want the powers that be at the website to limit my choice of books based on my history as an author. So I sent them an email using a spare AOL address just to see what happened.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A few days later, I got a reply. They asked me to write a sample review of a readily available romance novel -- not some obscure thing that they couldn't check -- and they'd get back to me. I'm not sure, but I <i>think</i> I reviewed Judith Ivory's <i>Black Silk</i> as my audition. [I don't know her, have never met her, have never had any communication with her]. Regardless, about a week later I got a reply that yes, they would love to have me as a reviewer. I needed only to select three or four titles from the list provided and give them a mailing address to send the books to.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I expected, from the website's frequent comments about publishers applying pressure for timely reviews, that the books I ordered would arrive forthwith, but in fact it wasn't until several weeks later that the first batch of books arrived. They were a mix of historical, contemporary, paranormal, even chick lit. Once again, I dutifully read and reviewed them, and emailed back my reviews as quickly as I could. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The chick lit didn't get a very good review from me, and only 2- stars. I still have it, as a matter of fact, and just looked it up on GoodReads. It was published in 2002, so well before GR started, but it doesn't have great ratings there, and the few text reviews cite some of the same problems I had with it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The other three titles in that first batch earned from 3- stars to a full 4. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Anyway, I continued to review for this website for a little over a year, sometimes as many as nine books a month but usually only four or five. I never ever reviewed books by authors who had been friends of mine during my active writing days, and only once did I review a book by an author I had met even casually. Not all my reviews were posted online, though the ratings were. Disagreements with my reviews were posted in comments, but for the most part my opinions were non-controversial and generated no heated arguments. As far as I know, not a single author contested any of my reviews.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The only serious complaint I received was from a publisher/editor who objected to my 2-star rating of a contemporary single-title romance. Without giving the title or identifying details here, I will just say that I defended my rating on the basis of the heroine having left one abusive relationship and jumping right into another; I had no quarrel with her starting the affair while still officially married, but the new guy was as much a jerk in his own way as the old one. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I had given a couple of 1-star reviews, but no one objected to those.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Almost all the books I received were paperbacks, not hardcovers like the mysteries. A few were bound ARCs/uncorrected proofs. Though I didn't sell any of the books for cash, I did trade some of them -- most of the contemps, chick lit, and paranormals -- at a local used book store. This was not a money-making proposition for me, but it was fun.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Until it stopped being fun.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The website was going through a major revamp. I had never received any requests or orders or anything else to get a review done more quickly, but suddenly these emails starting coming once a week. "Where's the review for X? The publisher wants it up tomorrow ahead of next week's release date." "Can you do a rush on Y? The author is taking out an ad."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I still got to choose the books I wanted to review, but what came in the mail often didn't match my requests. I stopped getting historicals altogether, and often there were lots of paranormal extras, despite my repeated notes that this was not my preferred genre. I continued to read all the books and write all the reviews, but it was becoming more like work than entertainment. Sometimes the emails expediting reviews referred to books I hadn't requested and which hadn't even been sent to me! [It was one of these "extras" that was by an author I had met during an RWA conference, and I felt very uncomfortable writing the review, but I did it and was as honest as I possibly could be.]<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then came the day I got The Really Terrible Book. I will only tell you that it was a vampire romance, chock full of graphic violence on page one, and incredibly poorly written. The author was fairly well known, the publisher well established.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It was the first book I couldn't finish. In fact, I couldn't even get past the first few pages. I tried. I really tried. It was terrible.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I am right now in the middle of reading a book that's very difficult for me to read, and for a lot of reasons. Eventually I'll finish it and write some kind of review, and I'll detail why it's so very unenjoyable. But it's not <i>terrible</i>.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The Really Terrible Book never got that far. I wrote an honest review based on what little I had read and emailed it with my apologies. Almost immediately, someone wrote back to me <i>demanding</i> I finish the book and write a "legitimate" review.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I never responded to that email because I just didn't know what to say. I finished reading all the other books, wrote all the other reviews, and promptly emailed them. I never heard from the administrator of the website again. About half those final reviews were posted, but not The Really Terrible Book. In fact, that book was never reviewed on that site as far as I know. I have no idea why. Did no one else like it enough to write a full, legitimate review? I don't know.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The website is still in operation, though it has changed its format considerably since I did my last reviews for them. I recognize a few of the reviewers' names from that time, but of course I have no idea if those are their real names or if someone else has come along and is posting under those pseudonyms.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So, what's the point of this post?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Two things.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">First, even though I was honest in my reviews, and always stated (as required by the website) that I had received a free copy of the book for review, I always felt guilty not admitting that I was a published romance author. As far as I knew, none of the other reviewers on the site were either, and in a way I felt better not kind of lording it over them. Their opinion as readers was every bit as valid as mine. But I still felt I was deceiving the readers. That's a good part of the reason why, when I was reviewing on Goodreads and later on BookLikes, I always made clear that I was using my real name and that I was published in certain specific areas. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">That would come into play all too often when a negative review prompted the response, "Yeah, well have <i>you</i> ever tried to write a book?" I at least could say yes, I had written a book. Several in fact. Not that it silenced the critics; they just turned it around to "Well then you should have more sympathy! You should be more supportive!"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In a way, you just can't win.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Second, revisiting this episode reminded me how important honest reviews are, especially the negative ones. Of course they're important for readers, because that's who they're supposed to be serving. But . . . . <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A few days ago, one of my fellow writers on Twitter emailed me with a recommendation for a book to read, written by a mutual Twitter acquaintance. The email hinted -- or perhaps I just inferred -- that the book's author could use some positive reviews to boost sales. I wrote back that it wasn't a genre I particularly like, and since I don't review on Amazon or GR, what good would my reading it do anyway?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"You can review it to me," the return email said. "I won't even tell her it's from you."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But then it's not a review; it's a critique. That's what she -- the author, not the mutual who was emailing me -- really wanted. She wanted someone to read her book and tell her why it wasn't selling millions of copies. (I assumed it wasn't, anyway, based on its ranking on Amazon.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">After a few more of these emails, I gave in at least to the point of looking at the book in question. In a lot of ways, including genre, it reminded me of The Really Terrible Book I had refused to read so many years ago. That confirmed my refusal. I wrote back, "I don't do private critiques for authors for free. I got in enough trouble posting public reviews on GR for badly written books, and I'm still not entirely recovered. I won't lie to her and tell her it's good if it's not. [I hedged; it's not.] I don't need another butt hurt author attacking me online and stalking me all over the place just because I dared not to love love love love love their book."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">That was from the last email I sent, late Thursday evening. As I write this now, it's Saturday evening, and I have received no reply. I assume the discussion is over, and I'm in the doghouse because I refused a request from a "friend" to help out another "friend."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">If before today I still felt any lingering shred of guilt for those pseudonymous reviews from roughly 2002 to 2004, I no longer do. A review is an opinion, not a pass/fail grade that determines the author's career trajectory on the spot. Regardless who I was or what credentials I had at the time, my online reviews have always been my honest opinion. Whether I was reviewing mysteries as Linda Hilton before Amazon or anything else as Linda Hilton after Amazon/Goodreads/BookLikes, I only ever gave my honest opinion.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">What bothers me, therefore, is that someone with whom I've interacted for several years on social media believed I could be persuaded to be dishonest.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I joke around a lot about having an "I hate everyone" day, but today I really do. Tempering it with "the usual exemptions" doesn't even seem adequate this time, because it's one of the usual exemptions who made me feel . . . used.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">If you're an author looking for "feedback," start by reading the negative reviews of other books in your genre. Read a lot of them. Don't dismiss the criticisms as coming from jealous haters or people who have never written a book or ignorant assholes who don't understand the author's sublime perspective. But don't ask me for my opinion. No, not even with an open checkbook; I'm not for sale at any price.<br /></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4364421159527172241.post-58028725485066909662021-06-09T11:11:00.003-07:002021-06-11T19:23:42.877-07:00Haunted Words<p><span style="font-size: large;">The effective demise of BookLikes as a viable venue for book reviews and conversation prompted me to spend some time -- okay, a lot of time -- archiving my own posts from the site. Most, of course, were book related, but not all. And because the site was not wildly popular and didn't have a huge readership, not much if any of my stuff got circulated outside the platform. I wasn't terribly worried about the somewhat personal posts reaching a wider audience and maybe getting me into trouble, even though I had no idea what kind of trouble they could get me into. If, for instance, I mentioned real people's names, it was in the context of publicly-available information. Otherwise, names and other identifying details were changed to protect me as well as the unknown-to-others "them." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Finally, having removed almost all of my posts, I didn't quite know what to do with them, but they were secure on my home computer.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I did, in fact, use a couple of them as the basis for some Patreon posts, but for some reason or other I'm still uncomfortable with Patreon. Maybe I've just been a part of online communicating too long -- right around 30 years -- and it seems icky to require payment for my general blatherings. I mean, I'm no one special.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Expecting payment for my books is different.</span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So I just leave it to people to pay me if they want or read my musings for free if they choose. Somewhere or other I have a Ko-Fi account, but I don't know what it is.</span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And that's probably all I'll say about the monetary thing.</span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Much more important to me is to be able to share some of those musings, for good or otherwise. </span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Though Hallowe'en is quite a long way off yet, a few days ago I was put in mind of a tale -- a <i>true</i> tale -- I posted on BookLikes in 2017. There's no good reason why I can't post it here, with some follow-up for good measure.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> So here goes.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Cuba Road has been called by some the #1 Creepiest Road in Illinois. I was on Cuba Road once, in the summer of 1965. I saw nothing ghostly, but the experience did have some uncanny details that defied logical, rational explanation.<br /><br />That was the summer before my senior year in high school. I was "going steady" with Wayne, who had graduated from another suburban high school and would be attending the University of Illinois in the fall. We had met at a local teen "night club" called The Cellar in my home town of Arlington Heights, Illinois. One Saturday in August, Wayne and I went to one of the lakes in the Lake Zurich/Barrington area with some friends. After a day at the beach, we all decided to go to a movie at the 53 Drive-In in Palatine. Wayne and I went with another couple, Rich and Carol. <br /><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibt_rfg6kbGM0bX5PDMfZ4cVdco6Osv6jWPLSBDsGLHI-zjAloQCWtxwP6-zQyr5SeYfcKfCvrI3RD0TJ6yQQLotiaPwa5fFqnllJnltiUfppOMmMKVHCezNVenjQ5Rxyvim7v31rp-as/s680/53+Drive+In.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="621" data-original-width="680" height="365" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibt_rfg6kbGM0bX5PDMfZ4cVdco6Osv6jWPLSBDsGLHI-zjAloQCWtxwP6-zQyr5SeYfcKfCvrI3RD0TJ6yQQLotiaPwa5fFqnllJnltiUfppOMmMKVHCezNVenjQ5Rxyvim7v31rp-as/w400-h365/53+Drive+In.JPG" width="400" /></a></span></div><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /> [This is the photo originally posted to BookLikes, but I have more and better screen shots now. The 53 Drive-In has been closed for decades.]<br /><br />Several of our friends joined us, both individuals and couples in a veritable parade of cars; the four of us doubled in the white 1960 Ford that belonged to Rich's dad. Rich drove, with Carol in the front passenger seat. Wayne and I were in the back seat.<br /><br />Normally Wayne and I would have been in a car by ourselves, but Rich was excited because the Ford was going to flip over 100,000 miles, so we joined him and his regular girlfriend Carol in order to watch the odometer flip.<br /><br />Though the day at the beach had been splendidly sunny, the weather that night was oppressively hot and humid and threatening to storm. Throughout the movie, huge clouds were billowing to the northeast, illuminated with frequent flashes of eerie pink and purple lightning. <br /><br />At some point during the movie, a few of the guys got together to talk about the possibility of visiting another friend who had just returned from an extended stay in California. These were the days, of course, before cell phones or any other quick communications. Whoever this other friend was, no one seemed to have a phone number for him, but several of the guys, including Rich, knew where he lived, and it wasn't too far from the drive-in.<br /><br />Carol had a particular concern about the time. Her dad insisted that she be home by midnight, and he didn't tolerate excuses. She made it clear in the discussions about going to this friend's house that it not be so far and we not stay so long that she wouldn't get home on time. Rich assured her that she would not be late.<br /><br />We left the drive-in around 10:00 p.m. Rich explained that it wouldn't take more than ten minutes to reach this friend's house, and he promised we wouldn't stay. Carol's house was only a few miles away in the other direction; even if we didn't leave until as late as 11:30, she would still be home in plenty of time. <br /><br />When we left the drive-in, the Ford had about 15 more miles to the flip point.<br /><br />The house we were heading to was in a new housing development, which proved to be exactly where Rich said it would be. But the streets within the development weren't laid out the way either he or Wayne remembered. Wayne tried to give additional directions and provide additional information from the back seat, but both of them admitted they hadn't been to this friend's house for quite some time and there had been more houses built and nothing looked the same as they remembered it. Plus it was dark, very dark, and they couldn't find the street or the house they were looking for.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Nor could they find any of the dozen or so other friends who had left the drive-in with us. Whether they had left earlier than we and were already at this guy's house or hadn't yet left, we didn't know. We saw none of them in the housing development, though we seemed to have cruised every street.<br /><br />The lightning was intensifying. More frequent, a deeper and brighter purple against blacker and blacker clouds. We couldn't hear any thunder, but we felt it. The air grew heavier, more electric.<br /><br />Somehow or other, we had been driving through this subdivision for ten or fifteen minutes and had managed to get somewhat lost. Even though it wasn't yet 10:30, Carol started to panic a little. Both Wayne and I were leaning over the back of the front seat, watching for that odometer to flip.</span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In the mid 1960s, there were still farm fields in the Palatine/Barrington/Arlington Heights area, and when Rich ran out of paved streets, he drove out of the subdivision onto a narrow tractor track into the surrounding cornfield, with the intention of finding a convenient place to make a U-turn to find our way back to the main highway.<br /><br />To our consternation, there was no convenient place to make a U-turn. The tall corn closed in upon the tractor track. The hard-packed dirt was pocked with bumps and holes, forcing Rich to slow the Ford to a crawl. Corn stalks scraped the sides of the vehicle. Even the headlights seemed to grow dim as the ground and the encroaching crop soaked up every bit of illumination. Backing up wasn't an option, and there was no place to turn around.<br /><br />After a while, the corn gave way to more open country. but there were no landmarks, and the only light was that creepy pink and purple lightning overhead. No roads. No houses. No buildings. No lights.<br /><br />The car reached its 100,000 milestone, and we watched the numerals roll over from 99999.9 to all zeros, but our excitement was tempered by the realization that we were . . . lost.<br /><br />Rich didn't dare drive more than 5 or 10 miles an hour, because the path -- it wasn't really a road -- was too rough. Carol was on the verge of tears, because we were headed due east after having driven several miles due north -- totally the opposite direction from her house. As the miles began to rack up after 000000, she got more and more frightened of what her dad would do when she didn't show up on time.<br /><br />I was the only one with a watch, but there wasn't enough light in the car for me to even see what time it was. The dome light was burned out, and the car's clock didn't work. Our only way to estimate the time was by the number of miles traveled and the speed at which Rich was driving. When the odometer reached 000025, we knew it had to be at least 11:30. There was no way Carol would be home on time.<br /><br />Then, finally, we spotted other lights. There was a road up ahead, with cars going in both directions across our path. Not a lot of them, but enough that we knew we were closing in on civilization.<br /><br />When we got closer, we discovered there was something blocking our way: A gate.<br /><br />It was a big wooden farm gate made of wide, weathered boards nailed together in a frame and criss-cross pattern, with barbed wire stretched between the boards and the heavy iron posts the gate was fastened to. The gate was much wider than the "road" we were on, wide enough to accommodate a large piece of farm equipment wider than the tractor track. And in the middle of the gate was a black and yellow stop sign.<br /><br />US stop signs used to be black and yellow like other road signs, but by 1965 they'd all been switched to red and white. The old black and yellow signs had been retired years and years before. Yet here was one, a relic from the past.<br /><br />Rich stopped the car. We could see that just a few yards on the other side of the gate was a well-traveled main road. Though traffic couldn't be described as heavy, cars zipped by in both directions. So close!<br /><br />I don't know who first saw the other tire tracks, but what we quickly discovered was that although the "road" we were on went straight through the gate to join the highway, there were faint tracks that veered off to go around the gate. Rich had to back up and swing the car a bit to the right, and in the headlights we saw that the gate wasn't attached to any fence but just to those two big posts. It was just there, blocking the road for no apparent reason at all. Carefully, concerned that there might be a ditch to hang up the car or hidden barbed wire, Rich drove around the gate and back onto the farm track for the last few yards to the highway.<br /><br />Not knowing exactly where we were, we had to figure out whether to turn right or left on this road, this nice, paved, two-lane country highway, to get us back to Carol's home in Palatine. While we were discussing -- not really arguing but close to it -- our options, one of us noticed that there was an ordinary street sign on the other side of the road from where we were stopped. Rich waited until there was a break in traffic, then drove across so the Ford's headlights shone on the sign.<br /><br />According to the green and white reflective signs, we were at the intersection of Aptakisic Road . . . and Old Cuba Road.<br /><br />A little ways down the road -- to our right as we had come off the farm road -- was another sign, this one announcing that the town of Long Grove was just ahead.<br /><br />We knew now where we were. We knew now how to get back to Palatine. We also knew we had traveled some 30 miles at no more -- and often at much less -- than 10 miles per hour since 10:30 p.m. But there was nothing we could do about it. Rich pulled the car onto the highway and headed south toward Long Grove and, ultimately, Palatine.<br /><br />Someone, maybe Rich, suggested we stop at a gas station or someplace that had a pay phone so Carol could call home and at least let her parents know she was late and hope her dad would go easy on her. Her tearful response was that it was already too late. If she weren't home by the midnight deadline, her dad would simply lock the door and not let her in.<br /><br />But as we drove through the lights of Long Grove or whatever little town we hit, I finally had sufficient light to read my watch.<br /><br />What I saw wasn't possible.<br /><br />My watch registered 10:45.<br /><br />There was no way we had racked up that many miles in fifteen or twenty minutes, or even half an hour. Or even a full hour. No way. Not as slow as Rich was forced to drive. No way.<br /><br />Old Cuba Road.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The obvious explanation was that my watch had stopped. Except that it hadn't stopped. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiamlSsDerW3bfEA_fP9IDi1ymoxHlryd_OL68J2Q3y6oV2jsKjm-PV8Vr4KPbQaKkkRhP7Tj5upOkBhToUjaGIYboTLDLVuboiQradDURZgu8DZ6VU2jnuySPQzxdJnIKMIxbHUsRCDuo/s1198/Cuba+Road+map.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="1198" height="374" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiamlSsDerW3bfEA_fP9IDi1ymoxHlryd_OL68J2Q3y6oV2jsKjm-PV8Vr4KPbQaKkkRhP7Tj5upOkBhToUjaGIYboTLDLVuboiQradDURZgu8DZ6VU2jnuySPQzxdJnIKMIxbHUsRCDuo/w640-h374/Cuba+Road+map.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Above is the map as I posted it on BookLikes in 2017. Aptakisic Road is essentially a continuation of East Cuba Road. The two meet at Old McHenry Road, also known as IL-83. The 53 Drive-In was at the intersection of Rand Road and IL-53, south of Dundee Road (just below the "E" in "Google").</span><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The roads on the map above are as of 2017; they were undoubtedly very different in 1965, but I remember the route we took once we got onto the highway. After going through Long Grove, we took IL 53 (which wasn't the multi-lane monstrosity it is today) to Dundee Road, then west into Palatine proper and Carol's house. Carol jumped out of the car and ran up to her front porch, where the light was still on, before 11:30. Her dad opened the door, let her in, and waved to the three of us still in Rich's car.<br /><br />It hadn't happened. It couldn't have. But it had.<br /><br />The next day, Sunday, all of us went to the beach again. The first topic of conversation was that no one was ever able to find that friend's house, but no one else got lost looking for it. The second topic of conversation was our sojourn . . . on Old Cuba Road.<br /><br />But that wasn't the end of the story.<br /><br />Wayne had picked me up Sunday morning; he was driving his own car, so it was just the two of us. Heading to the lake, we retraced the route Rich had taken the night before. We never found that intersection of Old Cuba Road and Aptakisic. We even turned around and drove back to search, but there was no street sign, no farm gate, no farm road.<br /><br />In broad daylight, none of it was there.<br /><br />Sunday night, coming home from the lake, we drove that route again, and again saw nothing of the signs, the gate, nothing.<br /><br />Everyone at the beach knew about Cuba Road's reputation for haunting, though no one had any specifics. No one had ever been on it, no one knew anyone who had been on it -- except Rich and Carol and Wayne and I.<br /><br />Forty years later, when I was back visiting the area in 2004, my dad would tell me even he knew Cuba Road was haunted, and had known about it when he was a teen, but he had no details. What little I've learned since then has come by way of the internet. During that bizarre drive in August of 1965, we had seen nothing that resembled ghosts or eerie lights, not even a gate or sign identifying a cemetery. I never knew about any of that until 2004, after my dad talked about it.<br /><br />Wayne and I broke up a few months later, got back together briefly, then broke up for good in the fall of 1966. Seven or eight years after that, after I myself had married and moved to Indiana, I heard that he had married the girl his mother wanted him to marry, but I wasn't interested enough to try to verify. Rich and Carol got married a year or so after the Old Cuba Road incident, and I heard they had a baby but then divorced. I have no idea what happened to any of the rest of the group of thirty or forty friends we hung out with. Rich's last name was far too common to conduct any kind of internet search on him; I looked for Carol once via her maiden name, but with no luck.<br /><br />I've never been on Cuba Road again.<br /><br />But the sign we saw did not say "Cuba Road." It very clearly read "Old Cuba Road." There's no "Old Cuba Road" on the map. The hauntings allegedly happen on Cuba Road, not on Old Cuba Road. Satellite images more than the map show that there's little if any farming country left along East Cuba Road. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I have no idea what happened to us, or even where for sure it happened. Go figure.<br /><br />In February 2009, I happened to be back in the area for my mother's 80th birthday. I rented a car and drove out to that area in search of some other remembered places. I hadn't been there in at least forty years, but I never got lost; my sense of place and direction was intact. I thought briefly of trying to find Old Cuba Road again, but then I remembered the stories I'd read on the internet. I didn't go looking.<br /><br />I have no explanation. None at all. I just know it happened.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br /></p><br /><br /><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4364421159527172241.post-7673675690445373932021-05-07T15:53:00.003-07:002021-05-07T15:53:54.349-07:00Words in Review: Picture Perfect Murder and Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder, and then what happened<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Full disclosure: I obtained a Kindle copy of <i>Picture Perfect Murder</i> by Jenna St. James when it was offered
free on Amazon. I borrowed a Kindle copy of <i>Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder</i> by Joanne Fluke via Amazon Prime. I do not know the authors nor have I ever communicated
with them in any way about their books or any other subject. I am a
traditionally published author of historical romances, and
self-published in contemporary romantic suspense and miscellaneous
non-fiction.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Further disclosure: I read both books in their entirety.</span> <br /></span></p><p><a href="https://lindahilton.blogspot.com/2021/04/words-in-review-picture-perfect-murder.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">Review of "page 1" is here.</span></a><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Openings are important. If the opening of your book fails to hook the reader, you aren't going to be there to urge her to take a second look, read a few more pages, give the story a chance to develop. The sooner you grab her interest, the less chance you have that she'll give up. Remember, there are hundreds of other books out there for her too choose from. You can't count on her being one of those readers who reads everything and loves it; she might be, or she might not.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>If, however, she does continue to read, you now have to continue the story. All the rest of it is the ". . .and then what happened" part of the book. At any point in that ". . .and then what happened," your reader still has the opportunity to give up, quit, toss it aside, DNF* and WNRTAA**.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>(*DNF = Did Not Finish; **WNRTAA = Will Never Read This Author Again.)</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Readers come to your book with expectations, and this is especially true for genre fiction. The two books currently under discussion are categorized as "cozy mysteries," which means they are expected to follow certain conventions. These include, but are not limited to:<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>1. Generally a small-town or rural setting.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>2. Murder but not too gruesome, and generally not committed on the page.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>3. Amateur sleuth who has informal connections to law enforcement but is dismissed by them, until of course she gets lucky and solves the crime for them.<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Both <i>Picture Perfect Murder</i> and <i>Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder</i> take place in small towns. In the former, Ryli Sinclair tells us on page 1 that she lives in "my small hometown of Granville, Missouri." She works for the local newspaper, so we learn right away that she qualifies as an amateur sleuth. Hannah Swenson operates a cookie bakery and coffee shop called The Cookie Jar in <i>her</i> hometown of Lake Eden, Minnesota. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span><i>Picture Perfect Murder</i> opens with Sinclair called in to take photographs of a murder victim. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><span> This dead body was spread out over the kitchen table, naked from the waist up, covered in blood, and missing a heart.<br /><br />St. James, Jenna. Picture Perfect Murder (A Ryli Sinclair Mystery Book 1) (Kindle Locations 57-58). Kindle Edition. </span></span></blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Because this is on page 1, it kind of breaks the rules/conventions/guidelines of the cozy mystery genre regarding the gruesomeness of the murder.</span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Hannah Swenson, on the other hand, doesn't even discover the murder victim until page 23 (of 289), at the very end of Chapter One. All the preceding pages are devoted to background information about Hannah, why she's come back to Eden Lake (from somewhere else), about her family, about her cat, about her bakery, about every detail of her morning from six o'clock to approximately half past eight, when she finds the deceased.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Ryli, on the other hand, did not herself discover the body, but has been called by the police to take photographs. After the announcement on page 1 of the murder, she (in first person viewpoint narrative) proceeds to dump a bunch of background information, primarily about herself and about the chief of police, who is on the scene as well.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Both books suffer from the same problem: The author fails to integrate background information with action. Ryli is there in the kitchen -- whose kitchen? -- with various police officers and a mutilated corpse, but she stops the action to give some of her own history, the chief's history, her sexual attraction to him, and so on.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Is any of this background information, as presented in both books, absolutely necessary? Maybe some of it is, or will be, but almost none of it is necessary <b>at this point.</b></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>The key to keeping your reader reading is to mix <i>necessary </i>background information with action and/or dialogue.<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>The writing of a novel involves three distinct skill sets, two of which you may even remember from high school. A hundred million years ago when I was in high school, those skill sets were labeled "Form" and "Content," and every paper we turned in was graded separately on each aspect. "Form" was the writing technique skill set: the grammar and spelling stuff. "Content" was the meat of the paper.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>In writing a novel, "Form" is still the grammar and spelling, the punctuation and proofreading. "Content" becomes the plot and story construction. But then there's "Style," something our high school teachers didn't bother too much with.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>A novelist's style consists of <b>how</b> she tells the story. Does she stop the action to give fashion show descriptions of each character's wearing apparel? Is she able to give each character a distinct voice and personality? Are the characters' actions and interactions rational and justified? Does the whole book have an internal consistency that allows the reader to believe this story could really have happened?</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>This can almost be summed up as: Was this book easy to read, hard to put down? <br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>One page leads to another and another. The flow of words and action is so smooth that there aren't any convenient stopping places.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Both <i>Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder</i> and <i>Picture Perfect Murder</i> had far too many places where the reading became difficult and the books became easy to put down. I nearly gave up on <i>Picture Perfect Murder</i> several times because there were either stylistic absurdities or internal inconsistencies.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>For instance, were Ryli and the chief of police, Garrett Kimble, actually dating? Did she just have the hots for him but hadn't gone out with him?</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><span>I tried staying clear of him when he first came to town… mainly because he makes the spit in my mouth dry up. Whether it’s from sheer terror or sexual frustration, I don’t know, but more and more lately I’ve been thinking of finding out.<br /><br />St. James, Jenna. Picture Perfect Murder (A Ryli Sinclair Mystery Book 1) (Kindle Locations 81-83). Kindle Edition. </span></span></blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><span>suggests in the first scene that she's not had any social interaction with him.</span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Just a few pages later, when Ryli is snooping (!) in Kimble's office, he comes in and we get this:</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><span>I was almost nose-to-chest with him. </span></span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><span>He reached out and lifted a curl from my shoulder, winding it around his finger. “Leave the investigating to me.”<br /><br />St. James, Jenna. Picture Perfect Murder (A Ryli Sinclair Mystery Book 1) (Kindle Locations 282-284). Kindle Edition. </span></span></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Later, Ryli and Kimble have been invited to dinner at her brother Matt's house, and she is arranging to leave work early to get ready for this "date." The following conversation takes place among Ryli, the owner of the newspaper she works for, and the owner's wife:<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><span>“What’s going on?” Mindy asked. </span></span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><span>I didn’t know if I should tell her. After all, she’s my friend, but she’s also my boss’s wife. What do I say? That I’m going home to shave my legs because I may or may not fool around tonight. </span></span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><span>“I’m going to Matt’s tonight for dinner,” I said. “I wanted to stop by the store so I can bake a dessert.” </span></span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Hank snorted. “One death this week isn’t enough?” </span></span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><span>“Bite me,” I said. </span></span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Mindy laughed. “Hank! Be nice. So just the three of you?” </span></span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><span>I stared at her. How does she do that? Like she knows I’m hiding something. “No. Garrett is picking me up. We’re going together.” </span></span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Mindy squealed. “You know what this means, right?” </span></span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><span>“It means she’s probably gonna go and get herself knocked up,” Hank growled.<br /><br />St. James, Jenna. Picture Perfect Murder (A Ryli Sinclair Mystery Book 1) (Kindle Locations 587-597). Kindle Edition. </span></span></blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Ryli is the newspaper's only employee, filling the roles of reporter as well as photographer. Granville is described as a town of some ten thousand population; the paper is a weekly. Ryli also helps Mindy with the layout of the paper.</span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>So, okay, newspaper owner Hank is a jerk; no real boss in 2015 would be able to get away with that kind of comment to an employee. But there are other aspects of Ryli's employment at the newspaper that just didn't ring . . . right. <br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span><i>Picture Perfect Murder</i> has a copyright date of 2015. When I worked for a small town weekly paper in the late 1990s, the staff numbered about 20: six or eight reporters, at least one full-time photographer, two editors, four office staff, five of us in the layout department. Some layout was still done manually then, but much was already computerized. There's no way Granville's weekly can be put out with a staff of three. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Then there's this, as Ryli is finishing her photographing of the opening crime scene:</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Half an hour later I finished off my last roll of film. I took plenty of pictures because after my run-in with Kimble, I didn’t want to take any chances of not getting everything possible.<br /><br />St. James, Jenna. Picture Perfect Murder (A Ryli Sinclair Mystery Book 1) (Kindle Locations 173-175). Kindle Edition. </span></span></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>After Ryli leaves the murder location, she heads to the police station, <i>to which she has a key.</i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><span>I rifled through my keychain until I came up with the key to get into the station. Claire, the dispatcher for the graveyard shift, should be inside. Running the last few feet to the door, I unlocked it<br /><br />St. James, Jenna. Picture Perfect Murder (A Ryli Sinclair Mystery Book 1) (Kindle Locations 218-220). Kindle Edition</span></span></blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Why is she at the police station?</span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><span>“Hey, Claire. It’s me, Ryli. I wanted to drop off the rolls of film for Chief Kimble before I went home.”<br /><br />St. James, Jenna. Picture Perfect Murder (A Ryli Sinclair Mystery Book 1) (Kindle Location 222). Kindle Edition. </span></span></blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Apparently Ms. St. James doesn't know about digital cameras. I'm not a professional photographer, but even I have had a digital camera since 2003. <br /></span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">These are the things that take a reader out of the story. Most readers won't notice. Most readers just see the words and turn the pages.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But here's something interesting I found just today.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCdlLe5oU5N-UuiL25tDkn-b0QJnN1cKqtj89aGZBLNN364NVmV4o6MIkLdreCqf-5EFxWc1r0MNGqdX4funbN6ZvarGXdKF8iKOMV3Nppcb8LTT1WsJWIYpjZsXTNYCp8nUzf_JQIUGE/s1168/2021+05+07+All+Eyes+on+Me+AMZ+listing+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="554" data-original-width="1168" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCdlLe5oU5N-UuiL25tDkn-b0QJnN1cKqtj89aGZBLNN364NVmV4o6MIkLdreCqf-5EFxWc1r0MNGqdX4funbN6ZvarGXdKF8iKOMV3Nppcb8LTT1WsJWIYpjZsXTNYCp8nUzf_JQIUGE/w640-h304/2021+05+07+All+Eyes+on+Me+AMZ+listing+001.jpg" width="640" /> </a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div></span><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This book was published in 2014; over the past seven-plus years, it has garnered over 5000 ratings on Amazon for an average of over 4.5 stars. On 7 May 2021 (today) the Kindle edition of the book is offered free.</div></span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjshIymWNYXMppKGRQ-WVcO93o7JC1ms1I33yYedUgAI3OI30QAoFkfUCf6WXpK7UH_jPOECH7d_LsYqtKIY1MusEb9AXhaK88TsgjDccojfGPev9mbaqzqc5V-P_C6WrGLoBYq9nP3s9A/s1163/2021+05+07+Heart+Wounds+AMZ+listing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="614" data-original-width="1163" height="338" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjshIymWNYXMppKGRQ-WVcO93o7JC1ms1I33yYedUgAI3OI30QAoFkfUCf6WXpK7UH_jPOECH7d_LsYqtKIY1MusEb9AXhaK88TsgjDccojfGPev9mbaqzqc5V-P_C6WrGLoBYq9nP3s9A/w640-h338/2021+05+07+Heart+Wounds+AMZ+listing.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The second book in the series is priced at $4.99. Though it was released almost seven years ago, it has only 400 ratings for about the same average.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuWZAXp7NXkR6o8DjfRag6ny2M_CvpvG858fRdYYs5IdfhReBwkxOVBAc3eyV7dyDzt_6UBttmjlImSgppLHERzObB23xSEp9Ew_EUE1dSKGmueS6Rtjt7kxPYpsrYX_eME6zV7abF9b4/s872/2021+05+07+Lindsey+Lanier+AMZ+Listings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="284" data-original-width="872" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuWZAXp7NXkR6o8DjfRag6ny2M_CvpvG858fRdYYs5IdfhReBwkxOVBAc3eyV7dyDzt_6UBttmjlImSgppLHERzObB23xSEp9Ew_EUE1dSKGmueS6Rtjt7kxPYpsrYX_eME6zV7abF9b4/w640-h208/2021+05+07+Lindsey+Lanier+AMZ+Listings.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /> Looking at the third and fourth books in the series, the number of ratings has continued to decrease.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This doesn't necessarily mean the books aren't selling, but it does suggest that fewer people are reading -- and liking -- the books.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Looking at the 1-star reviews for <i>All Eyes on Me</i> gives the impression it's the form and style that tend to turn people off enough to leave a negative, rather than the content, or story/plot. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Remember, I'm only one critic. My word is not the final judgment on your writing. I may be totally wrong, and your book that breaks all the rules may turn out to be the next million-seller.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The odds, however, are against you. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">As Stephen King has written:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><i></i></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><i>And no matter how much I want to encourage the man or woman trying for the first time to write seriously, I can’t lie and say there are no bad writers. Sorry, but there are <b>lots</b> of bad writers.<br /></i><br />King, Stephen. On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft (p. 141). Scribner. Kindle Edition. </span></blockquote><br /><p></p><span style="font-size: large;"></span><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span><br /></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4364421159527172241.post-36387634784373703832021-04-30T12:04:00.000-07:002021-04-30T12:04:07.428-07:00Words in Review: Picture Perfect Murder and Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder, Page 1<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Full disclosure: I obtained a Kindle copy of <i>Picture Perfect Murder</i> by Jenna St. James when it was offered
free on Amazon. I borrowed a Kindle copy of <i>Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder</i> by Joanne Fluke via Amazon Prime. I do not know the authors nor have I ever communicated
with them in any way about their books or any other subject. I am a
traditionally published author of historical romances, and
self-published in contemporary romantic suspense and miscellaneous
non-fiction.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Further disclosure: I read both books in their entirety.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span><i>Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder</i> was originally published by Kensington in 2000 as the first book in the series of cozy mysteries featuring amateur sleuth Hannah Swenson. The digital edition is dated 2019 but contains no indication as far as having been revised and is also published by Kensington.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span><i>Picture Perfect Murder</i> is copyrighted 2015 and published by the author, Jenna St. James. This is the first book in the Ryli Sinclair cozy mystery series.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Both books have high ratings on Goodreads, as these screenshots from 22 April 2021 show.<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi97jcYAA6HhmAEkP4oMuwu7YVsOa1rs3U567W6rewkUi1v5FDjcyDbh7rDmw3dOJKP5Wgrm9v8QUcInweQPNi9-uBa3X-Ex10ir4wvM5UjUPLcYAjgFFsWY9PtquZtY_wJOcZ-2oEYKaE/s855/2021+04+22+Chocolate+Chip+Cookie+GR+ratings.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="517" data-original-width="855" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi97jcYAA6HhmAEkP4oMuwu7YVsOa1rs3U567W6rewkUi1v5FDjcyDbh7rDmw3dOJKP5Wgrm9v8QUcInweQPNi9-uBa3X-Ex10ir4wvM5UjUPLcYAjgFFsWY9PtquZtY_wJOcZ-2oEYKaE/w400-h241/2021+04+22+Chocolate+Chip+Cookie+GR+ratings.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6-E7FxnPUKQx4hkDmH3SBV2mmdUeknr__X5huZCCCT0RGztCAA4rTQrHMl99556ARrb80jYxNhIyPhElBACZ-XGvgzBRijSjkKsW50ylo7wVaULOqMkq2EGd4CB6r_hJljEirtkzXXdY/s864/2021+04+22+Picture+Perfect+Murder+GR+ratings.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="396" data-original-width="864" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6-E7FxnPUKQx4hkDmH3SBV2mmdUeknr__X5huZCCCT0RGztCAA4rTQrHMl99556ARrb80jYxNhIyPhElBACZ-XGvgzBRijSjkKsW50ylo7wVaULOqMkq2EGd4CB6r_hJljEirtkzXXdY/w400-h184/2021+04+22+Picture+Perfect+Murder+GR+ratings.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /> <br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>The Fluke book may have negatively benefited from being older and added to Goodreads at the site's beginning, circa 2007, when critical reviews were less likely to be pulled down by thin-skinned authors. The over-all rating for this traditionally published book is only 3.70, where St. James' effort, though published by the author, received 4.24.<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>It is a sad truth that after September 2013, Goodreads became much less friendly to critical reviewers, especially those who might not have read the whole book or were basing their criticism on something the author had done outside the actual writing of the book. This action on the part of Goodreads was precipitated by the almost-publication of a book by a young self-publishing author who got some negative reviews even though her book had not been officially published. Readers flocked to her book to give it five-star ratings -- even though they couldn't have read it because it wasn't published -- in sympathy to the negative reviews she received. This ultimately evolved into what became known as the Great Purge of 2013, when certain critical reviewers were banned from the platform. . . and critical reviews brought risks to the reviewers.<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>The message had been sent that Goodreads, as an arm of Amazon, was in the business of selling books, and bad reviews don't sell as many books as good ones.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Setting aside, then, the ratings on Goodreads as potential gauges of <b>writing quality</b>, how do these two books compare?</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span><i>Picture Perfect Murder</i> is pretty terrible. <i>Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder</i> isn't a whole lot better.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Of course, that is only my opinion, and I am only one person, one reader, one writer.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Reviews are for readers. If you've read any of my writing on reviewing, you know how adamant I am that reviews are not for writers, that writers would do well to never read their reviews and do better to never confront their reviewers. But writers, especially the self-publishing authors, often claim that they have an interest in those reviews beyond just wanting to know if someone liked or disliked their book. Whether they feel entitled to it or not, they <i>want</i> those reviews to provide feedback, to help them improve, to tell them what it was that made a reviewer not love their book.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Most readers aren't in a position to do that, and they should never feel obligated to do so. As I have said often enough, a reader may not even be qualified to render the kind of advice the writer wants. Sometimes the reader may be entirely wrong in their criticism, whether it's about grammar and punctuation, factual research, story structure, or anything else. If the writer herself isn't sufficiently knowledgeable, she may take that advice and make what's already correct about her book incorrect.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Writers who want feedback on their work should ideally get that feedback before the book is published, so that the product reaching the reading public is the very best it can be. For the writer who goes the traditional route, the publisher will presumably fix all the problems since they have a substantial investment in making sure readers don't find problems.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>The self-publishing author, however, has only herself to rely on. If she can afford a professional editor, that may help, but not all those who bill themselves as professional editors really are. Some of them are no better qualified to edit than the authors themselves. How is an author to know who to trust? If the author's own skills aren't top-notch, she may indeed not know.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>In a few words, it's a crap shoot.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>I can't "fix" every book that falls short. I can't turn every manuscript into a best-seller. Nor am I even proposing to try. But I think what I can do is offer the kind of feedback some writers may be looking for through a detailed analysis of books I personally have found to be seriously lacking in quality.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>It's one thing to review a book and say "The characters weren't relatable." What does that really mean? That's the kind of question I hope to answer, with specific examples from the books.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>In previous posts, I've mentioned <a href="https://lindahilton.blogspot.com/2021/04/words-on-writing-part-1-writers-journey.html" target="_blank">some of the reference materials </a>I've relied on in my own writing career. The ultimate goal of everything is to create a written work in which the written words disappear, leaving the reader immersed in the world of the novel. Though it's not reasonable to expect any novel to be absolutely perfect, every writer should still strive for perfection -- the invisible novel.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The very first step to making your author-published digital novel invisible is to format it correctly. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>If your very first page is divided into block paragraphs -- no indent, extra space between paragraphs -- I as a reader know you don't even know what a book is supposed to look like. </b>Writers read, and real writers know what real books look like. That means indented paragraphs; save those extra blank lines to indicate a transition of time or place.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I mention this here because it is the nature of copying and pasting from Kindle pages that they automatically delete all paragraphing, regardless of format. For ease in reading small snippets, I've put the quoted sections into block paragraphs, but this should never be done in the actual published version of the book.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>So, how is it that <i>Picture Perfect Murder</i> and <i>Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder</i> fell so far short of perfection? </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Let's start with a look at the very beginning, the opening page of <i>Picture Perfect Murder.</i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">I hate looking at dead bodies. And believe me, I’ve seen a lot of them in my twenty-eight years. There’s nothing that can prepare you for that first glimpse of death. </span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">In college, I worked part time at Jaworski Funeral Home. It was one of those small, family-owned businesses. They were great about working around my class schedule. They were even better about including me as family. A few holiday dinners and family gatherings later, and Ryli Jo Sinclair had become an honorary Jaworski. </span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">For four years I did everything from flower arranging to consoling families. I didn’t deal with the actual prepping of the dead body. But still, a dead body was a dead body as far as I was concerned.<br /><br />St. James, Jenna. Picture Perfect Murder (A Ryli Sinclair Mystery Book 1) (Kindle Locations 50-56). Kindle Edition. </span></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: large;">So, what's happening? We're in the viewpoint of a first-person narrator, one Ryli Jo Sinclair, and she's . . . thinking. We don't know where she is or what she's doing or why she's thinking about not liking dead bodies. Instead of getting right into the action of the story, author St. James indulges in some of Ryli's background. While this information might become important later on, it's not important now. There's nothing going on that would make it important.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The mere mention of a dead body in the opening paragraph sets up some anticipation, but the author doesn't follow up on it. In fact, the next paragraphs provide contradiction to the opening: If Ryli spent four years working for a funeral home, <i>why</i> didn't she get accustomed to dead bodies? <br /></span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>You may be stepping back and saying, "But it's only three paragraphs!" And that is absolutely correct. However, if the author is already, in the first three paragraphs of the book, resorting to non-essential character reflection, it doesn't bode well for the rest of the book. (Spoiler: Holiday dinners with the Jaworski family are never mentioned again.)</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Let's look at the opening to <i>Chocolate-Chip Cookie Murder</i>.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">Hannah Swensen slipped into the old leather bomber jacket that she’d rescued from the Helping Hands thrift store and reached down to pick up the huge orange tomcat that was rubbing against her ankles. “Okay, Moishe. You can have one refill, but that’s it until tonight.” </span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">As she carried Moishe into the kitchen and set him down by his food bowl, Hannah remembered the day he’d set up camp outside her condo door. He’d looked positively disreputable, covered with matted fur and grime, and she’d immediately taken him in. Who else would adopt a twenty-five-pound, half-blind cat with a torn ear? Hannah had named him Moishe, and though he certainly wouldn’t have won any prizes at the Lake Eden Cat Fanciers’ Club, there had been an instant bond between them.</span></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">Fluke, Joanne. Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder (Hannah Swensen series Book 1) (p. 11). Kensington Books. Kindle Edition. </span></blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">Because this book is told from a third-person point of view, we aren't quite as directly in Hannah's thoughts, but neither are we out of them. And just as in <i>Picture Perfect Murder</i>, the opening gives background information that may or may not be important later on. Hannah is remembering, rather than doing.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">If Ryli opens with a reference to a dead body, Hannah opens with nothing. We don't know what she's doing or where she's going, and there's not the slightest hint of a mystery.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">For contrast, let's look at the opening to Martha Grimes' <i>The Man with a Load of Mischief</i>, the first of the Richard Jury mysteries as published in 1981.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">Outside the Jack and Hammer, a dog growled. </span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">Inside, his view of the High Street obstructed by the window at his shoulder, Melrose Plant sat in the curve of the bay drinking Old Peculier and reading Rimbaud. </span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">The dog growled deep in its throat and started barking again, something it had been doing intermittently for the last fifteen minutes. </span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">Sun streaming through the cerulean blue and deep green of the tulip-design of the leaded panes threw rainbow colors across his table as Melrose Plant rose up to peer over the reverse letters advertising Hardy’s Crown. The dog sitting in the snow outside the public house was a scruffy Jack Russell belonging to Miss Crisp, who ran the secondhand-furniture shop across the street.<br /><br />Grimes, Martha (2013-03-26). The Man with a Load of Mischief (Richard Jury Mysteries Book 1) (Kindle Locations 55-60). Scribner. Kindle Edition. </span></blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">What's different about this opening? Melrose Plant isn't thinking. He's <i>doing</i>. And he's doing something in response to an action over which he has no control, the dog's barking. He doesn't know what the dog's barking means, but it has aroused his curiosity enough that he has gotten out of his seat and gone to look out the window.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Instead of merely the describing the window as having colored glass in a tulip design, Grimes makes the sun streaming through that glass an active force in the scene. Though it's not a particularly mysterious or murderous scene, the participants are active, and it's much easier to imagine this scene visually -- cinematographically -- than the opening to either <i>Picture Perfect Murder</i> or <i>Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The reader knows these three books are murder mysteries; they aren't unidentified manuscripts being read cold. The reader therefore comes to the opening with an expectation that regardless how the book starts, there's going to be at least one murder and someone is going to solve it. Is it absolutely necessary, you ask, that the murder take place on page 1? Or that it be referred to on page 1? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">No, it's not. But what is necessary is that the author begin as she means to go. If the author resorts to character introspection or retrospection before there's even been any action, does she plan to continue in that manner?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">As Shelly Lowenkopf points out in his 1982 article "Creating the Rejection-Resistant Novel," many beginning writers -- and maybe some more experienced ones, too! -- often include in their opening pages "bits and pieces of background and detail the author needs to know in order to back off and let the characters tell the story. More often than not the reader doesn't care about these bits of trivia and resents being told them."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Yes, <b>the author</b> needs to know how Hannah acquired her cat. <b>The author</b> needs to know Ryli worked part time for the funeral home. The reader doesn't need to know this, at least not yet. Will the reader mind being told the Jaworskis made Ryli feel like a member of the family? Will the reader resent being told Hannah and her cat had bonded instantly? Probably not.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">However, if that background information is important to the plot, it ought to come out as a result of the plot's unfolding rather than the reader just being handed those details out of the blue. It's especially annoying in the St. James book because a reader who has been tuned in to the Jaworski story that ends up going nowhere may end up disappointed at not knowing the relevance!<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In contrast, the opening to the Grimes book gives the reader a lot of needed information with no introspection.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">1. The dog is growling outside the Jack and Hammer. Even though we don't yet know exactly what "the Jack and Hammer" is, we know it's the "inside."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">2. Melrose Plant, despite the non-gendered name, is "he." Even though we may not know what Old Peculier is, we know it's a beverage of some kind because Melrose Plant is drinking it. We may not know who or what Rimbaud is, but it's somehow connected to reading material, because Melrose Plant is reading it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">3. The dog growls and barks again.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">4. Sunlight is streaming through the window, letting us know it's daytime.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">5. The dog is sitting in the snow -- it's winter -- outside the public house. Now the reader knows the Jack and Hammer is a pub.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">As screenwriter <a href="https://www.villagevoice.com/2009/09/09/i-will-not-read-your-fucking-script/" target="_blank">Josh Olson has written:</a></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: large;">It rarely takes more than a page to recognize that you’re in the
presence of someone who can write, but it only takes a sentence to know
you’re dealing with someone who can’t.</span></p><span style="font-size: large;">
</span><p><span style="font-size: large;">(By the way, here’s a simple way to find out if you’re a writer. If
you disagree with that statement, you’re not a writer. Because, you see,
writers are also readers.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Many, and perhaps most, readers aren't going to be as analytical as I am. Many, and perhaps most, readers will read for pleasure and skip over the flubs and errors and inconsistencies that drive other readers bonkers. It's possible for a writer to get away with this kind of writing in the age of digital publishing because there are far fewer gatekeepers. Low-priced or free ebooks will almost always find a few readers, and unless the books are really outstandingly terrible, the authors can count on establishing at least a bit of a following.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">That level of success may be sufficient for many, and perhaps most, self-publishing authors. The collection of hundreds -- even thousands -- of glowing five-star ratings and reviews may also be sufficient. On the other hand, if you really want to improve your writing so you can establish a following of readers who will pay more than the bare minimum -- or only read your books if they're free -- maybe give some of this criticism a thought or two.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">After all, that's what you said you wanted<br /></span></p><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4364421159527172241.post-6858911779167847012021-04-17T15:48:00.000-07:002021-04-17T15:48:00.596-07:00Words in Review: Reviews for Writers<p><span style="font-size: large;"> Full disclosure: Unless otherwise noted, I obtained Kindle copies of these books when they were offered free on Amazon. I do not know the authors nor have I ever communicated with them in any way about their books or any other subject. I am a traditionally published author of historical romances, and self-published in contemporary romantic suspense and miscellaneous non-fiction.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Yes, as of this date, 18 April 2021, <b>Be Still, My Heart</b> will be publishing reviews. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But not just any old reviews. You folks have Goodreads and Amazon for those. Those reviews are, as I myself have said repeatedly over the past ten years or so, for readers. For years and years, reviewers have been burdened with the claim that they owe writers feedback, that their reviews carry an inherent obligation to either promote the books <i>for the writers' profit </i>or provide constructive criticism <i>for the writers' improvement</i>.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Be careful what you ask for. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4364421159527172241.post-50133619730451785762021-04-14T11:15:00.000-07:002021-04-14T11:15:12.117-07:00Words on Deaf Eyes<p><span style="font-size: large;">I started the draft of this blog post in the summer of 2013, continued to add to it through the whole Goodreads purge plus the fiverr reviewer debacle, then abandoned it in the Great Well of Drafts. Prior to today (14 April 2021), the last edits I made were in December 2014. I held off on publishing because I wasn't sure there was really any purpose to it then. Maybe now the audience has changed. Or maybe not. At any rate, I've taken the draft, expanded and revised it, fixed a few things and updated others. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">More than likely, the intended audience for this will never read it. If they do at least read it, they will more than likely believe it doesn't apply to them. Even if they believe it does apply to them, they will more than likely insist that it's wrong. They will offer excuses, or claim that their situation is different. In the end, however, they won't pay any attention and will go on as before.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
That's their choice. I can only put the information out there; I can't make anyone do anything.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So why do I do it? Why keep this draft around for well over six years and then resurrect it?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I honestly don't know. But I do, and I did. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br />Every night I do my best to keep a promise to myself of squeezing in at least one half hour of reading before falling asleep. My Kindle is great for comfortable reading in bed, so when I can't keep my eyes open a second longer, all I have to do is slide the Kindle into its pouch, turn off the light, and give myself up to dreams. The Kindle's drawback is that I can't easily embed detailed notes, but I can highlight and always have paper and pencil handy if something really important comes up. Yes, paper and pencil in bed.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />One night's reading back in 2013 was full of really important somethings, but unfortunately I was too tired even to reach for pencil and paper. The best I could do was highlight some areas before I gave up reading and went to sleep, hoping I'd remember the purpose of those highlights in the morning.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />I did. That's how this draft began.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />The book in question won't be identified, not because this wasn't a review blog in 2013-14 -- and at the moment it still isn't, not really -- but because the issue goes across <b>many</b> books over the intervening years, far too many to be cited here. In fact, I've changed the details so that most of the examples <b>can't</b> be identified.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
What became apparent very quickly, both while I was reading the book that night and while I was scribbling down the notes the following morning before they could evaporate from my brain and right up until I re-read it today to verify some details, was that the story had enormous potential. The genre is outside my historical romance comfort zone and so I wasn't sure if all my observations were entirely valid. Some, however, involved issues virtually universal to all genres of popular fiction.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
To start with, the formatting was flawed. <b> </b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Real books have indented paragraphs. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Look at a few. Look at the best sellers on the Amazon Kindle list. They all have indented paragraphs. All of them. When I see an author-published book formatted in block paragraphs -- or even worse, <i>indented</i> block paragraphs -- <b> </b>I know instantly that the author is not a reader, does not even know what real books are supposed to look like.<br /><b></b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Block paragraphs, however, were only one problem with this particular 2013 digital edition. Several paragraphs were split in the middle of sentences, probably where the writer had hit a hard return while composing rather than a space, and the publishing software created a new paragraph, complete with blank line. Had this happened only once or even twice, I might have overlooked it, but combined with block paragraphs, these additional breaks were frequent enough to be distracting in the first dozen or so Kindle pages.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Had the author not even looked at the finished product to make sure it had the basic appearance of professionalism? Did she even know what a book was supposed to look like?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She's not the only one. This is a not infrequent complaint: Even though paragraphing glitches are easily spotted on a careful proofreading pass, they're common in a lot of author-published digital books.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Punctuation errors abounded, particularly with dialogue. The most common and most annoying involved commas and periods outside the quotation marks: <i>"Mary is such a sweet child"! my aunt often told us. "You should strive to be more like her". </i>This was not a case of different conventions for American and British usage; the errors were inconsistent, indicating either lack of care or lack of knowledge.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Again, this is not uncommon. Punctuation helps the reader make sense of the words. "Let's eat Grandma" means something very different from "Let's eat, Grandma." Far too many self-publishing writers make far too many mistakes. If called on it, they shrug and say, "Well, you know what I meant."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Maybe. Maybe not.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />Returning to that 2013 book: Words and phrases, especially those referring to people, were frequently repeated to such an extent that they became glaring. The point of view is first person, and the narrator begins with an account of her childhood. In one scene she describes a tragic accident that happened while she and several young relatives -- siblings, cousins, etc. -- were playing a game they'd been strictly forbidden because it was dangerous. One of the children, younger than the narrator, is referred to as "our little cousin." Though identified earlier with a given name, she is never called by name in this particular scene. "Our little cousin" warns of the danger, but "our little cousin" goes along with the older children anyway. "Our little cousin" resists joining in with the risky play, but "our little cousin" is eventually persuaded to participate. "Our little cousin" proves to be most adept at the game, and "our little cousin" is roundly applauded for her skill, to the point that "our little cousin" becomes more and more daring. "Our little cousin" forgets her earlier caution, until the other children begin repeating "our little cousin's" earlier warnings back to her. "Our little cousin" ignores those warnings, and of course tragedy becomes inevitable.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />At that point I realized how desperately this book needed editing. I was on page twelve. The only note I posted on the Kindle was "This would never have got through our critique group."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In the years since, I've seen these and similar problems dozens of times. Sometimes I never make it through twelve pages. So many basic issues with a book could have been fixed <i>before</i> the author hit the "publish" button if only she had had a competent critique partner . . . and listened to their advice.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">These aren't plot problems or research errors or character inconsistencies; they're basic fiction writing skills the lack of which can ruin the best story. Many readers won't even be aware of them as they're reading, but some will. And if you're going to put in the time and effort just to type all those thousands of words, doesn't it make sense to put in a little more effort and make them the best thousands of words possible?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Another book that may or may not have had a great story buried under the words opened with a long paragraph in which every single sentence began with a participial phrase. <i>Wiping bitter tears from my eyes . . . Climbing the dark stairs . . . Arriving at last at the door to my mother's room . . . Knocking tentatively . . . . Praying there would be an answer . . . Turning away and swallowing the lump in my throat . . . . . .</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Once again, this would never have got through a competent critique group.</span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It's not just the repetitiveness of the phrasing. It's also the heightened risk of a misplaced or dangling modifier. <i>Turning away and swallowing the lump in my throat, a low growl came from beyond the door.</i></span><span style="font-size: large;">
</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Another book I read more recently began with the main character pushing her way through a crowd. In the <i>very next sentence</i> she pushed her way through a door. Before the first page ended, she pushed her way through a noisy party. And before the second page ended, she pushed her way through another door . . . into another crowd.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Is it possible this was a deliberate stylistic choice meant to convey the character's frame of mind? Perhaps, but if so, it wasn't a good one. Nor was it the only instance of repetition. Remember "our little cousin" from the book that started all this? The "pushing through" book also referred to the woman throwing this party as "the elegant hostess," "the Senator's elegant wife," and "the elegant woman," all within those first two pages.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I didn't read any further. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Although I still put Christopher Vogler's <i>The Writer's Journey</i> at the very top of the list of books every writer should read, Stephen King's <i>On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft</i> contains some of the best insights on the actual writing process, word after word, sentence after sentence, page after page. While King does get into the "rules" of writing a little bit, the grammar and stuff, he seems to be more into how to use these tools -- he even calls it the toolbox -- in a hands-on way rather than theoretical. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Most of what we get in school is theory, applied only to class assignments and then in rigidly defined form: book reports, essays on current events, research papers, and so on. The same tools still apply in writing fiction, but they can serve far more functions than our teachers allowed us to practice.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">One of King's most trenchant observations, which he himself considers perhaps controversial, stuck with me. After describing what he calls the four levels of writer -- bad, competent, good, and great -- he posits limitations.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">. . .[W]hile it is impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad writer, and while it is equally impossible to make a great writer out of a good one, it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent one.<br /><br />King, Stephen. On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft (Kindle Locations 1605-1607). Scribner. Kindle Edition. </span></blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">For most of us, our teachers aimed to make us competent. They gave us the rules as tools to use constructing our assignments and that was all they cared about. There was no effort on their part to make any of us good writers, and no concept of turning any of us who might naturally be good writers into great ones. (I tend to agree with the notion that truly great writers are born, and their greatness has nothing to do with how many copies they've sold or how big their movie deals are.)</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The question then becomes how many of the writers of these badly written books are bad writers beyond any realistic hope of significant improvement, and which (if any) are competent writers who just haven't yet been turned into good ones?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Are readers expected to know the difference? Are readers expected to alert the writers? Are readers expected to alert other readers? Or are all of us just supposed to accept whatever is thrown at us?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The more I look at books like those described above but that still garner hundreds and sometimes thousands of five-star reviews, I wonder if anyone cares. Nora Roberts is still going to sell millions of books. Stephen King is still going to sell millions of books. The rest of us will be lost in the maelstrom of swirling garbage, bad writers, competent writers, good writers, all thrown together.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The reviewers certainly aren't helping when they throw around five-star reviews like Mardi Gras doubloons.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Reviewers have the right to review as they choose. I know there are accounts on Goodreads that have literally hundreds of reviews/ratings and perfect 5.0 GPAs. (Goodreads Promotional Average.) If they've ever met a book they didn't love, they've never written a word about it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In doing some research for this post, I found a Goodreads account that has over 9,000 reviews. The account has been active since 2011, so approximately ten years. That's 3653 days or so, and if in fact the reader actually read all those books since opening the account, that's roughly three books a day, every day, for ten years. Her GPA was a modest 4.86. Do I think she read them all? I don't know. Do I think she was being honest about her ratings? I don't know. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Do I think the ratings for a lot of books are inflated by reviewers such as she who almost never give anything lower than five stars?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Yes, I do.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I spent a lot of time in 2014 and 2015 documenting the literally thousands of purchased reviews posted on Goodreads and Amazon, reviews paid for by the authors and written by "gig" writers on various sites but primarily fiverr. The belief was then, and perhaps still is, that if an author-published or small independent press published book got enough five star ratings and reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, the algorithms would push those books onto readers' recommendations, readers would buy, and the authors would become instantly rich and famous.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The key to success, according to this philosophy, was that promotion and reviews were far more important than good writing or good storytelling. In fact, skill and talent were unimportant! Throw together any old crap, buy a bunch of five-star ratings on fiverr, and you've got it made.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">For the most part, it didn't happen. The review writers probably made more money than the book authors. Many thousands of reviews were removed from both sites, many dozens of reviewer accounts were terminated. (Many reviews and reviewers returned under new accounts, but that's another issue.) And for all I know, it's still going on. I did what I could to keep Goodreads and Amazon reviews honest, but they apparently weren't having it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So the avalanche of five-star reviews rolls on. And reviewers who don't give all five to every book run the risk of being insulted by the authors, doxxed, and threatened with bodily harm. (See author Lauren Hough's release day explosion of name calling on 13 April 2021, literally while I was in the midst of assembling this.)<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The forces are arrayed against honest critical reviews.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Furthermore, I think the failure -- regardless of the reason -- of reviewers to give critical reviews encourages readers to accept bad writing uncritically because they themselves don't know any better. It's a vicious circle, and far too few people -- readers, reviewers, other writers -- are willing to speak out to break that circle.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Who benefits? The established writers. The traditional publishers. The agents. The unscrupulous freelance editors.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But maybe the bad writers benefit, too, because they get to believe their writing is good, that people legitimately love their books, that they don't have to work to improve.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So in the end, does it really matter?<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I don't know. I honestly don't know.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4364421159527172241.post-70998116717348449472021-04-10T08:55:00.000-07:002021-04-10T08:55:01.471-07:00Reading the words, not just seeing them<p><span style="font-size: medium;">I almost never watch television. When I do, it's a cable news channel and I listen more than watch. I'm also almost always doing something in addition to listening to the program. Sometimes I'm reading or writing a blog post or editing photos for my Etsy shop or sewing or making jewelry. The idea of sitting and watching television and doing nothing else is almost beyond my comprehension.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Movies are the same. I don't "go to the movies." That's a concept even more outrageous to me than watching television. To sit in the dark and do nothing but passively watch other people doing things on the screen, and be surrounded by a bunch of strangers? Nope, it's just not for me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Reading is different. Reading requires me to participate in creating the action. There are words on the page, but there are no sights, no sounds, no hot or cold or windy or rainy. No smell of freshly baked bread or new-mown hay or exotic perfume. My brain has to supply all those things; I have to complete what the author has begun. Ours is a collaboration, or at least it should be.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Tonight I tried to read one of the many (hundreds?) of free Kindle books I've recently acquired. This was a boxed set of four "cozy mysteries" packaged under the title <i>Ouna Bay Cozy Mystery 4-Book Bundle</i> by Deany Ray. The copyright date is 2016, but there's no other publication information in the books' front matter nor on the Amazon listing. I'm going to assume, safely or not, that Deany Ray publishes her own books.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Whether or not she has an editor of any kind is questionable.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I will at least credit Deany with making the first of the four books look like a real book. Paragraphs are indented without extra spaces between them. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Beyond that, I don't have much good to say about the eight pages I was able to read before giving up. My eye muscles can't take that much rolling.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">After reading those eight pages, then reading them again two more times, I couldn't make much sense of the story, but I did get a sense of how someone could write something like that. I've seen this before many times over the years and I've tried to explain to the writers what's wrong with it, but I never understood why they didn't get it. I think now, finally, I do.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">They are writers who don't read, or if they do, they watch more television and/or movies than they read -- and they've been doing it longer.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The bottom line is that they don't know how to read. They see the words, they know what the words mean, but they don't know how to convert those words into mental images and sensations, into tastes and smells and textures. Therefore, when they write, they just put down words that don't -- that <i>can't</i> -- create the experience a reader wants.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Let me explain. Or at least try to.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This is the opening paragraph from Barbara Bretton's 1986 contemporary romance <i>The Edge of Forever. </i>I have never read it, though I have the digital edition on my Kindle.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Joe Alessio stood on the top step of St. John's Episcopal, poised for escape. All around him, New England was ablaze with color, the great rush of splendor before the winterkill. It would be easy to pretend he was a tourist, come to northern New Hampshire for a little leaf-peeping R&R, but the heavy wooden doors of the old church weren’t thick enough to keep the minister's words from spilling out and bringing reality with them. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">“. . . so I tell you that Anna Kennedy isn’t really gone . . . “<br /><br />Bretton, Barbara. The Edge of Forever: A Classic Romance - Book 4 . Free Spirit Press. Kindle Edition. </span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Here's what Ms. Bretton -- whom I met a couple times at RWA conferences more than 20 years ago and that's about it -- has shown the reader already.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Joe Alessio is standing outside a church and he doesn't want to be there. He wants to escape. It's autumn and the trees of New England are changing color. Joe lives here or at least he used to, because he's not a tourist. Whoever Anna Kennedy is, or was, the reality of her death is something Joe would like to be able to deny but can't.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A reader who is accustomed to reading doesn't even think about this; it's taken for granted because that's the way readers read and the way writers write.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The reader is also brought into a situation that's fraught with emotion. There's been a death, and even before we get to the next paragraph, we already have a taste (pun intended) of Joe's feelings. Maybe he's glad that this Anna Kennedy is gone, but I don't think so. He wanted to escape, remember? That's probably a metaphor for wishing to escape the reality mentioned at the end of the paragraph.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">As a reader, I'm already intrigued. Who is/was Anna Kennedy? What does Joe feel about her? Why didn't he go into the church, or why has he already left it while the minister is still speaking?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">What's crucial here is that each sentence builds directly on what the previous sentences have started. The focus is on Joe Alessio, standing on the church steps but wanting to run, surrounded by New England autumn, hearing the minister's words that he doesn't want to hear.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It's very much like the opening scene of a movie, but the reader has to do the camera work. Tight in on Joe, then pulling back to show the church, then the trees in their fall foliage, finally the minister's voice.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>This is showing, not telling.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Two paragraphs, no more.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Now let's look at the opening two paragraphs of Deany Ray's first book of the boxed set, <i>A Sweet Chunk of Madness</i>.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;">The sun blazed through my beige drapes as I opened my eyes and directed them to the alarm clock on my nightstand. Ten to seven. Ten more minutes of sleep until the alarm went off. Only I was so excited to bake the recipe of sour cream rhubarb coffee cake that I jumped out of bed, almost knocking the lamp on the nightstand. </span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;">After a quick shower and a quick look in the mirror, I put on my favorite pair of jeans and the light blue t-shirt I worked in and headed off into town.<br /><br />Ray, Deany. Ouna Bay Cozy Mystery Box Set (4-Book Bundle) (p. 6). Kindle Edition. </span></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: medium;">At this point, the reader knows not even a fraction about what's going on that she knows after reading two paragraphs of the Bretton book. No setting, no emotion, no tension. We know the color of the drapes and the character's t-shirt. We don't even know what she sees in the mirror.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Am I being unfair? Why? Barbara Bretton did it; why should Deany Ray be held to a lower standard? Is it because the two books are in a different genre? Does Deany get a pass because her book is free?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Here's the next paragraph of Deany's book.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;">My name is Becky Chambers and I live in Ouna Bay. After my parents died in a car crash, I took on their pastry store-slash-coffee shop. Well, actually, my aunt and uncle took on the business since I was only five years old when the crash happened. When I was twenty, they moved to Florida and I continued to run the café, which came only natural to me, since I spent almost every free minute there.<br /><br />Ray, Deany. Ouna Bay Cozy Mystery Box Set (4-Book Bundle) (p. 6). Kindle Edition. </span></blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;">Besides the fact that this is rather lackluster writing style, the information doesn't show the reader anything. There's nothing in this paragraph to help the reader visualize the scene or any action. Why is it important that the reader know now, right away, on page one, that Becky's parents died in a car crash when she was five? Why is it important for the reader to know, right now, on page one, that Becky's aunt and uncle moved to Florida when she was twenty? </span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Where is Ouna Bay?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Why should I care?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I gave Deany Ray, Becky Chambers, and everyone in Ouna Bay <b>eight full pages<i> </i></b>to hook me into the story. It never happened. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Deany Ray is <i>telling</i> me things, things bout Ouna Bay and about Becky and about her friend Rosalie, but there's no story happening. Not until page eight, when the newspaper vendor Dev informs Becky that some man asked for directions to her café, is there even a hint of anything the tiniest bit mysterious.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: medium;">“Oh, before I forget. There was a man here earlier asking about your café,” Dev said. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That caught my attention and I looked up. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">“A man asked about my café?”<br /><br />Ray, Deany. Ouna Bay Cozy Mystery Box Set (4-Book Bundle) (p. 8). Kindle Edition. </span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: medium;">If you're a reader who is accustomed to automatically creating the action of the story in your imagination, page eight is way too late. Remember how much drama Barbara Bretton was able to pack into her opening two paragraphs?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">When I wrote in an earlier post about Christopher Vogler's book <i>The Writer's Journey</i>, I also mentioned an article published in the February 1982 edition of <i>The Writer</i> magazine. Written by Shelly Lowenkopf, "Creating a Rejection-Resistant Novel" explains what needs to go into a novel's <i>first three pages</i> to grab the reader's -- editor's, agent's -- attention. In today's publishing environment of free digital downloads. that applies to consumers as well.<br /></span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> "Start with important action," Lowenkopf advises. "Involve someone of consequence in an event of consequence or with a threat of significant impact."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Setting aside the measurement of just how much is "three pages," after eight pages of Deany Ray's book, nothing has happened. I know a few things about Becky -- her friend Rosalie is forgetful and Becky buys lots of magazines and someone is jealous of Becky's brownies -- but so what?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Deany Ray hasn't made me care what happens next. Maybe Becky is going to go through her day and nothing worse will befall her than she mismeasures the sugar for her cake. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I want more than that. I want a hint that there's going to be more, and I want it at the beginning, not somewhere after eight pages.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm the same generation as Barbara Bretton, and we grew up reading books rather than watching television all day. Maybe the problem is ours. And that may very well be true, because books like Deany Ray's <i>A Sweet Chunk of Madness</i> seem to get a lot of five-star ratings on Goodreads and Amazon.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Here's the stats block as of 9 April 2021 from Goodreads: </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjta51B0nvaMyQ1IPPK7FOrNO4_1kwy2deWjwGgROtHPGufv9HQxx36sm79wxSFRmM1DJOPXOKh21aNlbywLFdUyq-q4wHBIHp48nLCsdukNbDPDswtdHd6gLtQmub3-y6bTPV-SDg1kmM/s1003/2021+04+09+Ratings+for+Sweet+Chunk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="515" data-original-width="1003" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjta51B0nvaMyQ1IPPK7FOrNO4_1kwy2deWjwGgROtHPGufv9HQxx36sm79wxSFRmM1DJOPXOKh21aNlbywLFdUyq-q4wHBIHp48nLCsdukNbDPDswtdHd6gLtQmub3-y6bTPV-SDg1kmM/s320/2021+04+09+Ratings+for+Sweet+Chunk.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /> The book has 140 ratings, of which 98 are five- and four-stars. Only four readers rated it one-star, and only one of them left a review.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Are all the other readers lying? I don't think so. What I do think is that they read the words but don't take the time or make the effort to put those words into a viable context.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A few years ago, a friend of mine recommended a book that she considered one of the best she had read in a while. The Kindle edition was free, so I "bought" the book and tried to read it. On something like the first or second page there was a glaring error, the kind of mistake where one character is standing to another's left and then without moving they're to that character's right, or some such. It was so noticeable that I went back and reread it several times, trying to figure out how it could <i>not</i> be the writer's mistake but instead be mine. It wasn't.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">So I asked my friend if she had noticed the error. Oh, no, she didn't notice, but she said she never pays attention to things like that. She "just reads." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Maybe that's how everyone reads, and I'm the odd person out. But then there's that single one-star review on Goodreads: "This read like a fanfic, and not the good kind," reader Annemarie wrote. She described the writing as "clunky," and I have to agree.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">What does that mean? In the case of <i>A Sweet Chunk of Madness</i> it means the writing doesn't flow. The individual sentences are all right, but as Goodreader Annemarie writes, </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="readable" id="reviewTextContainer2774264548"><span id="freeTextContainer1109898336335681203">the text had ". . . sentences awkwardly put together to make longer ones." </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="readable" id="reviewTextContainer2774264548"><span id="freeTextContainer1109898336335681203">In good writing, one sentence leads seamlessly into the next. In the opening paragraph from Barbara Bretton, the first sentence is about Joe Alessio. The next one is about what's around Joe. The next is about what Joe is doing there, and then about what he's hearing. Each sentence carries on what the previous sentence started.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="readable" id="reviewTextContainer2774264548"><span id="freeTextContainer1109898336335681203">That's almost completely missing from Deany Ray's writing. The sun and the beige drapes don't enhance our understanding of Becky's waking ten minutes before the alarm. She's excited about baking, then she's in the shower, then she's heading into town . . . and then she's telling us about her past. </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="readable" id="reviewTextContainer2774264548"><span id="freeTextContainer1109898336335681203">And then we get details about her café and Ouna Bay. Those details make no sense at all.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="readable" id="reviewTextContainer2774264548"><span id="freeTextContainer1109898336335681203"></span></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;">The Blue Bay Café was situated in the middle of Ouna Bay, attracting the town natives as much as the summer tourists. Ouna Bay is located near Lake Erie and it borders the mountains on one side and the sea on the other. The view of the beautiful bay and the small but charming harbor in the distance can be savored from the two wooden tables by the window. Those tables are the most coveted in the entire café.<br /><br />Ray, Deany. Ouna Bay Cozy Mystery Box Set (4-Book Bundle) (p. 6). Kindle Edition. </span></blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Wait a minute. Is Ouna Bay an actual bay, as in a part of a body of water, or is that just the name of the town? Oh, it's "located near Lake Erie," so I'm going to guess it's a town not actually on the lake shore but inland some short distance. But mountains? What mountains? And sea? What sea? Lake Erie is one of the Great Lakes, a body of fresh water hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean. There are no mountains along the lake. And how does the border the mountains on one side and the sea on the other? Wouldn't they border the town?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I'm getting confused. A second reading doesn't help much.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">If Ouna Bay is a town located "near" Lake Erie, how can this little café have a view of "the bay" and a "charming harbor" in the distance? Is the harbor in the bay?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Does Deany Ray even know what these words really mean?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>If the café isn't right on the waterfront, it's not likely to be able to afford a view of the waterfront. This is optics, or physics, or topography, or something.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A reader who takes in the words on the page and turns them into a mental vision is going to be stumped trying to translate these sentences into a "scene." On the other hand, a reader who just sees words and doesn't want to or need to make them into a coherent whole may be able to enjoy this kind of book just fine. Kinda like Jabberwocky.<b> </b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">One of the criticisms leveled at Chris Vogler's <i>The Writer's Journey</i> is that it lays out such a rigid template that film makers -- more than creators of books or other forms of Story -- are unable to experiment with other narratives, and that this is why Hollywood keeps remaking the same tired stories over and over and over. What happens, however, when a writer strays from the tried and true template? Do we get the wow factor in a "new" template? Or do we get incomprehensible drivel that doesn't satisfy anyone?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The new writer has far more freedom to experiment than the new producer playing with someone else's millions of dollars. Just as we have conventions of grammar and spelling to make our writing comprehensible for all readers, so we have conventions of plotting and characterization to make all Stories comprehensible to all readers. If the new writer wants to ignore those conventions, they're allowed to. They can make up their own spelling, their own alphabet, their own syntax. But then they have to deal with the audience that doesn't get it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">When a reader embarks on the adventure of reading a book, she does so with certain expectations, but each individual reader has her own expectations. The author who assumes (!) all readers have the same expectations runs a risk of disappointing some, and perhaps most, of those readers whose expectations are . . . different. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Whether the differences are intentional or just the result of incompetence, Deany Ray's stories in <i>Ouna Bay Cozy Mystery Box Set</i> just didn't meet my expectations. I gave them a chance; I'm not going to read any more. <br /></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4364421159527172241.post-77844564728159996322021-04-06T13:41:00.001-07:002021-04-08T20:44:13.109-07:00Atmosphere, atmosphere, atmosphere: Deconstructing Jamaica Inn by Daphne DuMaurier<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuQq6n6wxs_dl68WeN5tf1a4IoQaB4SWwZJ_RL4Eowzz75F2fdT-ol4JuMt0Su5PqwbC_0RFAHnrLYDPb3PpbMYk2MCeI1gkt66QxRVcdZUe9A4ZcF151gOvga_pSbBoNs3ll5HfDMlUg/s2048/029.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1503" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuQq6n6wxs_dl68WeN5tf1a4IoQaB4SWwZJ_RL4Eowzz75F2fdT-ol4JuMt0Su5PqwbC_0RFAHnrLYDPb3PpbMYk2MCeI1gkt66QxRVcdZUe9A4ZcF151gOvga_pSbBoNs3ll5HfDMlUg/w470-h640/029.JPG" width="470" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Part of this analysis was originally written and posted on BookLikes during a Halloween Bingo buddy read in October 2016. Now that BookLikes is essentially dead, I'm moving some of my material here for further exploration.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Be warned: This analysis contains major spoilers. If you have not read<i> Jamaica Inn</i> and don't want to know ahead of time what happens, you might want to skip this.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Daphne DuMaurier's<i> Jamaica Inn</i> was published in 1936. In 1939, Alfred Hitchcock turned the book into a film, with lots of major changes. I do not recommend watching the movie as a substitute for reading the book. The book is considered a classic of gothic romance; though there are no ghosts or other paranormal elements, the constant threats to the heroine amid a dangerous mystery set in an isolated and atmospheric location qualify for that genre.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Daphne DuMaurier, who lived most of her life in Cornwall, exquisitely uses setting to establish the whole tone of the novel. She evokes not only the atmosphere of Cornwall but also its contrast to and isolation from the rest of the world. The real Jamaica Inn still exists on the windswept Bodmin Moor.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPbc_SZgYgU8ijUSAjCLONhT0vU6jIE2-3fJ9MCJ3zenSkfLEFONJfWC-iCjXv7FjWWW7iWj-sM53VI30t23Wa5CrGUwFNdtm0xcSCdXRaVg8FkRGzlvDJ7IPBX5sfO3UmwKgh0aE2ctU/s719/Jamaica+Inn+001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="341" data-original-width="719" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPbc_SZgYgU8ijUSAjCLONhT0vU6jIE2-3fJ9MCJ3zenSkfLEFONJfWC-iCjXv7FjWWW7iWj-sM53VI30t23Wa5CrGUwFNdtm0xcSCdXRaVg8FkRGzlvDJ7IPBX5sfO3UmwKgh0aE2ctU/w640-h304/Jamaica+Inn+001.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Unlike many novels of the later 20th and 21st centuries,<i> Jamaica Inn</i>
starts in the middle of that locale, with the atmosphere to create
anticipation and mood, but then retreats into detailed backstory. (I
found the same to be true of Gwen Bristow's <i>Jubilee Trail</i>.) <br /> <br />I
had originally read <i>Jamaica Inn</i> about forty years ago, and hadn't read it again
until that rereading in 2016. Even though I remembered the basics of
the plot and one of the major "twists," this was very much like reading it
for the first time. I was, however, much more aware of details, of structure and
foreshadowing, and the whole use of language as an artistic medium, even
when the composition was sometimes, well, sloppy.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Suffice it to say <i>Jamaica Inn</i> was not a satisfying read this second time around. <br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">If you want a mood piece with fabulous descriptions
of the harsh isolation of Bodmin Moor, this is it. If you want a
portrait of the worst of nineteenth century Cornish smuggling and
wrecking, this is it. If you want a coherent story with well-developed
characters, this is not it.<br /><br />For seventeen years, Mary Yellan and
her widowed mother struggled to maintain a small farm near Helford, at the
southern end of Cornwall. To comply with her dying mother's wish, Mary
sells the farm and all her belongings and moves to Jamaica Inn on
windswept Bodmin Moor, where her Aunt Patience lives with her husband,
Joss Merlyn, the landlord of the inn. Mary soon discovers her
uncle-by-marriage is deeply involved in a huge smuggling operation.<br /><br />Wow! Great potential! But . . . .</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">At age 23, Mary is not a minor in need of a
guardian, even though she is female. So I'm not sure why she was forced
to sell the farm. The only motivation is
that she was doing as her mother wished, but given what her mother had
been through during seventeen years of widowhood to hang onto the farm,
why let it go? Maybe that sort of thing didn't occur to the young
DuMaurier, who came from comfortable wealth. After all, Mary had
struggled, too, from early childhood to help her mother run the farm, and now she just up and
sells it? Doesn't make sense. Why would her mother want her to?</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Even so, what happens to the money Mary gets from selling
the farm? There's no mention of it, nor of debts that had to be paid
off or anything else. So Mary walks away from the only home she's ever
known in a town where she at least knows people and presumably has some prospects for
marriage even if she doesn't want to continue to operate the farm. Okay, fine.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">From this beginning, Mary Yellan never came across as a very sympathetic character to me. First it was because no matter what I did, I couldn't rationalize her selling the farm with no other motivation than her mother told her to. </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Had Mary been destitute like the poor, orphaned classic gothic heroine turned out upon the mercy of strangers, this might have made sense, but DuMaurier never describes Mary as penniless and having no other option than to seek shelter at Jamaica Inn with an aunt she hasn't seen in years. She just mindlessly does it. </span>Later, as the story progressed, I developed an active dislike for her because she's a.) weak, and b.) inconsistent. One minute she's saying her life is over and she doesn't care if she lives or dies, the next minute she's plotting her escape from her Uncle Joss.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In many ways, I felt Mary was TSTL -- to stupid to live -- but
even more than that I felt she was just poorly created. There were so
many aspects of her characterization that made no sense whatsoever, that
I began to see her as a kind of tour guide to Bodmin-in-Winter and not
really as a person involved in the drama that was unfolding around her.</span></span> <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">DuMaurier could have sent Mary to Jamaica Inn as a companion or help to Aunt Patience, but the opposite is stated. Patience is set up as the (unnecessary?) shelterer for the orphan. This proves untrue. Throughout the book, Patience is little more than a
fluttering idiot, completely beaten emotionally by her horrible
husband. And frankly, Mary herself isn't a whole lot better. Neither is any help for the other. After I
had finished the novel, I began wondering just how many more of DuMaurier's female characters were spineless like Mary and Patience -- and of course the nameless
heroine of Rebecca comes to mind -- and why she would write
someone so unsympathetic.<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I've come to believe that DuMaurier was not writing Mary Yellan's story as much as she was exploiting the gruesome history of Cornish smuggling and wrecking for plot and the oppressive isolation of Bodmin Moor for atmosphere. There are too many holes in the plot for this to be a character-driven story.<br /><br />The descriptions of the setting are superb, though I have to admit I'm sometimes a bit confused as to how much Mary can actually see in the dead of a rainy night. It's not like there would be urban light pollution to illuminate the moors. That's what I mean by sloppy writing.<br /><br />For another example, a window is broken out at the end of December, and no one seems to notice or care, neither from outside the inn nor inside. There's no mention of shutters that could be closed to mitigate the damage from rain or discomfort from the cold. Small things like this bothered me, took me right out of the story, and prevented me from suspending disbelief enough to get back into it.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">None of the characters is fully developed except the
villainous Joss Merlyn, the huge and vicious leader of the smuggling
ring. He has no good qualities at all, and it was difficult for me as a
reader to imagine Patience, who is described as having once been pretty
and happy, falling in love with him. Even when Mary notices the
occasional grace of Joss's fingers, that's not enough to redeem him even
a tiny bit. His fingers? Seriously?<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So Mary leaves Helford and ultimately finds herself at Jamaica Inn, in the middle of a band
of cutthroat smugglers, and she stays because of Aunt Patience, who used to be bright and happy but now is
mostly a mumbling, mindless idiot. Mary, who presumably was born and raised in Cornwall, apparently has no previous experience or even knowledge of "free-trading" and wrecking, which were basic facets of life in Cornwall for centuries. So when she witnesses several murders connected to Joss and his operation of Jamaica Inn, she seems relatively unaffected by them. Oh, it's awful, of course,
that her aunt's husband and his confederates lure the ships onto the rocks, then drown or bludgeon the crew and passengers to death in order to salvage
the cargo, but Mary somehow shoves it all down into the back of her mind
and goes about her daily business.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Really?<br /><br />For entertainment, she
wanders the moors, and it's on one of these rambles that she meets Jem
Merlyn, Joss's much younger brother. Jem is a horsethief and lives in a
pigsty of a cottage on the moor. He has very little to recommend
himself, but Mary falls in love with him anyway. Why? What's the
matter with these women that they fall for absolute losers and don't
question it?<br /><br />Mary also meets the vicar of the church at Altarnun,
the albino Francis Davey. Davey is another character who held enormous
potential for development and examination, but he became instead just a
cardboard villain, the exotic "other" who must be inherently evil, like
the albino assassin in <i>The DaVinci Code. <br /></i><br />As soon as
there's a hint that Joss Merlyn isn't the mastermind behind the
smuggling operation, the identity of the true leader is left in little
doubt. Mary, who can't seem to figure anything out, foolishly alerts
the vicar to Joss's plan to escape Cornwall, and this spurs Davey to
take action to protect himself. Both Joss and Patience are murdered,
and Mary is kidnapped, but the local squire, assisted by Jem Merlyn,
arrives to save the day and rescue Mary.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">With her aunt and Joss both dead, Mary once again is at loose ends. She has
no family, no home, and she rejects the squire's offer of domestic
employment. She decides to return to Helford, maybe hire out as a
farmhand until she can buy her own little place. (On farmhand's wages? She'd be lucky to get room and board and a pound a year, hardly enough to buy a farm.) But she runs into Jem
on the moor; he has packed all his personal belongings on a wagon and is
headed off to parts unknown. Mary just hops up on the wagon with him
and they ride off into the sunset.<br /><br />Huh? What about her personal belongings? And Patience's? And what about Jamaica Inn itself?<br /><br />Just
as Mary inherited her mother's farm and sold it, only to have the cash
not be mentioned in the story, either she or Jem Merlyn should have
inherited the Inn. Joss Merlyn bought it from the squire, so upon his
death it should have gone to either his wife and her heirs, which would
be Mary; or it should have gone to Joss's only living relative, which
would be his brother Jem.<br /><br />Though there were hints of some
irregularities in Joss's purchase of the inn -- he probably used
proceeds of smuggling to come up with the cash -- the squire never
seemed to contest Merlyn's ownership of the property. Yet after the
smuggling ring is broken up and the principals dead, the squire just
sort of announces his plans for the inn's future. How did he regain
possession of it?<br /><br />Through the reading, I felt DuMaurier really
didn't care about her characters, especially Mary Yellan. They were
props, providing a little bit of action so she could move them around on
the stage of Bodmin Moor and describe it. Mary had no spine, and no
sense, and when she impulsively took off at the end, I again got that
impression of someone just writing her off the scene.</span> <br /></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There's a particular scene where Mary is walking out on the moors, I think when she goes to warn the Vicar about the smugglers, and she covers an enormous distance in a remarkably short period of time. The notes I made on this excursion in 2016 have been lost in the BookLikes graveyard, but I'll try to find the information in the book, which I still have.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Ultimately, though, the book as a story fails; it's an atmospheric piece at best. The characters are both unlikable and unrelatable; the plot is nonsensical.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"I have done a very senseless thing in coming here," [Mary] said hopelessly. "I thought it clever, and I have only succeeded in making a fool of myself and of everyone else."<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Yep, that's pretty much it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4364421159527172241.post-84905545143894287262021-04-05T12:38:00.000-07:002021-04-05T12:38:21.859-07:00Words on Writing, Part 1: The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, by Christopher Vogler<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> <span>If I were asked to recommend the single most essential book for writers of popular fiction, I would not hesitate to name <i>The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers </i>by Christopher Vogler.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> If your budget only has room for one book, get this one. I know other teachers and bloggers and mentors will recommend others, but you asked me, so there's my answer.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I currently have two copies, the first edition from 1992, which is subtitled "Mythic Structure for Storytellers and Screenwriters," and the third edition published in 2007, with the subtitle as above. There is also a 25th Anniversary Edition which was released in 2020. Even though I have two of the earlier editions, I just ordered the new one. It's that important.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">So, why this book? Why not Strunk and White's <i>Elements of Style</i>? Or Stephen King's <i>On Writing</i>? Or Anne Lamott's <i>Bird by Bird</i>?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Because. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I've never liked <i>Elements of Style</i>. While it may be a good resource for grammar and syntax, its emphasis on brevity doesn't work as well for fiction as it does for non-fiction. Grammar, spelling, and writing style are important facets of skill no matter what you write, but fiction requires something way beyond that.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">King's book is half memoir, half how-to, and while his personal history is interesting and gives insight into his writing, that very intimacy relegates the how-to half more to a "How I do it," as though what Stephen King does will work for everyone.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I've never read <i>Bird by Bird</i>. I never felt the need to.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I didn't discover <i>The Writer's Journey</i> until 1997, right before a writer's conference at which Christopher Vogler was going to be one of the featured speakers. I bought the book a week or so before the conference and devoured it. Vogler's presentation was supposed to last an hour; it stretched into almost three. He was far and away the best speaker I've ever heard.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That still doesn't answer your question. I'm getting to that.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Writing fiction, and in particular book-length popular genre fiction (as opposed to literary fiction, whatever that is), requires two skills: the ability to write and the ability to create stories. Most of us can be taught the basics of how to write. We learn the rudiments in school, even if we forget most of them and/or never use them after they're no longer required for graduation. Creating stories, on the other hand, isn't so easy to learn or to teach. It's more a process of recognizing whether or not you have that skill and then putting it into practice if in fact you do have it. If you don't, well . . . .<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That may not be a popular opinion. No one who really wants to be a writer wants to be told they don't have the requisite story-telling talent. And in this age of digital self-publishing, even being told that isn't a barrier to publishing. It remains a sad fact, however, that there are many, many, many author-published books out there that just aren't very good.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">For many of them, the author didn't have sufficient writing skill; even if there were a decent story in there, the writer couldn't bring it to life. For many others, the writing is passable, but the story isn't.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">If the story is there, the writing can be fixed. If there's no story, no amount of fixing the writing will help.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The Writer's Journey</i> explains what "story" is, how it's constructed of various parts, how those parts work together to complete the whole. Perhaps most important, Vogler explains how and why this structure is virtually universal, over time and across genres and through various media, by giving numerous examples. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"But but but, <i>my</i> story is different!"<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">No, my dear, it almost certainly is not.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Think about it. What makes us keep reading, keep turning the pages, even if they're only digital pages on electronic screens. "I need to know what happens next. Will they be eaten by the monster? Will she find her lost sister? Is the grandmother the killer? Will the volcano erupt? Who changed the nuclear codes?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>"I need to know what happens next."</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That's the essence of story structure: How each element logically, naturally, and emotionally satisfyingly leads to the next.<i> </i> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Vogler's analysis is based on the works of Joseph Campbell and C.G. Jung, but being familiar with them is not at all necessary to understanding <i>The Writer's Journey</i>. While Campbell analyzed myth as a historical -- and universal -- form of narrative, Vogler applies the form to the process of contemporary storytelling. Campbell explains the hero's journey; Vogler shows you, the writer, how to create your own hero's journey and then make the journey with them.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">As Shelly Lowenkopf pointed out in his 1982 article in <i>The Writer</i> magazine, "Creating a Rejection-Resistant Novel," you have to hook the reader at the beginning. Back then, the first person who read your (laboriously typed) manuscript on its journey to publication (or, more likely, rejection) might give you as many as three double-spaced pages to set that hook. Lowenkopf knew even then that many beginning writers are shocked to learn editors, agents, and the other gatekeepers of the traditional publishing business don't routinely read the whole book. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"But but but, <i>mine</i> is different!"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">No, it probably isn't, and if it is, you still have to prove it. And you have to prove it in the first three pages. Or less.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">As Josh Olson has written, </span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It rarely takes more than a page to recognize that you're in the presence of someone who can write, but it only takes a sentence to know you're dealing with someone who can't.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">(By the way, here's a simple way to find out if you're a writer. If you disagree with that statement, you're not a writer. Because, you see, writers are also readers.)</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> <br /></span></p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Josh Olson, "I will not read your fucking script," Village Voice, Sept 9, 2009.</span></i></blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;">There's an even older adage that goes, "Write chapter one, write chapter two, throw away chapter one." In other words, you've probably put too much "stuff" in the first chapter that really doesn't need to be there. Get to the effing story already. The reader wants to know what's happening.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And that means starting your characters, your hero, on the journey. Where they will go, what adventures they will have, what problems they will encounter, what defeats and victories they will experience, all are part of that journey. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">If you're not already a voracious reader, you probably won't be successful as a writer, but don't take just Josh Olson's word for it. Throughout <i>The Writer's Journey</i> Chris Vogler gives example after example of movies and books that follow the same mythic structure. You can read the books, you can watch the movies. The structure is there.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Vogler states clearly that it's not a "format." You can't just plug your individual characters and setting into a template and walk away with a successful, satisfying novel, regardless of genre. It's more of a palimpsest, an older, almost erased document of which parts remain and on which newer tales have been superimposed. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">When I write, that structure is always at the back of my creative mind, the blueprint on which an entire novel will be built. It's also at the front of my mind when I'm writing a review. Is it there when I'm reading? I hope not! I want to read for enjoyment; I want the words on the page to disappear so completely that I'm immersed in the scene, the action, the emotions of the book. If I'm not, then the writer has done something wrong.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">If you're a writer, do something right. Read at least one edition of <i>The Writer's Journey</i>. And if your budget allows it, buy a copy that you can have on hand to reference whenever necessary. You'll be tested on it later.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> <br /></span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4364421159527172241.post-4880173194973477742021-04-04T16:19:00.000-07:002021-04-04T16:19:07.943-07:00Words on Words: Changing Directions<p> <span style="font-size: large;">I know, I know, I know. I said at the very beginning that this blog wouldn't be for reviews. Ten years ago, that was my intention. There were other outlets for reviews where I believed they rightly belonged. The world didn't need yet another book review blog.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Has that really changed? Well yes, and no. Amazon's reviews now have lots of requirements and caveats they didn't have then, but they're still often just as questionable as they were when I was busting the fiverr reviews. Over the past couple of years, BookLikes has more or less gone defunct. Goodreads, still the major review site, continues risky under the huge thumb of Amazon.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And there are a lot of bloggers who have left the business. Sometimes it's just general burn-out. Sometimes it's in response to harassment from thin-skinned authors and/or their "street teams" who demand only five-star reviews and no criticism. Review blogs, in their view, should serve only to promote and sell books.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I could, if I had the discipline or desire, research some of the existing book review blogs to see how many of them limit reviews to "four stars and above, only" and similar high-rating requirements. I have neither the desire nor the discipline. What those reviewers do is their business.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So what can I do to set myself apart?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Well . . . .</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkLN0AHjMJu2RquW97sWvxeLP1Q4dsfczhYJQYUjNNWvnKuVY6nINTrFJA8WLg7UI50OJjOgfSEnmFX4eln3fJhSg6iM6Vy80j8pTiNi0dVjOZ62WCfa3AUQE4hdvXOBIQDM5silE3eck/s2048/Digital+Paper+page+COVER+001+copy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1583" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkLN0AHjMJu2RquW97sWvxeLP1Q4dsfczhYJQYUjNNWvnKuVY6nINTrFJA8WLg7UI50OJjOgfSEnmFX4eln3fJhSg6iM6Vy80j8pTiNi0dVjOZ62WCfa3AUQE4hdvXOBIQDM5silE3eck/s320/Digital+Paper+page+COVER+001+copy.jpg" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It's been almost five years since I picked up the figurative romance writing pen and wrote <i>The Looking-Glass Portrait</i>. I haven't done as much writing since then as I would have liked, and there are a lot of reasons for that. One is that I tend to write more when I read more. Reading serves to prime the pump, and I just haven't had much motivation to read. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And there have been personal reasons, too. Now I'm trying to get back to reading in order to get back to writing.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Looking-Glass Portrait</i> is a contemporary gothic romantic suspense. There are real ghosts in it, a real murder, a real romance. I had enormous fun writing it, and I realized in the process that this is one of my favorite romance sub-genres. It had gone out of favor in the 1970s when my historical romance writing career got its real start, but I always enjoyed reading the older gothics and those few that were still being written by authors like Phyllis A. Whitney and Barbara Michaels and Daphne duMaurier.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibQAkMc9hO2p70H-2ZUrl1g9GQnpAeEMvuf-u3ocA7yR30n-KT7fRIdFzTiy-JNrPctSSC2bcvZw-ZXiyPKohtbJCmpxXpnv7dL80s8kt8EouXhf7jSz5wVwazvsHEt8u3sK0MizECFkg/s2048/029.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1503" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibQAkMc9hO2p70H-2ZUrl1g9GQnpAeEMvuf-u3ocA7yR30n-KT7fRIdFzTiy-JNrPctSSC2bcvZw-ZXiyPKohtbJCmpxXpnv7dL80s8kt8EouXhf7jSz5wVwazvsHEt8u3sK0MizECFkg/s320/029.JPG" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /> </span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Now I'm ramping up the writing of another contemporary gothic romance, and I need to prime the pump again, so to speak. I have plenty of old paperback gothics to read, and I'll be treating you to reviews of some of those in the weeks and months to come. But the books written and published in the 1950s and 1960s aren't always reflective of the current market. I knew reading books being published today was essential.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">As a retired person an a limited income, I rely a lot on the public library and free Kindle books to keep me in reading material that isn't tattered, often taped-together paperbacks.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiANKN80kMLgaTxrDb1uwf_csYOHbbA9PYiwrllYeJ-_WwrrnGLK7y7CasFxl6jiFhyphenhyphenL5Mau5eIeUKC6fDO2-JYXL654ZMGZ4uv-Lnfoc01eNZy43pxh7zYYkn8qMrpImY2vWupRT_8SM0/s989/Cliffs+are+Dangerous.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="989" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiANKN80kMLgaTxrDb1uwf_csYOHbbA9PYiwrllYeJ-_WwrrnGLK7y7CasFxl6jiFhyphenhyphenL5Mau5eIeUKC6fDO2-JYXL654ZMGZ4uv-Lnfoc01eNZy43pxh7zYYkn8qMrpImY2vWupRT_8SM0/w242-h400/Cliffs+are+Dangerous.jpg" width="242" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /> </span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">If I had an unlimited book budget, I'd buy zillions of digital books because otherwise I'd be run out of house and home by stacks of paperbacks. I don't have that unlimited budget, so I acquire my collection via sales and . . . Kindle freebies.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Kindle freebies are, of course, mostly published by the authors ("SPAs" self-publishing authors) or small, independent publishers ("Indies"). In the past dozen years or so since I've been reading digital books, I've learned that there is often -- not always, but often -- a sharp divide between the traditionally published and the author/indie published books in terms of quality.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Maybe readers don't care. Maybe readers read without noticing the plot holes and the character inconsistencies, the errors of fact and the misspellings. Maybe the writers don't care either.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But I do care. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">My thought today, then, is that maybe it's time to put some reviews on this blog, particularly of the indie/SPA digital books as compared to the traditionally published, with a fond focus on the gothic and romantic suspense sub-genres, as they were then and as they are now.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Not all the traditionally published gothic romances are five-star quality, despite their reputations or even semi-classic status. Over the past several years, I've done detailed analyses of some of those "classic" gothics, and the books have proven to be less than stellar, pun intended. I plan to put some of those analyses on here as well because they illustrate how even the traditional authors, editors, and publishers get it wrong.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Normally, I consider reviews are for readers, and in a way the reviews that will appear here are no different: they'll be meant to alert readers to books that in my opinion are great or terrible or something in between, so that they can choose their reading material accordingly. Reviews aren't for authors; they're supposed to get their critiques <i>before</i> they publish.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But the reviews I'm going to do are deconstructions, taking the story and the writing and even the presentation apart bit by bit to show what works and what doesn't and why. In that sense, these are reviews for writers as much as for readers. I want the books I read, whether Kindle freebies or library digital loans or any other format, to be well written and well structured, so I can lose myself in the words. That's what it's all about.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4364421159527172241.post-70152334626689461242021-04-02T13:58:00.000-07:002021-04-02T14:01:56.222-07:00Word Power: If you can't say something bad, don't say anything at all<p><span style="font-size: large;">I was digging through some old files recently as part of my on-going decluttering project and came across a
folder I had almost forgotten about. It was one of those serendipitous
events that got me to thinking yet again about this whole business of reviewing.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
There
are people who review semi-professionally: They are
given books for the purpose of reviewing, though they don't
actually get paid. These books come from NetGalley or another
online sources. Or from publishers. Or from authors. Whether they act
upon it or not, these reviewers have a motive to give good reviews and
to inflate ratings. If good reviews keep the free
books coming, that's a motive. If the reviewers can't afford to buy all
the books they'd like to read or they like the attention good reviews
bring them, it doesn't matter. They have a motive.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
That
doesn't mean their reviews should be
automatically deemed unreliable. Again, having a motive doesn't mean
they acted on it.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
Furthermore, even if they acted on that
motive, and like the late and unlamented Harriet Klausner gave
every book five stars, they're free to do so.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
And anyone who reads their reviews is free to discount or completely ignore them. Or to trust them.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />I have no problem
with this. </span><span style="font-size: large;">We are each entitled to review what and how we please. <br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
If
you don't like the way someone reviews, don't follow them or don't give
their reviews any credence. But please, don't tell them they're
reviewing the wrong way or that they shouldn't review the way they do.
(Personal attacks on authors are <b>not</b> reviews, by the way.)<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
If you believe reviews should take the author's feelings into consideration, that's your <b>opinion</b>. If you believe no review should be written unless the whole book has been read, that's your <b>opinion</b>. If you believe reviews are supposed to help sell books and should therefore always be positive <i>even if it means lying about the quality of the book</i>, that's your <b>opinion.</b><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
It's not mine. If you are entitled to your <b>opinion</b>, am I not entitled to mine?<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
I
don't think most reviewers lie about the books they read. And those who do, frankly, are entitled to do
so! Their reviews are for readers, and readers will learn either to
trust those reviewers or not trust them. Readers are entitled to their
opinions <b>of reviewers</b>, too.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
A review,
however, is not a critique, and to me this distinction is very
important, which is why I titled this blog post with the twist on the
old admonition about being nice.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
The folder I came across
contained score sheets and evaluation reports from a romance novel
writing contest I coordinated more than 20 years ago.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> The entries were the opening chapters of unpublished books (first 25-50 pages).
Through their entry fee, the writers had paid for and were guaranteed
at least two critiques/evaluations in addition to a 20-element score
sheet from three judges. (Possible score 0-100, with 100 being perfect 5 points on each
element.) The judges were experienced readers and many were
also writers, with varying degrees of experience. Each writer could compare the scores and comments from
three different readers.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
As the coordinator of the
contest, I gave the judges a set of guidelines to help them provide the
entrants, whether they won or lost, with useful feedback.
The last item was:<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Don't be afraid to tell the writer
that something doesn't work for you. Even if you can't explain WHY it
doesn't work or tell her HOW to fix it, let her know this might be an
area she needs to work on or get help on. Is her description flat? Is
her dialogue stilted? Does she make too many grammar or spelling
mistakes? Are her characters wooden? These are unpublished
manuscripts, so they aren't expected to be perfect!</i><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
There
were over 100 entries, over 300 score sheets. Only three of those
score sheets came back with perfect scores, all from the same judge.
They were the only entries she read. She gave them 100 points and her
comments were identical on all three: "I loved your book. It was
wonderful. Keep up the great work!"<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
To put it mildly,
none of the other judges who had scored these three manuscripts agreed
with her. I felt I had no choice but to find out why she had given
perfect scores to three books, two of which the other judges found
seriously flawed.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
Through a series of emails (which are printed out in
the folder) and phone calls (referenced in the emails), I asked her if
she truly felt these three manuscripts had absolutely no problems or
weaknesses and were so perfect that they could not be improved upon in
any way. She admitted she did not.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
"Then why did you give
them perfect scores?" I wrote in one of the emails. "If you didn't
think they were perfect, why tell the authors they were?"<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
She replied: "I didn't want to hurt their feelings. I knew the other
judges were probably going to give low scores so I wanted to be nice."<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
"Wouldn't
that give them false hope and maybe prevent them from getting some
help?" I asked in a follow-up. According to the other evaluations, one
of the manuscripts was riddled with spelling errors and misused words,
such as "lightening" that should have been "lightning" and "custom" that
should have been "costume." One judge had scored it only 27/100. "Did you basically lie to them?"<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
She
admitted, "I suppose so. I just couldn't be mean to them. I
wouldn't ever want anyone to tell me there's anything wrong with my
book. I want to believe it's wonderful because to me it is. I'm sure
that's what she wants to believe, too."<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
After several more
exchanges along this line, I wrote: "So it wasn't about what she expected to get out of the contest because you had no way of
knowing that, other than she paid with the expectation of honest
feedback. For you, it was all about <i>your</i> feelings. Even though you
agreed to be honest and knew you might have to tell someone
their book had problems, you knew ahead of time you couldn't and
wouldn't do it."<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
Her reply to that was: "I would rather lie out of kindness than hurt someone's feelings."<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
The contest rules allowed for re-judging if any scores were way out
of line; I gave all three entries to another judge who was able to give
honest scores.</span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I received very harsh criticism from some of the other judges for cancelling that judge's hard work in reading and judging. I defended my decision by pointing out that it was within the rules; I didn't mention that for all I knew, she never even read them, since she put no effort into the actual judging.</span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Anyway.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
There was another manuscript that got
rejudged in that contest, this one for a different reason. Two judges
rated it very high, well into the 90s. The third gave it less than 20.
Again, as coordinator I asked her why she was so
harsh on this entry, when the others she judged fared quite well.
As it turned out, she didn't like the story or the characters <i>because she didn't recognize the particular conventions of this type of romance novel.</i> They didn't fit the kind of books she was accustomed to reading, and so she didn't like it and thought everything was wrong.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
"You scored it 0 on spelling and grammar," I wrote to her in an email, also in the folder. "Did it have any errors?"<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
Her reply: "I don't know. I didn't pay attention."<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
She
was very angry with me when I told her it would have to be rejudged
because her score was so far out of line with the other two.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
"My opinion this is a poor written book irregardless of the category. Doesn't my opinion count?"<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
In this case, no, her opinion didn't count, because she was giving inappropriate feedback to the writer.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
"This isn't a review like in <i>Romantic Times</i>,"
I wrote to her. "This book isn't done and edited and published.
You're not sharing your opinion of a published book that can't be
changed with other readers as to whether you liked it or not. This is
between you and the writer who's looking for advice. If you don't know
anything about science fiction, would you try to help someone who's
writing it? Or a murder mystery? You read [a particular category of
romance novel] and this is [a different category] that has very
different requirements. Reviewing and critiquing are two different
animals."<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
Also in the folder was a letter I had received
from one of the entrants after the contest was over. Though she had not
won, she placed well with decent scores. She thanked our group for
sponsoring the contest and especially for guaranteeing that the writers
would receive feedback.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
"My family members and my critique
partners are all too nice. They won't tell me what's wrong with my
book. If publishers reject it without any feedback, where else is a
writer suppose <i>[sic] </i> to get any? Your judges all made comments that gave me points to look for improvement that I wouldn't have thought of."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There are a variety of techniques suggested for softening the blow of a bad critique, such as balancing each negative comment with a positive one of equal weight or offering alternatives to what's already been written. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> For example, in an unpublished contemporary romance I wrote several years before that contest, the heroine wears a dress with a plunging neckline when she goes to a bar. One person who read the manuscript scribbled on it something to the effect that "no decent woman would dress like that!" Because all of her other comments were similarly harsh and insulting -- and I had <b>not</b> solicited her opinion in the first place -- I dismissed them all. Only years later did I realize her comment about the dress was correct, but not for the reason she stated. The heroine was very shy and retiring and had been through a significant emotional trauma; she had bought the dress in an effort to break out of her shell and overcome her reluctance to engage socially with a man she found attractive.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Had my critic made a suggestion that I provide the character with more motivation for wearing such a dress, I might have thought differently about it. Had she asked me why the character dressed in such a manner, I might have been able to provide an answer that made sense. But she had no positive comments, no suggestions, just angry complaints.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">On top of that, I had not asked for her opinion. I had not given her the manuscript for a critique. She was not a judge in a contest I had entered voluntarily or a member of a critique group I had joined voluntarily. After that experience, I never let anyone else read the book. It rests in my files right now, with the copy she marked up in the folder with the original.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">As stunned as I was by the nastiness of her critique, I didn't stop writing, didn't stop seeking critical input. But I was very careful where I got that criticism from. There was no sense asking for comments from people who were not qualified -- in my opinion, of course -- to render judgment on my writing, on the solidness of the plot, the credibility of the characters, the accuracy of the research.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When random Twitter users complain, as one did a few days ago, that authors ought to accept occasional suggestions from random readers, my reaction was a swift and strong, "No!"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">First, writers at any stage of their careers need qualified input; random Twitterers don't meet even minimum standards that would allow any of them to demand that their opinion be taken as gospel.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Second, writers at any stage of their careers have the right to refuse criticism, regardless what the critic's qualifications may or may not be. Random Twitter troll or multi-published, award-winning author, their comments can be rejected by the writer for any reason or no reason at all.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Third, critiques prior to publication are entirely different from reviews of the published work.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Allow me to repeat:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Third, critiques prior to publication are entirely different from reviews of the published work.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Critiques are for the author and are about an unfinished work.<b> </b>They are intended to help the author improve the work, whether the author accepts them or not. They may come from informal critique partners, contest judges, semi-professional beta readers, professional agents or editors or proofreaders or sensitivity readers. They are solicited directly or indirectly by the writer, and the acceptance or dismissal of any suggested changes to the work in progress as a result of the critiques is always at the writer's choice.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Reviews are for readers and are about the finished work after it is published. They are intended to inform readers' decisions to read or not read the work. Reviews may come from qualified or unqualified readers, people who are intimately familiar with the genre and the language as well as the uninformed fan who doesn't know the difference between an adverb and an antagonist. They can be solicited or unsolicited, but there are sometimes ethical considerations involved with solicited reviews. <b>Authors have little to no control over who reviews their published books and shouldn't have any.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I've said it before and I will say it again: If you are a writer and you choose to publish your work and make it available to the reading<b> </b>public, whether you charge money for that reading or give the work away for free, you give up the right to complain about comments made about your work without pushback. Sure, you can comment. You can rant and scream and whine and cry. But ultimately, the reading public will have its say.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">If the negative remarks of random readers you've never met -- and probably will never meet -- cause you emotional pain, don't read them. They aren't for you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">If you are a critic, be honest with your criticism; the writer wants and needs your honesty. If they lash out at you for your honesty, drop them. They didn't want or value your honesty.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">If you are a reviewer, review the book honestly for your readers. They're the audience, not the writer who basically said, "I'm done, it's finished." If you can't be honest, if you can't point out the bad along with the good, at least be honest with yourself.<br /></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4364421159527172241.post-21756539612780867832021-03-11T14:05:00.000-08:002021-03-11T14:05:19.971-08:00You can't please everyone, so you got to please yourself<p> (With affection and apologies to Rick Nelson.)<br /></p><p>Part of this post was written almost a year ago, then tucked into the draft folder and more or less forgotten. Since then, I've dipped into the drafts now and then, debating whether to post this essay or any of the others that have been simmering for various lengths of time.</p><p>What prompted me to finally resurrect this post and the whole <b>Be Still, My Heart</b> blog? I'm not sure. Maybe it's a bunch of different things. Maybe it's frustration with the format over on Twitter, where so many conversations start, but they never develop because there's always another shiny object or fifty popping up in the timeline. And we are all too easily distracted.<br /></p><p>So this afternoon I decided it was time for a reactivation. Maybe there will be other old drafts given another life. Maybe there will be reviews -- yes, I know I said this wasn't going to be a review site, but times and minds change -- and maybe there will be how-to lessons. Maybe I will repost some of the articles I wrote for the now moribund BookLikes.<br /></p><p>When I began this blog some ten years ago, I designated myself a resurrected romance writer. Now it's a resurrected romance blog.<br /></p><p>I am in the middle of a huge decluttering project, which means I often fall down metaphorical rabbit holes when sorting through vast files of papers. It happened again this morning, and the adventure prompted some serious reflection.<br />
<br />
Back somewhere in the 1980s, I wrote a contemporary romance titled <i>Mind Over Matter</i>. Though there were no overt psychic phenomena on stage in the book, research into "the unexplained" did play a major part in the conflict between the romantic leads. When I shared the opening chapters with a critique partner, she returned it with severely negative comments.<br />
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She found the lead characters particularly unlikable.<br />
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The female main character is divorced, and the dissolution of her marriage was acrimonious. On the advice of her lawyer, she extracted as much compensation, if you will, as she could get from her very wealthy ex. She used some of the settlement to pay for her education, eventually earning a PhD in her chosen field. Without the divorce and the cash, she would not have been able to go to college. My critique partner -- whose spouse had been married twice before -- wrote a lengthy condemnation of divorced women as romance heroines, especially if they had "profited" from the divorce.<br />
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The male main character was a computer specialist hired by the heroine. He is quickly revealed, however, to have formerly been a dentist, a career he was forced into by his parents, who were Jewish refugees after the Second World War. "I'm the youngest of their three offspring," he tells the heroine. "My sister is the doctor, my brother in the middle is the lawyer, so as the obedient son that I was, I became a successful Jewish dentist. But I hated it."<br />
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Did my critique partner find the stereotypes of Jewish lawyer and Jewish doctor (neither of which characters are ever even mentioned again in the book) offensive? No, she had no problem with that. She found just his being Jewish offensive. She said she felt uncomfortable believing the heroine was Christian -- nothing to that extent is ever stated or even hinted at -- and falling in love with a Jew.<br />
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I could have changed it. I could have had the heroine work her way through college never married, never divorced. But the divorce had made her wary in a specific way related to the plot, and I didn't see any other set of circumstances that could have established that kind of vulnerability and caution. Her financial security also gave her an independence that allowed her to make life decisions free of economic pressure, but she still knew from her own experience that not everyone has that liberty.<br />
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The hero didn't have to be a Jew. He didn't have to be a former dentist. But in those days of contemporary romance, Jews were almost never depicted at all. (Outside of "inspirational" romances, neither were Christians, but that's another issue.) They just didn't exist in Romancelandia then. As someone who grew up with Jewish relatives, I felt that was a serious lack. I had encountered some minor anti-Semitism in high school, but I didn't identify as Jewish and I wasn't practicing, so my attempt to include a Jewish dentist turned computer programmer was intended as just a nice little gesture to my family.<br />
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Today, more than a generation later, no one would blink twice at a divorced heroine. <br />
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But what about a non-practicing Jew?<br />
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Does he have to be a "real" Jew? Would I have to write all about his Jewishness even if it's not part of who he is in the story? As a non-practicing non-Jew would I even be allowed to do that?<br />
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Thirty years after I wrote <i>Mind Over Matter</i>, I read Kathryn Stockett's <i>The Help.</i> I read all of it, but I didn't like it, or at least not as much as most of my friends, who raved about how wonderful it was. I didn't find the maids' stories unbelievable; I imagined the truth was probably even worse for many Black domestic workers. But I always got the sense that because the women were telling their stories to a white woman, they were holding back. Yeah, even though it was fiction, they were real enough for me to imagine what went on when they weren't talking to Skeeter. And because the novel-within-the-novel was written -- and published -- by that white woman, the story had to have been sanitized. This wasn't Ann Moody's <i>Coming of Age in Mississippi</i>, and yet I suspected even that book was cleaned up for public consumption.<br />
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<i>The Help</i> reached an enormous audience. <i>Mind Over Matter</i> was never published. <br />
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I think it was at the 1989 RWA national conference in Boston that Walter Zacharius, then president of Kensington Publishing, aka Zebra Books, brought up his plans for a line of African-American romances. How clear did he make it that he wanted authors of color to write the books? I don't know; I don't remember. What I do remember, however, is my making the comment out loud and in public that writers shouldn't be constrained. If we can (sic) write about people in other times and other places, why not about people with different color skins? This was the heyday, of course, of the "Indian" romance, often featuring a Native American "brave" and a white woman. (Connie Mason, Georgina Gentry, Cassie Edwards, Janelle Taylor, Madeline Baker, et al wrote them by the dozens. I didn't say they wrote good ones.)<br />
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I didn't understand then, and I will express great thanks to fellow book blogger John "Darkwriter" Green for taking the time and having the patience to explain "own voices" to me in a Facebook conversation, that it was a question of opening the door to those writers who did bring the personal experience to the arena. That they -- and they alone -- could write their stories to their audience with authenticity and trust, not as exotica for a white readership, not as lessons in ethnicity for a white readership, but as stories of their humanity for all of us.<br />
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I can't write about the experiences of people of color. I can't write about the experiences of LGBTQIA+ people. I can't write about the experiences of disabled people. At least not from the perspective of having lived those experiences. <br />
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But I don't want to write<i> just</i> about and for an all-white audience. I want to write about people who are inclusive. I wrote a character in one of my books who expressed affection for and did not condemn another character who was homosexual. I couldn't write that character from my own experience, but I could write one who accepted him without reservation.<br />
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I wrote a hero in a historical romance who was half Mexican. the illegitimate son of a white Texas rancher and a Mexican servant. He was a wagon train scout, skilled at what he did but not wealthy, not powerful. He was also not exotic, or at least I didn't write him that way. But he was a man who needed someone to believe in him and I gave him a heroine who would do that. She saw him as a man, period. Should I have made the heroine a racist who saw him as less than human but then learned to see him as a man? I suppose I could have, but I preferred to have her not be a racist. In the 1850s? When she was born and raised as a pampered Creole belle in New Orleans? Why not?<br />
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Maybe I didn't make him Mexican enough. Maybe I was wrong to put opportunities in his path that a half-Mexican wagon train scout wouldn't have had in those days. But I was writing romance, not a social history of the American working classes in the decade preceding the Civil War. <br />
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I was writing a romance, and now I fear I did it all wrong.<br />
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I don't want to offend anyone. I don't want to insult anyone. I want to get it right.<br />
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But what if I don't? What if someone somewhere says I screwed it up?<br />
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There's a line from the first episode of the 1975 BBC production of <i>Poldark</i> that maybe applies to how I feel about what I write.<br />
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Captain Ross Poldark has returned to England after the American war and is in a coach on his way back to his estate in Cornwall. One of his fellow passengers asks Poldark about his experiences in America, and in particular what he thought of the native people. "Except for the clothes," Captain Poldark said, "they're just like us."</p><p></p><p>Today, of course, we are confronting the unresolved issues of colonialism and racism, not just in the US but in the United Kingdom as well, and by extension Canada and Australia and then into China. It's everywhere, it's everywhere. Ross Poldark didn't go on to deliver a dissertation on the evils of British colonialism in America, the then-current and to-be-foreseen genocide of those folks who are "just like us."</p><p></p><p>But we also have in Romancelandia that monumental issue of the Thousand and One Dukes. If we don't examine the issue of classism there, how is that different from not examining issues of racism? On the other hand, what right do any of us -- readers, reviewers, authors -- have to criticize those who read and write and love every duke and marquess who ever lived on the pages of a novel? Do we write it all off -- pun intended -- as guilty pleasures? Do we insist that books, especially romance novels, must be politically correct, must have a message, must be feminist?</p><p></p><p>Not every romance novel is going to appeal to every romance reader. The genre has expanded from what it was when I wrote <i>Mind Over Matter </i>almost forty years ago. There was a time when contemporary and historical were almost the only distinctions made between types of romance. When Walter Zacharius proposed Zebra's African-American line of novels, the idea was almost revolutionary. To have a whole line of romances that clearly defined was quite radical. How many of us in that room would have predicted the eventual rise of paranormal romances, erotic romances, gay/lesbian romances, and the rest of the panorama of sub-genres that has blossomed since then?</p><p></p><p>I don't have a clear and precise answer, except for myself. I'm going to write the books I want to write. I'm going to write them the best I can. And then, if and when I publish them, I will leave the rest up to the readers, those who like them as well as those who don't.<br />
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<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4364421159527172241.post-44091925160882893262020-01-10T20:04:00.000-08:002020-01-10T20:04:04.084-08:00A sense of impending doom . . . . Today -- Friday, 10 January 2020 -- has not been one of my better days. Maybe that's why I'm back here, after a long and not entirely voluntary hiatus.<br />
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I wrote a long time ago that I wouldn't be doing book reviews here. I thought about setting up a separate blog for reviews, and in fact so much time has passed that maybe I actually did that and have just forgotten about it.<br />
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The truth is, I don't write a lot of reviews of current fiction. Most of the reviews I <i>do</i> write and post on BookLikes are of books I didn't like, didn't finish, didn't get past the first few pages. There's a reason for that, and it's not a good reason.<br />
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My budget is severely limited. More or less retired, I live on Social Security and some supplemental self-employment income from my writing and from the sale of various arts & crafts products I make. My Social Security benefits are reduced because I elected to start them earlier than full retirement age. The supplemental income is not reliable, and it has been made even less reliable by my inability to shake off various stressors. Anxiety is not profitable, but it is pervasive. I do not write as much as I should. I do not make as much jewelry as I should.<br />
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I do not make as much money as I need.<br />
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Therefore, my reading material tends to fall into certain distinct classifications:<br />
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1. Physical books I already own, which number about 5,000.<br />
2. Kindle books, mostly freebies and therefore many self-published<br />
3. Non-fiction library books, whether physical copies or digital borrows.<br />
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It's that second category that ends up being "reviewed" on my BookLikes blog. Sadly, many of those author-published books just aren't very well written. But I did try them. I really did.<br />
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My longer, more analytical reviews were saved for those favorite personal classics, books like Josephine Tey's <i>Brat Farrar</i> and Leslie Turner White's <i>Lord Johnnie. </i>I loved these books when I first read them more than 50 years ago; rereading them for the purpose of close analysis was just as much fun.<br />
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The past few weeks have been filled with the drama surrounding Romance Writers of America, a scandal of sorts with its roots in racism, lack of diversity, and lack of transparency in dealing with those issues. I'm not going to rehash any of that, or bring up my very tangential involvement, except to say that my fifteen or so years of active membership in RWA meant I made a lot of connections with other writers. Friends? Um, not all of them, and only a tiny few of those connections have survived. But it still means that reading a book by someone I knew back then brings in an automatic bias. So I haven't posted reviews of many books by people I know or knew.<br />
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Let me be clear: I would never, under any circumstances, direct an author to a review I had written of their work*. <i>Reviews are for readers</i>. But I don't have any way of knowing, unless they post it in front of me on Twitter or something, which authors routinely search for reviews of their books. It's not likely that I'd post a really bad review of a book by someone I've had a positive personal relationship with -- whether in person or just through social media -- but even minor criticisms might be taken the wrong way. I really do appreciate my online contacts, and I would rather not review a book written by a cyber-friend than risk that friendship.<br />
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(*I did recently inform an author with whom I've interacted on social media that I reviewed one of their books 30+ years ago. I no longer have a copy of the review.)<br />
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But BookLikes has become more problematic today than it has been for a while. I think I started to take it for granted again, but it's been down for 24 hours now with only a brief Facebook notification that they're working on it.<br />
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So, what to do?<br />
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Well, I have a website that I haven't even looked at for a year or more. It's due to renew in February, and I actually thought this morning that I might let it all lapse. Could I convert it to something more attuned to books and book blogging? I don't know. That's not my area of expertise; I wouldn't even know how to start.<br />
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But it's been six and a half years since the Great Purge at Goodreads, and so many of us have found a home at BookLikes. We like the freedom, even if we don't like the spammers. We like the platform, even if we don't like the silence from the operators. Most of all, however, we like each other.<br />
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If the platform returns, I'll be backing up as much of my material as I can. Some of it may end up here. Comments may be lost, but at least the core will be saved. Again, that's if the platform can be resuscitated. And I'll add links to it for this post, too. If it comes back.<br />
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I'm committed to doing what I can -- within the constraints of time and budget -- to keep the community alive, regardless.<br /><i></i><br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4364421159527172241.post-35857793097324043992018-06-05T08:42:00.000-07:002018-06-05T14:17:31.022-07:00Stuffed with WordsThis is a long tale. Very long. There's a great deal of time to cover, details to catch up on. Grab a cup of coffee, and have the pot handy for a refill. Or a glass of wine and the bottle. Or whatever beverage of choice you prefer. And settle in.<br />
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Let's swing back to 2013, to the infamous Goodreads Purge. The whole thing started in August over a 2-star review posted to a book that hadn't yet been released. The author threw a hissy fit, wanted the review removed, wouldn't accept that GR had a policy of allowing reviews for unreleased books. Her temper tantrum ended up garnering hundreds and hundreds of 5-star reviews for the book . . . which she then never released. The book and its reviews remain on Goodreads to this day as far as I know.<br />
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Over the next several months, Goodreads, which had been purchased by Amazon in June of that year, began to tighten the rules on reviewing, specifically in the area of not allowing negative reviews based on the author's behavior if that behavior was unrelated to the writing in the book. If, for instance, the author was spamming the various discussion groups on Goodreads and a reader wanted to note for her own reference that she didn't ever want to buy or read anything by that author because he was a spammer, she couldn't do it. Shelf names indicating author misbehavior -- "Author spams," "Review troll," "Don't buy" -- were no longer allowed. (Well, they weren't allowed for some reviewers though others got away with it.) Slowly but surely, a lot of reviewers were either removed or silenced.<br />
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For the most part, those removed were reviewers who more often took a hard line when it came to poorly written books and/or poor author behavior.<br />
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I was one of those reviewers.<br />
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Between August 2013, when the whiny author fiasco started, and November 2014 when I was finally banned from Goodreads, I had become very active researching authors who purchased reviews from fiverr.com and the reviewers from whom they purchased those reviews. Purchased reviews were absolutely forbidden on both Goodreads and Amazon, as being against both Terms of Service on the respective sites and against Federal Trade Commission guidelines on Amazon, where the books were actually sold. With assistance from a small cadre of other reviewers, I got over 6,000 fraudulent reviews removed from Goodreads. Several reviewers were banned from both Goodreads and Amazon, though most of them found ways to come back. Some authors also had their GR accounts removed. A couple of years later I was able to confirm that several of the reviewers were still in business under other names; I haven't bothered to research it further since then.<br />
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I don't mind admitting that there was a certain amount of self-righteousness involved in my crusade against the fake reviews. For the most part, the books were published by their authors, often with little or no professional-level editing. In other words, they were badly written. The authors couldn't generate positive reviews on the books' merits alone, so they bought reviews to gain visibility. Some of them, I'm sure, believed that what they were doing was perfectly legitimate promotion. Or they justified it somehow.<br />
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Most readers knew nothing about this, and there was nowhere to let them know. They'd see a book with glowing reviews, buy it, and find out it was a dud. But how were they to know? And how many of them, not understanding that the five-star reviews were lies, thought it was their own fault for not liking the books? Many of the paid reviewers had achieved high ranking in the Top 1000, Top 500, or even Top 100 Amazon reviewers.<br />
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What I realized through this experience was that too few people are willing to write a negative review. They offer a lot of reasons, too, and I've discussed that often enough before that I won't go into great detail again here. Suffice to say that there are issues with hurting the author's feelings or not knowing how to justify a negative review or even just wanting to make sure the free ARCs keep coming.<br />
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Taking into consideration that Amazon and Goodreads ultimately have the same bottom line, and that as a combined entity they are the single largest platform for book buying, book selling, book publishing, and book reviewing online, any author who steps in to review takes an enormous risk.<br />
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Under the same FTC guidelines mentioned above, authors are not allowed to review on the Amazon platform unless they are reviewing outside their own genre <i>or</i> they leave a positive review. Most authors, for reasons of promotion and general public relations, tend not to write negative reviews anyway, even though in many cases they are the best qualified to do so. Negative reviews from authors are more legal on Goodreads, but that's also the more social venue, so there are reasons why negative reviews from authors are less likely there.<br />
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Since that 2013 purge at Goodreads, the stand-alone review blogs have become more prolific, and by their very nature they are more likely to promote new books with positive reviews than they are to be analytical or critical of the not-so-good ones. Well, that's the nature of the beast, and frankly, my disagreement with the philosophy that drives it doesn't really amount to a hill of beans. I was booted off Goodreads in November 2014 (or thereabouts) and that was the end of it.<br />
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I had found a home of sorts at BookLikes. I brought over some of my issues with bad books and skeevy reviewing, but there was less drama at BookLikes and that was fine. A few odd little coincidences within the group I had joined there ended up leading me back to actual writing, and in July 2016, I published <i>The Looking-Glass Portrait</i> via Kindle Direct Publishing. I had never had much luck with Smashwords, the only other platform I'd used for self-publishing, so I didn't even bother with it for LGP. I had all my books on Amazon, and the five novels were all enrolled in Kindle Unlimited. LGP did surprisingly well for me over the next eighteen months or so; I had no complaints at all.<br />
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What little reviewing I did on <a href="http://lindahilton.booklikes.com/" target="_blank">BookLikes</a> was mostly related to books I read that I felt like sharing with others or to books I read for the games we played on BookLikes. I didn't review everything I read, in part because I read a lot of stuff I knew no one else would be interested in. I didn't have a huge following.<br />
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A good deal of my energy went into my crafting hobbies, and then my resurrected writing.<br />
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But I was also burned out on reviewing. Not for the reasons you might think, however. Or maybe so.<br />
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I had read a lot of crap. I don't have a huge budget for book buying, so my digital purchases are pretty much restricted to the free stuff with the occasional bargain when something is on sale for $1.99 or less. Rarely will I spend more than that on a digital book, unless it's a much-wanted non-fiction selection for research.<br />
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Reviewing a bad book is hard work, and given how few people would see it on BookLikes, I couldn't justify putting in the time and effort. The negative reviews I had posted on Goodreads had brought a lot of negative feedback, some of it vicious to the point of death threats. My own older books that I had republished on Amazon took the hit of dozens of one-star reviews, even though I knew none of the reviewers had read them. I have a philosophy of never ever ever reading reviews of my work, which I maintain to this day, so I never read the nasty remarks, never reported them, never did anything. Again, as far as I know most of those reviews are still there, on Goodreads and on Amazon, though some of the accounts were subsequently removed because other people reported them. I never did.<br />
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And though I'm old and accustomed to that kind of stupid behavior, after November 2014 I had gradually lost contact with the writing and publishing aspect of the book world and I didn't make a special effort to renew that contact while writing LGP or even after publishing it. The Amazon discussion boards, where I used to read a lot but never posted, became vicious when they weren't stupid; I walked away from even reading them long before Amazon shut them down. I had never followed the Kboard platform very much, nor had I been more than peripherally involved with sites such as The Passive Voice or Absolute Write. My time on social media became more and more devoted to arts and crafts via Etsy and Facebook.<br />
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Things took a slight turn in August 2016. After I had published <i>The Looking-Glass Portrait</i> and was working on what I hoped would be my next book, I took a break one afternoon to browse through the freebies on Amazon. I found this:<br />
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It's gone from Amazon now, but it was free that particular day and it looked harmless enough, so I downloaded it. But I couldn't believe what I found.<br />
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It was garbage.<br />
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I won't bore you with the whole review -- which you can read <a href="http://lindahilton.booklikes.com/post/1446899/i-don-t-know-what-these-are-other-than-very-bad-writing" target="_blank">on BookLikes here</a> -- but it was pretty darn bad. And I knew there were a whole bunch more like it, because I had downloaded them too. I just didn't know what they were!<br />
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This was August of 2016. Almost two years ago. And if you read the comments posted to that review, even then there were questions about the Kindle Unlimited page views. If I had stayed in the writing community, maybe I would have followed up on it. I didn't.<br />
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This particular book was a collection of unrelated stories, a veritable hodgepodge of romances set in different eras and locations, with varying degrees of "heat." Mafia romances, biker romances, shifter romances, Regency romances. All of them poorly written, poorly formatted. I had already downloaded several more of Sarah Thorn's other books, but I didn't even open them. They weren't worth my time.<br />
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But I couldn't review on Amazon. I was banned from Goodreads. So I reviewed it on BookLikes where nothing much happened. I didn't expect anything to happen. BookLikes is too small a platform in terms of number of users. There was no way for the word to spread about this type of <br />
"book."<br />
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It wasn't until October 2017 that I encountered the next odd book on Kindle. It, too, has disappeared from Amazon, but it was there last October. <br />
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Again, the product was so . . . odd that I <a href="http://lindahilton.booklikes.com/post/1610287/over-priced-at-0-00" target="_blank">reviewed it on BookLikes</a> in substantial detail. And this time the comments were eye-popping. One of them included a link to a David Gaughran blog post about book stuffers. In that post, Gaughran stated that he had been in contact with Amazon about this problem for sixteen months. Gaughran's post is dated July 2017. So this issue of bookstuffing has been known and discussed with Amazon since <b>at least</b> March 2016.<br />
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I suspect Mr. Gaughran has gone way beyond frustrated by now.<br />
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I know a little bit about how he feels. I went through the same thing when reporting on review buyers and sellers to Goodreads. It became a bit of an obsession, and I wasn't even really writing at the time. A few of my books had been republished on KDP, but I didn't really have a horse in the race. It was all a matter of principle.<br />
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A principle that I should have risen to defend in October 2017, but I didn't. And therefore I owe a huge apology to David Gaughran. <br />
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Because as I realized today, it's all related. Or at least maybe it is.<br />
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So many critical voices were silenced as a result of the 2013 Goodreads Purge that maybe there were few to sound the alarms over the bookstuffing.<br />
<br />
I had to stop and ask myself, as I pulled all this out of my personal wayback machine, how I had failed to pick up on it. The answer was, sadly, pretty damn obvious. In October 2017 I was just starting my annual season of arts and crafts shows. When I wasn't preparing for one show, I was often recovering from another. I went through several agonizing bouts of back spasms that often had me laid up for a week or more. I was trying to write, too. My brain was just going in too many directions.<br />
<br />
Now here we are at June 2018. My show season is over; outdoor temperatures are hitting triple digits so I'm comfortably settled for the summer. Oh, I still have work to do to prepare for the 2018-2019 show season, but I shouldn't be bothered with back spasms or the tendonitis that flared up this winter in my left elbow.<br />
<br />
As they say, getting old isn't for sissies. <br />
<br />
I've been thinking for the past few months that it was time to resurrect this writing blog anyway. So here I am, wondering what we do next about the book stuffing. #GETLOUD at Twitter is, I guess one way. But what are we up against? And who cares?<br />
<br />
Well, the authors sure ought to care.<br />
<br />
<br />
Let's look at some numbers, just for fun. The pot of Amazon money set aside for the Kindle Unlimited (and to a lesser extent the Kindle Owners Lending Library, or KOLL) is currently at $21.2 million for April 2018, to be paid in June. At $10 per month for the KU subscription, that represents <b>at least</b> two million subscribers. We can safely assume Amazon isn't turning over all the KU money to the fund, so if that $21.2 million is only $8 out of each subscription, that adds another half a million readers. Plus all those who in any given month sign up for the free month and then cancel.<br />
<br />
Is there anything scientific about this estimate? No, not really. What it does, however, is give an idea of how vast the pool of readers is out there who might care about book stuffing.<br />
<br />
The KU subscriber who encounters a stuffed book might not care. She's already paid her fee, so if she gets a dud book, it's no real loss. She returns it and checks out another. In that sense, she's not out anything and could be said to not have a dog in this race.<br />
<br />
What about the non-KU reader? She shells out $2.99 or $4.99 or even $0.99 for a stuffed book, discovers it's full of "stuff" she's already read, and she returns it.<br />
<br />
Or will she? <br />
<br />
Remember that Amazon recently instituted new policies about limiting returns. What if the reader is now faced with the risk of returning a stuffed book . . . or losing her Amazon account altogether?<br />
<br />
If she chooses not to return it, she's out the money, and the author is rewarded for his scam. The reader may decide to be less eager to spend money on self-publishing authors and stick with the better-known, familiar names from the traditional publishers. (This is why trad publishers are not likely to come to the assistance of readers or writers of author published material. As long as the indie stuff remains bad, it sends more readers to the trad publishers.)<br />
<br />
If the readers don't appear to be hurt by the book stuffing scam, what about the non-stuffing writers? They're the ones who are really hurt.<br />
<br />
At the current limit of 3000 KENPC per book, the stuffer is paid $15 for each "first" read. It's very easy to slip in a link at the beginning of the book that takes the reader immediately to the end. It may be a link to a newsletter sign-up or even a link to a Table of Contents that's at the end of the book instead of the beginning! Regardless what it is, as soon as the reader reaches the end of the book, the author is credited with a full read, even if 99.9% of the book has been skipped over. Instant $15 profit.<br />
<br />
Next month, the author shuffles the order of the "stories" in the book, slaps on a new cover and new title, and publishes again. Another $15 royalty, even though none of the content is new!<br />
<br />
Some of the stuffer/scammers boast of six-figure monthly incomes from their books. That money comes out of the general pool, meaning it's less for the non-stuffing authors -- like me! It's not just the per-page payout that's affected. Amazon also pays All-Star bonuses for the most pages read. My book at 637 pages doesn't stand a chance against those 3,000 KENPC stuffed monsters, with links that take the reader to the end from page one. So the pool shrinks further.<br />
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Not to mention, of course, that Amazon sales are driven by reviews and reads and algorithms. A book that gets lots of page reads will generate its own visibility, and when the book stuffers are all grouped together, they corral all the visibility to themselves.<br />
<br />
A check of Tia Siren's <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Love-Next-Door-Romance-Compilation-ebook/dp/B07D6Z55M2/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1528223798&sr=1-1&keywords=tia+siren+kindle+books" target="_blank"><i>Love Next Door: A Romance Compilation</i></a> shows that the first four "Customers who bought this book also bought" recommendations are also stuffed books:<br />
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What happens as a result is that independent, self-publishing authors find themselves unable to earn enough to keep writing. Some have (reluctantly?) turned to book stuffing themselves, gaming a system that's rigged in favor of the gamesters. Others have turned to other publishing platforms where at least they don't have to compete with the stuffers. Others have given up entirely.<br />
<br />
Readers lose out and writers lose out, and the scammers win big. Now that some people are speaking out, is it too late? The scammers are being reported to Amazon, but is it doing any good?<br />
<br />
If you look at a selection of these books, they get few negative reviews, if any. So how is anyone to know they're not well-written, not well-formatted for the digital reader, and not stuffed with old stories?<br />
<br />
Looking at <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lucky-Soldier-Memorial-Brothers-Romance-ebook/dp/B07D6XJDJD/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8" target="_blank">just one at random</a>, I can immediately see from the "Look Inside" preview that the formatting is off.<br />
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<br />
<br />
I downloaded the free sample to my plain Kindle, and the double spacing between paragraphs made the reading experience uncomfortable, but not impossible. I've seen worse.<br />
<br />
But here's the thing -- the writing is bad. It's bad from the beginning. It's bad on the micro level that few readers pay attention to. It's bad on the level that would keep the writer from ever being considered by a traditional, gatekeeping publisher.<br />
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Parades don't arrive <i>from</i> the town square. If there were to be a parade for the home-coming hero, he would be in it and it would go to the town square. Is this important? Is it nit-picky? Yes, to both.<br />
<br />
Unless, of course, this is just crappy erotica to be read for the titillation and the profit.<br />
<br />
But the second paragraph is worse, because weapons aren't automated. They're automatic, or semi-automatic. This error tells me the author doesn't give a shit about the quality of the writing.<br />
<br />
The few negative reviews contain references to the level of sexual content in the book as being quite high. One review refers to it as porn. I'd be willing to bet that most of the stuffed books that are topping the Amazon sales charts are also high on the sex level.<br />
<br />
Is that what it's come down to? Is it all just porn? Is it all just fuck books with no attempt to write well, craft a story, create an imaginary world for the reader to slip into for a while?<br />
<br />
I'd like to think not.<br />
<br />
But no one criticizes these books. No one points out how badly written they are. Is it because no one cares? Or is it because no one knows how to tell bad writing from good? Is it because those who do know the difference have been bludgeoned into silence by the hordes of "Think of the author's feelings!" and "If you can't say something nice. . . " and "I have to leave good reviews if I want to keep getting free ARCs from the authors!"<br />
<br />
The silence at Goodreads and Amazon when it comes to badly written and/or badly published books is at least part of what allowed this to happen.<br />
<br />
Do reviewers have the right to publish only positive reviews? Yes, they do.<br />
<br />
Do reviewers have the right to publish only positive reviews because they want to keep getting free books? Yes, they do.<br />
<br />
Do reviewers have the right to publish only positive reviews because they don't want to hurt the authors' feelings? Yes, they do.<br />
<br />
Do reviewers have the right to publish only positive reviews because even though the books are bad they don't know how to tell anyone they're bad? Yes, they do.<br />
<br />
Do reviewers have the right to publish only positive reviews because they're afraid of the backlash from fans or authors if they publish a negative review? Yes, they do.<br />
<br />
Do reviewers have the right to publish only positive reviews because they are also authors and don't want anyone to give their books negative reviews in revenge? Yes, they do.<br />
<br />
Do readers have the right to read honest reviews of both good and bad books so they can make informed decisions on how to spend their money and their time?<br />
<br />
Yes, they do.<br />
<br />
If books are badly written, if they are poorly researched, if they are stuffed with other material to boost KU page reads, they deserve to be reviewed as such. Readers deserve to know this.<br />
<br />
#GETLOUD<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4364421159527172241.post-72175297671704165232017-01-23T07:44:00.000-08:002017-01-23T07:44:01.562-08:00Word Power: Part One: Introduction"The time has come," the Walrus said, "to talk of many things."<br />
<br />
It's not the opening line to Lewis Carroll's <i>Jabberwocky</i>, but most of us are familiar with it. And if we don't know all the words, we know from the title of the poem that it's probably going to deal with nonsense.<br />
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Perhaps we need to relearn how to deal with nonsense. Perhaps we, like Alice, have walked through the looking-glass into a world of alternative facts.<br />
<br />
There has lately been much talk -- by way of such cyber-print entities as Facebook and Twitter -- of the classic doublespeak in George Orwell's <i>1984</i>. We know that Ayn Rand's alternative reality of <i>Atlas Shrugged</i> has had a profound influence on current affairs, just as Upton Sinclair's <i>The Jungle</i> did almost a century ago and even <i>Uncle Tom's Cabin</i> long before that. <br />
<br />
What many of us seem to have lost sight of is the enormous power of popular culture to effect serious social change. While it may be said that movements give rise to culture, the cross pollination may also be necessary to produce fruit. How much did the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s owe to the folk rock music of the era, and vice versa? <br />
<br />
How much of the normalization of a potentially dystopian future is owed to the proliferation of dystopian fiction? How much acceptance of gun violence is due to acceptance of gun violence in video games? How much violence against women is related to misogyny in advertising? How much of rape culture is perpetuated through romantic film and books?<br />
<br />
By education I am a sociologist, but I do not claim expertise. I do, however, believe that if we are to avoid the repetition of the worst of our species's recent history, we need to take a much closer look at how popular culture influenced it in the past, and how it can do so in the future, for good or evil.<br />
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That's what I'm going to do here. Comments of course are welcome. I'll be back shortly.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4364421159527172241.post-58066198630803158412016-08-16T12:03:00.000-07:002016-08-16T12:03:39.349-07:00Word PerfectionNo one is perfect. Well, except Nadia Comaneci, and Torvill and Dean.<br />
<br />
That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't strive for perfection.<br />
<br />
I take a great deal of pride in my grammar, spelling, and proofreading skills. I know that mine are above average, but I also know that the results of refining those skills are attainable by nearly every writer who dreams of uploading a manuscript to Amazon. <br />
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<br />
I finished the actual writing of <i>The Looking-Glass Portrait</i> on 11 July 2016. Because it was written using Word Perfect, I had to convert the document to Microsoft Word before I could upload it. There are certain conventions of the two softwares that are not 100% compatible, so I had to go through the entire manuscript and make manual corrections to things like em and en dashes, tabs and ellipses, double breaks and so on. This also gave me the opportunity to look in both versions for marked spelling errors and fix them. <br />
<br />
Spell check tools are wonderful. They won't catch everything, but they catch a lot. Anyone who doesn't take advantage of them is just plain foolish. I've seen too many author-published works on Amazon that have clearly never been run through even the most rudimentary spell-checking program. This is unforgivable.<br />
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After putting my MSWord document through the conversion to HTML and then to mobi, I uploaded it to Kindle Direct Publishing on 18 July. Yes, just one week. No one else had read it. No one else had proofread it. No one else had edited it. I knew I was taking a huge risk that I might have missed something major, but I was willing to take that risk and trust at least to my own proofreading skills.<br />
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The uploading process contains its own spell check application. I used it, too, because you never know what the other programs might have missed. And they had in fact missed one typo that I was able to fix before uploading. I hit the "publish" button.<br />
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By Word Perfect's count, the book is something over 138,000 words long. After a few readers got back to me, we had identified a grand total of three -- <i><b>three</b></i> -- errors that escaped my eagle eyes: a missing space between two words, a wrong word, and a missing word. All were easily fixed so the corrected document can be uploaded to Amazon.<br />
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Am I bragging? Yes, I am! But I'm also saying that this can be done by anyone who is willing to learn the skills or learn to rely on others who have the skills. Your readers should be able to sit down with your book and read it, not correct it. Are three errors acceptable? Well, not by me! Would I throw a book against a wall for three errors in 400 pages? No, of course not. But I wouldn't read past the first page if I found three errors on it.<br />
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It's not enough to put your heart and soul, your blood, sweat, and tears into you book. You have to put your skill into it, too. Language is the absolutely essential tool you have with which to build your literary world, and if you don't learn to use it with consummate skill, you probably won't be able to tell a story people will be willing to pay good money for.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4364421159527172241.post-38148956484680306282016-08-03T17:30:00.000-07:002016-08-03T17:32:35.671-07:00Getting the word out about getting the words out.I'm going to indulge in a bit of shameless self promotion here and post the cover to my recently self-published romance novel, <i>The Looking-Glass Portrait.</i> I am not comfortable doing this, but I also don't want some of the other images presented in this entry to show up when I post a link.<br />
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Anyone who has been following me much at all knows that I frequently make reference to the old days of traditional print publication. I'm going to do that again in this post, so if you're sick and tired of that subject, you can skip this one. ;-)<br />
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Anyone who has been following me much at all also knows I am terrible at self-promotion. I love talking about writing, expressing my opinions about good and bad writing, chatting up weird crap that happens in my life whether related to writing or not, showing off some of my artsy fartsy crafting. But even here on my own little blog, I have significant difficulty promoting my own books. This is nothing new. I've always been reticent about tooting my own horn.<br />
<br />
Part of the reason is that when I began writing with the intention of getting my work published, I was ridiculed and discouraged. For many, many years, I was told I had no chance to sell my work to a legitimate publisher and that I was foolish -- sometimes the operative word was "stupid" -- to try. Considering that I began writing adult fiction at about the age of eleven and didn't sell my first novel until I was 36, that was a lot of ridicule and discouragement. At one point, I was fired from a job because my boss didn't believe I was really writing a book and therefore I must be lying and untrustworthy.<br />
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Had there been any countering support or encouragement, the outcome might have been different, but there was very, very little. The overwhelming majority of reaction was negative, and especially after losing a job over it, I learned the very difficult lesson and kept my mouth shut.<br />
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Even after selling that first novel, I didn't always get positive reaction. In the early 1980s, historical romances were routinely dismissed as "bodice-rippers" or soft porn, and anything described as a romance was often just dismissed as "a Harlequin." So even though I had achieved publication, the nature of my work did not attract anything like acceptance of success.<br />
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Along with the routine dismissal of romance fiction as a genre, there was also an expectation that writers all made lots of money. Few non-writers understood that royalty rates for the newly published were often just four percent of the retail cover price. When <i>Legacy of Honor</i> was published in 1985, that meant I earned 16 cents for each copy sold at $3.95.<br />
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In a saturated market like romance, certain authors hit it big, but many others didn't. And it took a combination of many factors to reach the level of sales that allowed a writer to make a career at the craft. One had to be reasonably prolific; Janet Dailey made a name for herself by writing a new book every month. As an example of "nothing succeeds like success," Dailey was able to devote herself full-time to her career and <a href="https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1368&dat=19810908&id=RdQVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=FhIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3820,1444687&hl=en" target="_blank">leave everything else to her husband.</a><br />
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What few writers understood back in the heyday of romance publishing in the 1980s and 1990s was that publishing was a business and writing was an art. The overwhelming majority of the writers were women, and the overwhelming majority of them had no experience with or knowledge about the publishing business. Kathryn Falk's magazine <i>Romantic Times</i> and the organization Romance Writers of America, Inc, both founded in the early 1980s, promoted romance writing as a desirable and lucrative career for women, with Publication(sic) as the brass ring.<br />
<br />
RT and RWA also promoted promotion. Authors were (strongly) encouraged to buy advertising in RT and accompany the ads with personal profiles or articles further promoting their latest titles. Again, success bred success, as those who either already had sufficient income to afford paid advertising or those who had achieved sufficient sales levels with previous books could buy additional advertising, get their books in front of the reading public, and sell more.<br />
<br />
This was a huge departure from traditional publishing promotion, which had been handled by the publishers. Whether they took out ads in newspapers and magazines, sent their top listed authors on paid book tours, or booked them onto television shows -- Janet Dailey, for instance, appeared on <i>The Phil Donohue Show</i> in 1981 -- the publishers arranged for and in many cases paid for the promotion of their authors and their books.<br />
<br />
What happened as a result of RT and RWA was that for romance writers in particular, these new venues for promotion allowed publishers to deftly slide some of the responsibility -- and cost -- for promotion onto the authors. Did this in turn prompt higher royalty rates? Of course not! What are you, crazy?<br />
<br />
Indeed, publishers found more and more ways to <i>cut</i> royalties to romance writers. Bulk sales and direct-mail subscription clubs paying two percent or less became popular ways to add to publisher revenue; these options were less viable for other genres simply because science fiction, mystery, and other types of novels didn't have the market share that romance did.<br />
<br />
Do you begin to see how this played out? Over a period of less than twenty years, much of the burden of promotion had shifted from the publisher to the romance writer while more and more of the profit had shifted from the writer to the publisher. It was a very convenient spiral, and many of the writers who couldn't afford to pay to play just quit the game or stayed in the lower ranks of midlist and never achieved stardom.<br />
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By the time digital self-publishing became a truly viable option for writers, the shift to self-promotion had been fully established in the romance writing community. To a slightly lesser extent, it had also become a feature in science fiction and fantasy, though through a different route. Fan conventions had long been a tradition in the science fiction and fantasy community of writers and readers, thus providing various venues for authors as well as publishers to market and promote directly to readers. Fan fiction was another tradition in sf/f writing and publishing, and as the two top-selling genres began crossing over into each other's turf -- primarily from romance taking on more and more sf/f elements -- the commercial aspects of romance <i>publishing</i> were becoming established for sf/f writers.<br />
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Whether the extent of self-promotion that became de rigeur for romance would ever have achieved the same status in sf/f is almost moot. Digital self-publishing forced it on every writer in every genre, with few exceptions.<br />
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Digital self-publishing -- let's call it DSP for convenience -- cut out the commercial publishers entirely. Writers no longer had to go through the arduous and often discouraging process of sending their manuscripts to publishers and agents who all too often sent the works back with form letter rejections. Writers now needed only to upload their MSWord document files and presto! they were published authors, often literally overnight. Instead of four percent or even eight percent royalties, these new DSP authors could brag about collecting 35% to 70% of the digital cover price.<br />
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That 16-cents-per-copy that I earned for <i>Legacy of Honor</i> as a $3.95 paperback in 1985 could become (roughly) 30-cents-per-copy for a 99-cent Kindle edition in 2013.<br />
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Of course DSP also means the writer has to provide all the services that used to be done by the publisher: editing, formatting, proofreading, cover art, and promotion.<br />
<br />
Back in those old days of traditional print publication, the typical reader walked into a bookstore -- new or used doesn't matter -- or library and chose their preferred reading material from a fairly limited supply. Virtually all of the titles had gone through the same reasonably professional production process from manuscript to printed book, and the reader could be reasonably confident that whatever book she took from the shelf would be readable. It may not be great by whatever her personal standards might be, and it may not be to her personal taste, but it would be competently produced in terms of a commercial product.<br />
<br />
And while the acquiring editors at any given publishing house might screw up and pass on the next best-seller, there was also a pretty good chance that few commercially viable manuscripts fell completely through the cracks. In other words, to put it simply, if the book was any good, it would find a publisher.<br />
<br />
With DSP, virtually everything about publishing changed, though some things changed more than others.<br />
<br />
One thing that changed was the profit motive for publishers. Traditional publishers knew enough about their markets that they chose products they firmly believed would sell and bring a reasonable return on the investment in editing, printing, and promotion. They had to pay for their staff and overhead, and they also had to show a profit to the stockholders. They couldn't afford to publish garbage, at least not on a routine basis.<br />
<br />
DSP allowed writers to publish garbage and not answer to anyone at all.<br />
<br />
DSP erased all the distinctions that used to protect readers from garbage.<br />
<br />
While writers might be expected, even in the age of DSP, to have a working knowledge of how publishing used to work, most readers had no interest back then and still don't. Whether they are browsing the shelves in a big Barnes and Noble media store, digging through the offerings on the Friends of the Library two-for-a-dollar sale table, or scrolling through the Amazon Kindle listings in order low price to high, the readers still see "published" as "published." And all they really want to do is read good books.<br />
<br />
Let me give you <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Surrender-MaLady-Western-Historical-Romance-ebook/dp/B00SXETIL2/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1470256467&sr=1-1&keywords=Surrender+Ma%27Lady#navbar" target="_blank">an example</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
The link is to a novel titled <i>Surrender Ma'Lady</i> by one Willow Fae von Wicken. I will leave it to you whether you want to look at the text of the book itself, but be warned that the quality of the writing is, well, it's probably best described as below standard.<br />
<br />
The story is described, per the listing on Amazon as:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Victoria Whittenberg was shipwrecked and bound by shackles, trapped in
the clutches of Enrico Rodriguez, her captor, the man who she witnessed
shoot her fiancé. She was left with little choice but to approach a lone
rider who had witnessed her demise, and without a word, he rode away,
leaving her to the mercy of killers.
</blockquote>
<br />
Although a publisher is listed, Dymond Publishing appears to be a front for the author-as-publisher. That prospective readers are unaware of the realities of publishing is evidenced by the following, a review posted on Amazon for this book:<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghpHBOyFOQAOqkn-u95FWgTs6RhLNVcvRHVzMKgo9adViNeaj6vepKht_9WAPV7wmCP0PGLyH8iXiY23GrdpQDJBC2FcauKo85b36IVBgSgM4Aaerm2Q1hJf_ijLkYgcYg71W7rwDuOe4/s1600/Worst+Editing+review+on+Amazon.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="101" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghpHBOyFOQAOqkn-u95FWgTs6RhLNVcvRHVzMKgo9adViNeaj6vepKht_9WAPV7wmCP0PGLyH8iXiY23GrdpQDJBC2FcauKo85b36IVBgSgM4Aaerm2Q1hJf_ijLkYgcYg71W7rwDuOe4/s320/Worst+Editing+review+on+Amazon.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
"<span class="a-size-base review-text">Worst case of editing that I have ever seen."</span><br />
<br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text">Except that the author was (more than likely) the only "editor" the book ever saw.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text">And this is not a rare phenomenon. Over the past several years, there have been countless cases of writers whose books have been negatively reviewed who have complained that they can't afford an editor, and/or are waiting until they make enough sales that they <i>can</i> afford an editor, at which time they will re-publish the book and all the readers who slogged through the unedited version can now read it again, edited. As if they wished to.</span><br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text"><br /></span>
<span class="a-size-base review-text">Willow Fae von Wicken's book is perma-free at Amazon. (I don't know how that works, only that it does.) There are lots and lots of freebies in all genres, and many of them are DSP works that would never have seen print in the old days. That's what the publishing industry has evolved into. I'm not passing judgment here, though my loathing for traditional print publishers is no secret. DSP has given many people opportunities for writing careers that they might never have had in the old days.</span><br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text"><br /></span>
<span class="a-size-base review-text">However, DSP has thrown readers into an unexpected chaos, and this is why I have tried to champion readers and their rights ahead of writers and their rights, at least in the marketplace.</span><br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text"><br /></span>
<span class="a-size-base review-text">Promotion is now the name of the game, not publishing. Anyone can be published, but now it takes promotion to make a career. </span><br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text"><br /></span>
<span class="a-size-base review-text">Writing a book and publishing it via DSP costs pretty much nothing. Of course a writer can pay for professional editing and proofreading and cover art, but none of those expenditures are mandatory, and many unsophisticated writers -- those who turn out works of the quality of <i>Surrender Ma'Lady</i> or just slightly better -- consider such services unnecessary in terms of establishing their careers as authors. Promotion, however, is another thing entirely. Promotion that generates visibility for the work is essential, many writers believe, to garnering sales. Promotion becomes not only the motivating force behind <i>everything </i>the writer does, but also justification for <i>anything</i> she does.</span><br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text"><br /></span>
<span class="a-size-base review-text">This includes, but is certainly not limited to, traditional promotional tools such as paid ads, distributing free copies of the book for reviews, soliciting endorsements from established writers with recognized followings.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text">Digital Self Publishing, however, is part of the whole digital universe, and social media in all its forms has become the billboard -- in the original sense of the word -- for the self-publishing author. Promotion through social media, then, includes but is not limited to:</span><br />
<br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text">Spamming her book, its cover, its blurb everywhere she can think of. Every Facebook post, Instagram and Twitter several times a day. joining every discussion group on Goodreads whether it allows promotion or not. The irresistible urge to spam was what led to Amazon restricting promotional posts to certain forums, because readers and participants in the other forums got sick of the spam.</span><br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text"><br /></span>
<span class="a-size-base review-text">Purchasing 5-star reviews from "gig" sites such as fiverr.com, to be posted to the book's Amazon and Goodreads' listings <i>in violation of those sites' Terms of Use</i>. Also purchasing upvotes of favorable reviews (and downvotes of negative reviews), adding the book to Listopias and other promotional tools. </span><br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text"><br /></span>
<span class="a-size-base review-text">These paid-for "reviews" are, of course, violations of U.S. Federal Trade Commission regulations, but the feds aren't going to go after either the paid reviewers or the writers. The FTC <i>might</i>, however, crackdown on the commercial sites such as Amazon if the level of violation reaches too high. Regardless, the pressure to achieve visibility is enormous, and many writers will succumb to the temptation.</span><br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text"><br /></span>
<span class="a-size-base review-text">Sometimes the violation is less odious than buying the reviews. Having family and friends -- with "friends" encompassing fellow writers who agree to do "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" <i>quid pro quo</i> favorable reviews -- pose as strangers to leave favorable reviews is another way to gain visibility, even though it's just as much in violation of FTC regulations and certain sites' TOUs as the paid reviews.</span><br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text"><br /></span>
<span class="a-size-base review-text">And sometimes the desperate need for visibility prompts writers to set themselves up as arbiters of moral standards, declaring that only certain kinds of reviews should be allowed, that only certain kinds of readers should be allowed to review, that reviewers have an obligation <i>to the writer</i> rather than to their fellow readers.</span><br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text"><br /></span>
<span class="a-size-base review-text">These are the writers who have forgotten -- if they ever knew in the first place -- that reviews are for the readers, not for the writers. Reviews are the observations and comments and opinions of unbiased, independent readers to readers. Does the foremost book retailer, Amazon.com, violate this standard with their "Top Reviewer" status, often conferred on people who love every book sent to them because that's how they continue to get free books? Yeah, they do. Do readers know and understand and qualify or disqualify those reviews? I'm sure some do, but I'm also sure many don't.</span><br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text"><br /></span>
<span class="a-size-base review-text">I took a long vacation from the book community because I was sick and tired of the blatant gaming of the system. I felt I was losing my perspective not only as to what was good writing and what wasn't, but also as to what was legitimate criticism and what wasn't. Did the books of writers like Willow Fae von Wicken and Raani York, Sharon Desruisseaux and Victor Bertolaccini deserve the scathing reviews I left for them? Had I made my criticisms too personal, even though I knew nothing about the writers?</span><br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text"><br /></span>
<span class="a-size-base review-text">I still don't know for sure.</span><br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text"><br /></span>
<span class="a-size-base review-text">What I do know, however, is that this drive for visibility, and especially for favorable, 5-star visibility, may lie behind the sudden uptick in <i>successful</i> authors drifting onto the dark side of questionable behavior. Why else would a writer with over 9,000 followers on her Facebook page put out a plea that readers treat her books like her babies, with only the utmost kindness and consideration and no criticism? Why else would a writer with over <i>90,000</i> followers on her Facebook page urge those followers to manipulate one of her negative reviews <i>so she didn't have to see it any more</i>. </span><br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text"><br /></span>
<span class="a-size-base review-text">As author <a href="http://jennytrout.com/?p=10616" target="_blank">Jenny Trout</a> has written about readers, </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
They already gave your book the time it took to read it. Why on earth
should we be asking for more? And it feels as though the question
devalues that reader who doesn’t leave a review. “You don’t count,”
we’re saying. “You read the book, but you didn’t leave a review, so
you’re not as appreciated as my other readers.” </blockquote>
<span class="a-size-base review-text">Sadly, Amazon sends out requests for reviews that the writer has no control over; that's the way Amazon operates, and the writer has to put up with the fallout if the reader gets ticked off. (And yes, writers also have to put up with the disgruntled readers who leave low rated reviews over issues the writer has no control over.) And yes, it's a reality that reviews generate visibility and all of us writers want visibility.</span><br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text"><br /></span>
<span class="a-size-base review-text">But to what level do we need to stoop to get it? Urging random readers, who may know nothing about effective reviewing, to leave a comment like, "Great book, I loved it. You should read it"? Is that what happens when a writer lists her book for free and 4,000 people download it because it's free but only seventeen actually read it?</span><br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text"><br /></span>
<span class="a-size-base review-text">I probably wouldn't have given all of this much thought except for the fact that I was reading a DSP title the other day in which the author's front material included this:</span><br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="a-size-base review-text">Please remember to leave a review which greatly helps everyone.<br /><br />(Heath, Tim. Cherry Picking . Tim Heath Books. Kindle Edition.)</span></blockquote>
<span class="a-size-base review-text"> My thought was, well, I'm not sure it would help Tim Heath if I left a negative review. It might help other readers who don't want their time wasted on poorly written books. It certainly, however, would not help me to leave a negative review. <b>As an author</b> I am not allowed to leave negative reviews on Amazon, as it could be considered a conflict of interest. <b>As an author</b> I am allowed to leave positive reviews, because . . . well, because no one considers that it might be a tit-for-tat review, or the author might be a friend of mine. So the bottom line is, I'm not going to leave a review on Amazon under any circumstances.</span><br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text"><br /></span>
<span class="a-size-base review-text">But then we go back to the business of reviewers leaving reviews that are "helpful" to the author, meaning the review is critical but offers suggestions that will help the author improve the book in subsequent revisions or improve the next book. As I have argued time and again, it is never the reader's <i>job</i> to help the writer do anything. No reader should ever feel obligated to <i>donate </i>her time and expertise to help a writer make more money. (Many authors do not react kindly to "helpful" reviews anyway, so there is some risk involved in volunteering. Been there, done that.)</span><br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text"><br /></span>
<span class="a-size-base review-text">This is especially true, in my never humble opinion, if the reader is also another writer. Why should any professional writer, one who has taken the time and effort to learn her craft, be pressured into helping her competition? (Tim Heath is probably not my competition; I don't think we write the same type of novel or target the same audience, but who knows?)</span><br />
<br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text">The other side of that same coin is that many readers may not know enough to provide accurate advice. If a writer's writing skills are substandard and she is looking for readers to help her out, she probably doesn't know enough to tell the difference between good advice and bad advice.</span><br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text"><br /></span>
<span class="a-size-base review-text">Another comment Jenny Trout made resonated with me because I had just posted about this issue on my own Facebook timeline:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
So many writers will tell you that the reason they write is because they
enjoy it. It’s too difficult a job to do if your heart isn’t in it. So,
if what you need to enjoy it is reviews, and you’re not getting them
and your heart is not in it, then maybe it’s time to rethink some
priorities. But it’s <i>your</i> job to decide whether or not to continue. Don’t put that responsibility on readers.</blockquote>
<span class="a-size-base review-text">I can't not write. Even when I wasn't writing, I was writing. Even during that twenty years between <i>Touchstone</i> and <i>The Looking-Glass Portrait</i>, I was writing. I just wasn't finishing novels. But I can't not write. Would I like to be making more money at it? Sure! But the money isn't what makes me write.</span><br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text"><br /></span>
<span class="a-size-base review-text">As a writer, I understand exactly what Jenny Trout is writing about when she continues:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I know that it’s frustrating when you see people racking up fantastic
review after fantastic review. I know you want your book to reach the
widest possible audience and have two full pages of positive quotes to
sell it. </blockquote>
<span class="a-size-base review-text">But what no one seems to be saying is, "What if those fantastic reviews are lies?"</span><br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text"><br /></span>
<span class="a-size-base review-text">It's one thing to risk alienating <i>your</i> readers by begging for a review; I think it's another thing entirely to risk <i>everyone else's</i> readers by encouraging, buying, or posting fake reviews. We know it has happened; I've posted enough analyses myself of the purchased reviews from fiverr.com. But what is a DSP writer to do?</span><br />
<span class="a-size-base review-text"><br /></span>
<span class="a-size-base review-text">I know you're tired of reading all my blathering, and yes, I guess I sort of did take your question of "What time is it?" as an excuse to tell you how to build a clock, but that's the way I am. </span><br />
<br />
I hate self promotion. I'm very bad at it. I don't know how to do it. And I think the shenanigans of writers like the two who have gone off the rails this week and all the others before and after them have made it more and more difficult for the rest of us. They're applying pressure to us, the mid-listers and below, to jump into that game of racking up the reviews by fair means or foul.<br />
<br />
I make it a practice not to read any reviews of my work. Even when someone else re-posts them, I avoid reading them. Reviews are for readers. Period. End of discussion.<br />
<br />
I'm reasonably accessible online. If a reader has something they really think I need to know about something they've found in one of my books, such as an error of fact or an internal inconsistency or a TSTL character, I'm not that difficult to contact. Here on the blog, for instance. Or on Facebook. Or on Booklikes. The worst I'll probably do to a stalker/harasser/troll is block them, unless of course they get really threatening, in which case I'll go to the police.<br />
<br />
But if you want to leave a scathing review, be my guest. I'll even help you.<br />
<br />
Ten free Kindle copies of <i>The Looking-Glass Portrait </i>to the first ten people who request them. I'll know you've read to the end of this atrociously long screed, because this is the only place I'll mention it. I have the DRM-free mobi file to send via email, which you can then transfer to your Kindle or Kindle app.<br />
<br />
Is a review required? No, of course not, and because I never look, I'll never know anyway.<br />
<br />
And then we'll see what happens. Maybe nothing. But that's okay. I can't not write.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4364421159527172241.post-15154343177521512182016-07-22T10:06:00.000-07:002016-07-22T10:06:21.559-07:00When the only words are "How cool is that!"<div data-contents="true">
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<span data-offset-key="3i2ke-0-0"><span data-text="true">I don't believe in omens. Seriously, I do not believe in omens. I know I keep saying it, but it's true. I don't believe in omens.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="c750u-0-0"><span data-text="true">We will forget about all the omens that led me this past April to pick up a book I'd started in 1996 and start writing on it again, a process that resulted in the publication earlier this week of that book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Looking-Glass-Portrait-Linda-Hilton-ebook/dp/B01IPY7ZHI/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1469202781&sr=1-1&keywords=Looking+glass+portrait#nav-subnav" target="_blank">The Looking-Glass Portrait,</a> on Amazon.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="aae9a-0-0"><span data-text="true">I immediately began work on a new book, which I have only the vaguest idea where I'm going with. The opening scene is of the main character, one Iola Fairfield, taking leave of her old life in Indiana and heading out on her own. She gets into her car, starts the engine and . . . . </span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="d33k0-0-0">"Satisfied that everything looked in order, I put the key in the ignition and turned the car on. I knew that as soon as I pulled out of the parking lot, I would never look back. There was nothing here for me at all. Instead of looking back, I looked at the clock. Ten minutes after eleven. I waited another minute before shifting the Suburban into gear. Eleven had always been a lucky number for me, even though I wasn't particularly superstitious, and it seemed fitting to begin this journey at the auspicious moment of 11:11."</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true">Now, this may seem trivial to you, and in reality it is. There is eventual significance in the novel, but that's not what this post is about.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true">This post is about baseball.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true">I am not a fanatic baseball fan, the kind who remembers stats and so on with an encyclopedic memory. And I'm certainly not a personally athletic person by any means. But I am a Chicago White Sox fan.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true">In seventh grade, in Bill Kyger's social studies class at South Junior High School, we studied Illinois and Chicago history. We had to do "projects," some kind of 3-D construction of something depicting Illinois or Chicago culture. I'm sure there were the usual models of Fort Dearborn and maybe someone constructed a model of the Water Tower out of sugar cubes. I made a model of Comiskey Park. </span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true">In the spring of that same school year, my buddy Sue S. and I decided we would enter the Chicago Daily News batboy contest. As I recall, entrants had to write 200 words (or some such) on why they wanted to be the White Sox batboy. Two boys would be chosen, one for the home team and one for the visitors, but every entrant would receive an official baseball. And yes, of course, in 1961 this contest was open only to boys. That didn't matter to me; I was determined to enter anyway, and I thought Sue was, too. I wrote out my little essay, forged my mother's signature to the entrance form, and sent it off. Sue chickened out. But it didn't matter; I was apparently disqualified for being a girl -- or for doing a bad job of forgery? -- and never even got my free baseball.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true">Girls couldn't play Little League then, and my high school didn't even have girls' softball. Not that I probably would have made the team anyway, but it would have been nice to know I wasn't automatically excluded. Oh, well, I could still be a spectator.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="b270m-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true">Did I have a favorite player? Oh, of course I did.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="b270m-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true">One morning in the spring of 1996, the phone rang. I answered it, and it was my son Kevin calling from Tempe, where he was attending Arizona State University. </span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="b270m-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true">"I'll bet you don't know what day it is," he taunted.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true">"Of course, I do," I replied without any hesitation whatsoever. "It's the 29th of April, which means it's Luis Aparicio's birthday."</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true"><br /></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLZO-sgP3sSo38PJ-HZH0oqHIEiMVXufrVGZoywjncdXW40cwMUN38hu5a7lfzpW5rgh2bJHlr8P0s2_xWlUHB0bQsPZSuPh8Tc-nwVW_cKYD4mhQFOGJOYdNi_8bXbh4xbMufCoNhZcA/s1600/Luis+Aparicio.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLZO-sgP3sSo38PJ-HZH0oqHIEiMVXufrVGZoywjncdXW40cwMUN38hu5a7lfzpW5rgh2bJHlr8P0s2_xWlUHB0bQsPZSuPh8Tc-nwVW_cKYD4mhQFOGJOYdNi_8bXbh4xbMufCoNhZcA/s320/Luis+Aparicio.JPG" width="178" /></a></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true">Aparicio was the star shortstop for the Go-Go White Sox in the late 1950s and 1960s. Everyone in the family knew he was my favorite player. His uniform number, as you can see above, was 11.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true">Then there was the Mother's Day a year or so later when Kevin walked in the house with a gift for me from -- if I remember the name correctly -- The Glass Cage, a sports memorabilia store. The baseball autographed by Luis Aparicio still sits on top of my piano.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true">I missed watching the opening game of the 2005 World Series between the White Sox and Houston Astros, when Aparicio threw out the ceremonial first pitch, but I watched the next three games as the Sox swept the Astros to their first championship since 1917. I remembered the 1959 series and the loss to the Dodgers; 2005 was special.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="b270m-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true">There's other stuff, tangential stuff, irrelevant stuff, the weird stuff that gets tucked into a writer's head to be pulled out when some bit of weird stuff is needed, whether it's an old house with plastic tulip shade pulls or an auspicious moment for a character to embark on a new life. So it was that just a couple of days ago, my fictional Iola Fairfield hopped into her car and waited to leave the parking lot until 11:11.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true">But wait! There's more!</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b270m-0-0"><span data-text="true">That same son who teased me about Aparicio's birthday and brought me the autographed baseball is now raising his own son to play baseball. This week Kevin and Andrew are making a pilgrimage to Cooperstown, New York, to the Baseball Hall of Fame. This morning, Kevin sent me a picture on Facebook.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbbJdB0NouWYwREnrd4509aY-Yuny5XdXZIzrqreRQsr4pAt2iXzkK9ltIF6N7bA8hPtRs31B_b_iN9DzZ_jJacv1bNXV8v_yATSCcre_0HB2X9QPfg2l1SI-m0e8KX0hlwfz_8fO0akI/s1600/Luis+Aparicio+HOF+plaque.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbbJdB0NouWYwREnrd4509aY-Yuny5XdXZIzrqreRQsr4pAt2iXzkK9ltIF6N7bA8hPtRs31B_b_iN9DzZ_jJacv1bNXV8v_yATSCcre_0HB2X9QPfg2l1SI-m0e8KX0hlwfz_8fO0akI/s320/Luis+Aparicio+HOF+plaque.JPG" width="232" /></a></div>
</span></span></div>
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<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="1lpvp-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="1lpvp-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
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<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="8h2u4" data-offset-key="aj9nl-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="aj9nl-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="aj9nl-0-0">How cool!</span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="aj9nl-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="aj9nl-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="aj9nl-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="aj9nl-0-0">(And yeah, at this point I was already thinking about that auspicious start to a journey at 11:11 and dismissing it all because I really don't believe in omens.)</span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="aj9nl-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="aj9nl-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="aj9nl-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="aj9nl-0-0">Shortly after receiving the Facebook post, I heard the whistle on my cell phone that indicates a text message. "Ok" he wrote. "So are you ready for this????"</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="aj9nl-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="aj9nl-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="aj9nl-0-0">Followed by</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="aj9nl-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFmnu9kABdUh0Eqv9fTlCTWUrMksWSGmyPPaw24FxXk0JX5FuXdKi2nR5pibwEImaB0NtwPU-ZPhkggqRFpeVISYAqlK3-wL7XWvhlWlBTOycLrvwUtDO2fUGruZS6PWXkXf5f1Ah44vI/s1600/Luis+Aparicio+with+Andrew.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFmnu9kABdUh0Eqv9fTlCTWUrMksWSGmyPPaw24FxXk0JX5FuXdKi2nR5pibwEImaB0NtwPU-ZPhkggqRFpeVISYAqlK3-wL7XWvhlWlBTOycLrvwUtDO2fUGruZS6PWXkXf5f1Ah44vI/s320/Luis+Aparicio+with+Andrew.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span data-offset-key="aj9nl-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
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<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="8h2u4" data-offset-key="8b0p5-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8b0p5-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="8b0p5-0-0">And</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="8b0p5-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ6g4kCXO1_WOzhaIb6FFcNAjSFaabxdU7q0wbZ-SggVOD-2k4urlWj6lc1hOvQ4j9EJghQ3tQS1cV9kiZMfRJ56lXYY3uazhAUlQj1u-Cmq02A1zcbMFoCYnEhFnI2bp8ILVs4XsGsjA/s1600/Luis+Aparicio+HOF+autograph.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ6g4kCXO1_WOzhaIb6FFcNAjSFaabxdU7q0wbZ-SggVOD-2k4urlWj6lc1hOvQ4j9EJghQ3tQS1cV9kiZMfRJ56lXYY3uazhAUlQj1u-Cmq02A1zcbMFoCYnEhFnI2bp8ILVs4XsGsjA/s320/Luis+Aparicio+HOF+autograph.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8b0p5-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="8b0p5-0-0"></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="8h2u4" data-offset-key="8b0p5-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8b0p5-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="8b0p5-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8b0p5-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="8b0p5-0-0">How cool is that???!!!!!!!!!</span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8b0p5-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="8b0p5-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8b0p5-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="8b0p5-0-0">But I still don't believe in omens. Really and truly I don't.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4364421159527172241.post-58006777611581874402016-06-30T10:20:00.000-07:002016-06-30T10:20:06.383-07:00Where the words came from<span></span><br />
<div data-contents="true">
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="c8f5g-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="c8f5g-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="c8f5g-0-0"><span data-text="true">Very, very, VERY long background on the project that has occupied me for the past two months (and four days).</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="f5hri-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
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<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="a7k3l-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="a7k3l-0-0"><span data-text="true">Let me start out by saying once again that I am NOT superstitious and I do NOT believe in "omens." I do think, however, that our brains latch onto things from deep in our subconscious that trigger connections we sort of forgot about until that subconscious throws them in our faces again.</span></span></div>
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<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="eufti-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="eufti-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
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<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="dkfer-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="dkfer-0-0"><span data-text="true">That's what happened back in April with a shared Facebook story about <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/04/11/toronto-house-1950s-fifties-50s-photos_n_5135210.html" target="_blank">a duplex in Toronto</a> that was basically unchanged from the time it was built in the 1950s or so.</span></span></div>
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<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="acif-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="acif-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
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<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="5260n-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5260n-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="5260n-0-0"><span data-text="true">It looks like a typical '50s duplex, very similar to the one my aunt and uncle built shortly after my cousin was born, which was 1956. The three of them lived in the downstairs unit, and my aunt's widowed mother, whom we called Aunt Petie even though her real name was Gertrude, had the upstairs. </span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="5260n-0-0"><span data-text="true"> </span></span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5260n-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="5260n-0-0"><span data-text="true">My Uncle Dick is my mother's brother, so Aunt Shirley was only related to me by marriage. Her dad, Cornelius Stryker, was a commercial artist, a career my aunt also followed. She was an only child, and in turn only had one child, my cousin Connie. Connie also went into the arts; she and her husband Paul have a graphic arts and printing business in the Chicago suburbs.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="tnag-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
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<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="c332o-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="c332o-0-0"><span data-text="true">You'll understand all these details . . . . eventually.</span></span></div>
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<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="43p5k-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="43p5k-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="43p5k-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
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<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="cubg3-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="cubg3-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="cubg3-0-0"><span data-text="true">We were a very small and geographically close family, so holidays were spent at the in-laws' homes as much as the family's. My dad's family, the Wheelers, also lived in Edison Park not far from the Strykers, and his sister, also Shirley, was friends with Shirley Stryker who married my mother's brother. In fact, the Wheelers' house on Owen Avenue was not more than a few blocks from the Strykers' on Olcott. My dad and both Aunts Shirley went to the same grade school, Ebinger. Thus I was relatively familiar with the Stryker house, where Aunt Petie lived until 1957 or so, when I would have been nine years old. And that's old enough to remember things.</span></span></div>
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<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="39b8-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="39b8-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="39b8-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
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<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="7clcm-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="7clcm-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="7clcm-0-0"><span data-text="true">As the oldest of the five cousins born in that time period -- my brother and sister are half a generation younger -- I was eventually granted special privileges when visiting the Stryker house, the biggest of which was to use the upstairs bathroom. It was a marvelous, mysterious blue, totally unlike any other bathroom I had ever seen. The stairway was beautiful polished dark wood, with a large landing in the middle where it turned 180 degrees. On that landing was a glass fronted case containing my aunt's collection of dolls from all over the world, gifts from a family friend. I was also the only one of the children allowed to sit on the landing and look at the dolls.</span></span></div>
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<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="29qhp-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="29qhp-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="29qhp-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
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<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="2f5tp-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2f5tp-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="2f5tp-0-0"><span data-text="true">I loved the house. And over the years, even after Uncle Neil Stryker died and Aunt Petie moved in with my Uncle Dick and Aunt Shirley, certain details of the house remained absolutely crystal clear in my memory, as clear as the crystal knobs on the interior doors in the house. I remembered the very modern chrome and glass end tables in the living room, the dining room, the closed-in back porch where we kids played, the white painted brick fireplace with its never burned white birch logs. The back yard with all the tulips -- the Strykers were Dutch and the yard had hundreds of tulips -- and the kind of creepy basement, too, all stuck in my memory.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="2f5tp-0-0"><span data-text="true"> </span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjETsrOQIgsVjyW5vYhR1UHqItXIH3rg8Fmv8PIrbVjXCoc_th8S4s1MqER_r7cUKtqARirItO__J1ecd11cia8bI_hc_t3_LkYE1yMlg7-itH47KSD_pGZrZgZq3YizGhl9OBgwxIDIbY/s1600/Linda+and+Bee+in+Tulips+Summer+1951.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjETsrOQIgsVjyW5vYhR1UHqItXIH3rg8Fmv8PIrbVjXCoc_th8S4s1MqER_r7cUKtqARirItO__J1ecd11cia8bI_hc_t3_LkYE1yMlg7-itH47KSD_pGZrZgZq3YizGhl9OBgwxIDIbY/s320/Linda+and+Bee+in+Tulips+Summer+1951.jpg" width="312" /></a></div>
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<span data-offset-key="2f5tp-0-0"><span data-text="true"> </span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="2f5tp-0-0"><span data-text="true"> </span></span></div>
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</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="eemd4-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="eemd4-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="eemd4-0-0"><span data-text="true">There was another creepy thing about the house.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="u8ii-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="u8ii-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="u8ii-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="37gq-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="37gq-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="37gq-0-0"><span data-text="true">During the Depression, Cornelius Stryker worked as a window dresser for some of the department stores in downtown Chicago, and he supplemented his income by making plaster of Paris figurines which he then painted and sold. I still have a set of five little puppies that my aunt gave me after he had passed away. But one thing that he had made scared the crap out of me. It was a head, maybe of a person or maybe of a frog or maybe of something in between, and it was painted green and it had its mouth wide open. The inside of the mouth was painted red. The whole thing was about as big as the palm of your hand. It was used to hold a pot scrubber, such as an SOS pad or whatever, and it sat on the counter in the kitchen, and I was terrified of it. Absolutely terrified. I can still see that thing in my mind's eye, creepy as hell.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="9j8r5-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="9j8r5-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="9j8r5-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="7egdc-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="7egdc-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="7egdc-0-0"><span data-text="true">I have other memories of the house that may not be quite as clear or may not even be memories so much as they are products of my imagination.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="9ncae-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="9ncae-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="9ncae-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="apr87-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="apr87-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="apr87-0-0"><span data-text="true">On the other side of the kitchen from the counter where the plaster thing was, I recall a little breakfast nook, pretty much like a booth in a restaurant. The two benches and the table were painted bright red enamel, and there was a window overlooking the back yard and garden. That window faced east, and to block the morning sun at breakfast time, there was an ordinary pull-down window shade. The pull on the shade was a little red plastic charm of tulips growing in a wooden shoe. I have no idea why I was so fascinated by that red plastic shade pull, but I was, and I remembered it with absolute clarity.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="6ctn7-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="6ctn7-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="6ctn7-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="28q83-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="28q83-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="28q83-0-0"><span data-text="true">As I said, Uncle Neil died in the mid-1950s, and Aunt Petie sold the house in Edison Park and moved in with Uncle Dick and Aunt Shirley and Connie, somewhere around 1957.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="4mfnl-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4mfnl-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="4mfnl-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="4q98v-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4q98v-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="4q98v-0-0"><span data-text="true">Fast forward 40 years or so, to 1997. My career writing historical romances was in the process of dying, but I am a compulsive writer, as you may have noticed, and so I kept on even though I knew I would never publish anything again. I got an idea for a contemporary gothic -- similar to what Barbara Michaels wrote -- involving a house modeled on. but for various reasons not identical to, the Stryker house. As I began to write it, the details I remembered about the actual house came more and more and more into play. I hadn't originally intended to be quite so exact, but it seemed as if my subconscious was writing <b>parts of </b>the story around <b>some of </b>those details.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="crekr-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="crekr-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="crekr-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="fnmc1-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fnmc1-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="fnmc1-0-0"><span data-text="true">Unfortunately, there were certain things I didn't remember. I thought I'd just write around them, or make up something, but nothing fit right. So one Saturday, I called my aunt to see if she could refresh my memory. She had, after all, grown up in the house.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="5uf7q-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5uf7q-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="5uf7q-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="2504n-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2504n-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="2504n-0-0"><span data-text="true">This was in the days -- 1997 -- when long distance calls still cost some real cash, so it was quite an investment for me to call from Arizona to Illinois, but we had a long and delightful conversation. She was pretty surprised at how much detail I did remember, especially the crystal door knobs, the evil grinning scrubbie holder, and the plastic shade pull. She offered to draw me a floor plan and send it to me, so I'd have the details of the layout, in particular of the second floor, since I had never been up there very much. (Only the bathroom!) The floor plan diagram arrived a couple weeks later, along with a most truly bizarre extra.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="97a8g-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="97a8g-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="97a8g-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="d4jcq-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="d4jcq-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="d4jcq-0-0"><span data-text="true">To my surprise, the floor plan did not include the breakfast nook that I remembered so vividly, but, well, I apparently misremembered. To this day I don't know where that pseudo-memory came from.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="57nmc-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="57nmc-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="57nmc-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="d4pdg-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="d4pdg-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="d4pdg-0-0"><span data-text="true">I continued to work on the novel, incorporating some of the details she had told me about, but 1997 was a traumatic year for me for a wide variety of reasons. It was also a financially troubling year, more so even than all the other financially troubling years I'd been through. In 1998 I put virtually all my fiction writing aside and made the bizarre decision to return to college; I got my BA in 2000, then stuck around for a master's in 2003. Those five years were filled with more trauma, emotional as well as financial, but I got through it. Just when things should have been leveling off, my husband was diagnosed with lung cancer, and died 10 weeks later in 2005.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="f44qh-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="f44qh-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="f44qh-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="79hgr-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="79hgr-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="79hgr-0-0"><span data-text="true">I've dabbled with fiction through all this, but haven't really done much. I have gazillions of files on the computer, plus notes and sketches written longhand and filling a fat folder in the file cabinet. Every once in a while I get the folder out and transcribe some of those notes in an attempt to put everything in digital format, but I usually get discouraged and quit.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="5q699-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5q699-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="5q699-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="dlucc-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="dlucc-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="dlucc-0-0"><span data-text="true">Several years ago, I picked up that particular novel and thought I'd work on it again. Self-publishing via Amazon's Kindle had given me the opportunity to put some of my historical romances out there again, and I thought it would also allow me to bypass all the trauma of dealing with editors and agents and the attendant bullshit, and I figured what the heck. I hit up good ol' Google to see if I could get some exterior pictures of the real house just for inspiration, and as luck -- or omens? -- would have it, the house happened to be for sale at the time. One of the real estate sites, Trulia or Zillow or whatever, had a whole portfolio of interior pictures as well, and I greedily gobbled them up and tucked them in the digital file folder. One of those photos was of the kitchen counter, exactly as I remembered it except for the grinning mouth figurine. The breakfast nook with its window and shade and plastic tulips was nowhere to be found. </span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="14fqs-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="14fqs-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="14fqs-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="cqa1-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="cqa1-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="cqa1-0-0"><span data-text="true">But alas, for whatever reasons I never went any further than collecting the photos. The book itself continued to languish.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="a4ag1-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="a4ag1-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="a4ag1-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="ea7fr-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ea7fr-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="ea7fr-0-0"><span data-text="true">Until this past April.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="fih5e-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fih5e-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="fih5e-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="5nvjb-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5nvjb-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="5nvjb-0-0"><span data-text="true">The article about the Toronto house, frozen in time, brought all of that back, for some reason or other. Maybe it wouldn't have except for the fact that my daughter in New Jersey bought a house last summer that in many ways resembles the interior of the Toronto house. There's a lot of pink in Rachel's house, a lot of decor left from the 60s and 70s which the original owner from whom they bought it never changed. Ultimately, though, those subconscious connections all led back to Aunt Petie's house in Edison Park and the gothic novel I had started 20 years ago.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="ef556-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ef556-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="ef556-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="btf7e-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="btf7e-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="btf7e-0-0"><span data-text="true">Again, I do not believe in omens, just odd coincidences. But maybe that's what it took to start me writing again, writing on that particular novel, writing until 1:00 a.m. and then dredging up the original text files -- still dated 1997 -- and going back to work on it. </span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="6jhdm-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="6jhdm-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="6jhdm-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="c5u1n-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="c5u1n-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="c5u1n-0-0"><span data-text="true">Because there was that little bonus gift, that bizarre little extra in the envelope Aunt Shirley sent me back in 1997. </span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="5r4vq-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5r4vq-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="5r4vq-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="26kfh-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="26kfh-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="26kfh-0-0"><span data-text="true">She told me that the house had been sold again a few years before our conversation, and somehow the new owners had contacted her to try to put everything back the way it was structurally at least when Neil Stryker built it. So the white paint had been removed from the red brick fireplace and the chimney opened to make it functional again, and the two stained glass windows that flanked the chimney had been uncovered. (They were boarded up sometime in the 40s; I never knew they were there.) The original kitchen cabinets had never been changed, though the blue bathroom was gone and there had been other alterations over the years.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="4c4q3-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4c4q3-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="4c4q3-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="7o8fe-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="7o8fe-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="7o8fe-0-0"><span data-text="true">As far as I know, she never went in the house again after our conversation, but I don't know that for sure. Still, 1997 was 40 years after her mother had moved out, and insignificant little things don't usually last 40 years.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="aadqk-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="aadqk-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="aadqk-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="9au96-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="9au96-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="9au96-0-0"><span data-text="true">What she had included as a gift with her drawing of the floor plan was the red plastic shade pull from the kitchen nook window. There was no way she could have known in 1956 or 1957, when the house was sold, that such a tiny thing would have any meaning to me at all. Maybe it did to her as well; I don't know. But why, of all the things in the house, did she still have THAT? And why, of all the things in the house, did I remember THAT??</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="66vof-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="66vof-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="66vof-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdagid8Fmdo3ZmVOIjZC1IXtfTYoWr1ej65hg7I_a_Bu8qseKrwXzGayHHJWGe0c5tGo0zq8nzFcUhhvXvk6obKstCUnvjqrYeCXW1ET1d7X2IynnN0_M3eYzUMMI3IDhmADkpaVndT80/s1600/2016+Shirley+floor+plan+with+shade+pull+005.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdagid8Fmdo3ZmVOIjZC1IXtfTYoWr1ej65hg7I_a_Bu8qseKrwXzGayHHJWGe0c5tGo0zq8nzFcUhhvXvk6obKstCUnvjqrYeCXW1ET1d7X2IynnN0_M3eYzUMMI3IDhmADkpaVndT80/s320/2016+Shirley+floor+plan+with+shade+pull+005.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="66vof-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="66vof-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="66vof-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="66vof-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="2eebm-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2eebm-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="2eebm-0-0"><span data-text="true">That first night last April -- it must have been the 25th -- I wrote about 1000 words on the book, and the following evening I compiled all the separate chapter files into one document on the computer. It desperately needed proofreading and there were other details that needed to be fixed. The whole timeline had to be brought forward 20 years, and the technology as well.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="19alv-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="19alv-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="19alv-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="6jq5h-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="6jq5h-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="6jq5h-0-0"><span data-text="true">But I was amazed as I skimmed through a brief synopsis I'd written that there were certain very creepy details, things that I had planted in the plot of the novel that foreshadowed events in my own real life over the course of the subsequent 20 years. I've wanted to go back to writing -- gee, can you tell? -- for a long time, but life seems always to intervene. I'm not at a point where I can financially devote myself to it fully, but my anger and frustration over certain other things need an outlet. </span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="5g6mg-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5g6mg-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="5g6mg-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="4h402-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4h402-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="4h402-0-0"><span data-text="true">And the little plastic shade pull with the tulips and wooden shoes was still in the file cabinet, along with the floor plan of the house in Edison Park.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="fva7i-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fva7i-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="fva7i-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="a101f-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="a101f-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="a101f-0-0"><span data-text="true">I honestly didn't expect anything to come of it. But night after night, morning after morning, afternoon after afternoon, I continued to add words to it. What began as something like 13 chapters and 44,000 words grew, and grew, and grew. I hit horrible snags in the plot that I thought would put an end to the thing, but somehow they seemed to get worked out. A subplot that I was very fond of couldn't get itself resolved because it meant veering off from the main thread, so I made the painful decision to just do away with it.</span></span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="a101f-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="a101f-0-0"><span data-text="true"> </span></span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="a101f-0-0">
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="e5orn-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="e5orn-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="e5orn-0-0"><span data-text="true">The
fictional location is not, of course, Edison Park. And I've made some
major alterations to the floor plan of Aunt Shirley's house to better
fit the story. None of the characters are based on anyone I actually
know.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="81p5-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="81p5-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="81p5-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="9i41s-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="bc6ca-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="bc6ca-0-0"><span data-text="true">I
haven't decided on the title. It has always had a working title, and I
happen to like that title very much, but it may be too much of a
spoiler, and I'm not sure if it will be commercially viable. There's
plenty of time to worry about that, however, while I do the editing and rewriting needed for a project that went on hiatus for 20 years. And I have to find cover art, one of the tasks a self-publishing author has to take over from the vampire publishers. (Can you tell I don't like them?)</span></span></div>
</div>
<span data-offset-key="a101f-0-0"><span data-text="true"> </span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="ga7m-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ga7m-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="ga7m-0-0"></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="d7hf7-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="d7hf7-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="d7hf7-0-0"><span data-text="true">When I hit 100,000 words, I could hardly believe it. My first complete novel, written when I was 15, ran to about 115,000 so it wasn't the raw number that surprised me. It was that after all these years I had stuck with it that far. I honestly thought I had lost my touch, that I was too old, that my other books had been flukes.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="fmejr-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fmejr-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="fmejr-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="7pjrc-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="7pjrc-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="7pjrc-0-0"><span data-text="true">A couple days ago, I hit another snag, one that was looming as insurmountable. I didn't want to take a day off from it, because I literally had written every single day since the bug bit me. Most days I added around 1,000 words, but sometimes it was over 2,000. And it was so much damn fun. So I made myself write, made myself think, made myself create, and the block passed and I got through the insurmountable problem.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="d057f-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="d057f-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="d057f-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
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<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5n050-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="5n050-0-0"><span data-text="true">By Sunday, 26 June, I was down to the last "action" scene. I had hoped to get through at least half of it that day, maybe finish it the next, then write the mop-up denouement. In the middle of this last scene, my mind went blank. An absolutely crucial detail just plain wasn't there. I was well over 134,000 words by this time and I couldn't believe the final confrontation was going to fall flat.</span></span></div>
</div>
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<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="51i1b-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="51i1b-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="8p97g-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8p97g-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="8p97g-0-0"><span data-text="true">I've always been one of the writers who plots everything out, writes a detailed outline/synopsis to start, and who doesn't like surprises. This book has been a surprise from the very beginning, or at least from its "new" beginning two months ago. The sketch has always been very clear, but details have seemed to fall into place on their own. So why was this one detail not showing up?</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="9t1ur-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="9t1ur-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="9t1ur-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="7a5nm-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="7a5nm-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="7a5nm-0-0"><span data-text="true">I don't know. I don't know where it was or where it came from, but it finally made an appearance and made everything make sense. </span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="3c674-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3c674-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="3c674-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="5971u-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5971u-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="5971u-0-0"><span data-text="true">It doesn't have to be perfect, it only has to be finished.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="5m9jm-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5m9jm-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="5m9jm-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="5fc52-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5fc52-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="5fc52-0-0"><span data-text="true">It's far from perfect. In some places it's not even good! And it wasn't really quite finished just because that scene worked out. There were more small revelations to be made, but those were backstory details that had already been worked out. On Monday, 27 June, I finished the last action scene, and on Wednesday, 29 June, I wrote the final lines. There is still a lot of editing to do, but it's finished. It's the first novel I've completed since 1995.</span></span></div>
</div>
<br /><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="f2qbh-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="f2qbh-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="f2qbh-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37uhg" data-offset-key="1tf1b-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="1tf1b-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="1tf1b-0-0"><span data-text="true">And I'm damn fucking proud of myself.</span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4364421159527172241.post-17337757370876301382016-06-30T08:55:00.000-07:002016-06-30T08:55:00.798-07:00Words of Joy -- Cartwheels, Alan Alda, and me<div id="yiv0852464928">
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This blog post was original drafted in February 2015, more than a year ago. I had completely forgotten about it until I logged in this morning to post some actual writing updates, since this is, after all, a blog about writing. I will have another post for tomorrow, but I think this one was just sitting here in draft mode waiting for the proper moment. I'll check the links to make sure they work.<br />
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Life gets in the way. Dreams get put on back burners. And then something happens.<br />
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Something like someone mentioning cartwheels, and my replying that someday I should tell my cartwheel story. And the very next day the whole thing starts into motion. </div>
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It all happened a few weeks ago. I was getting ready to log off the computer when an email popped up, a notification that my daughter in law in Seattle had posted something to Facebook. It turned out to be something innocuous, but when I logged in to Facebook, there was this weird picture
on the right side of my screen, some paid ad or link or whatever. The pic was of Alan Alda from 30-40 years ago, fatigues costume from M*A*S*H. Now, you know how I am about omens, which I don't believe in. But my first thought was, like, is this some stupid non-omen trying to
tell me I need to tell the story of the cartwheels? </div>
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Anyway, here's what happened with the cartwheels, Alan Alda, and me.</div>
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Way
way way back in October of 1968, I was living in a girls' residential
club at 435 W. Surf St. in Chicago. (The building is still there, now
converted to luxury condos.) A group of four or five of us decided to
head downtown one Saturday evening to see a movie. We picked Finian's
Rainbow, with Petula Clark, Fred Astaire, Tommy Steele, etc. I was
wearing a Black Watch plaid kilt (which I still have) and a black V-neck
sweater borrowed from my then boyfriend Randy.</div>
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On the bus going downtown, we chatted about how uptight people could be, in general, and afraid to let go every once in a while.</div>
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Finian's
Rainbow is one of those "feel good" movies, so when we came out of the
theatre on Randolph Street around 11:00, I was feeling very "up." The
sidewalk was crowded with people coming out of and going into the
theatres and other places. I told the other girls I felt so good after
the movie that I could almost do cartwheels down the sidewalk.</div>
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Oh, horrors! They were adamantly against that idea.</div>
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"No, no, no, don't do that. Don't do that! Don't make a spectacle of yourself! <b>Don't embarrass us!</b>"</div>
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That was all the encouragement I needed. I
set my purse on the sidewalk. I did three or four cartwheels down to
the corner, three or four back to where my purse was. The other girls
were mortified. The people around us laughed and a few clapped. On the
bus going back up north to Surf St., I wanted to sing songs from the
movie. We were the only passengers on the bus the whole way, except for
a woman sitting right behind the bus driver who was probably his wife
or mother or some such. No one else sang. I did. The other girls were
furious with me, even when I reminded them of our earlier conversation.</div>
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<br />
Jump forward about ten to 15 years. </div>
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Somewhere
back in the late 1970s or early 1980s, when M*A*S*H was consistently
wiping up Emmy after Emmy, Alan Alda tried his hand at directing and
then at writing. One year he was nominated for an Emmy for writing the
script for an episode. We happened to be watching -- I rarely watched
awards shows but my husband was an addict -- and <b id="yiv0852464928yui_3_16_0_1_1437742295697_134049">as I remembered it, though incorrectly, </b>Carol
Burnett was presenting the award for comedy writing. She opened the
envelope, scanned the name, and burst into hysterical Carol Burnett
laughter. She was barely able to read "And the winner is . . . Alan
Alda." (In fact, according to YouTube, it was Penny Marshall and Cindy
what's her name from Laverne and Shirley who presented. I think there
may have been a later interview or conversation between Burnett and Alda
where he said he had told her what he was going to do.)</div>
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The
camera pans to Alda. He has this huge shit-eating grin on his face.
He bounces up, stops for a second, and<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g0SM20C1oI" target="_blank"> turns a cartwheel, on camera.</a> </div>
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At
that point I was half hysterical, and then I had to tell my husband
about my Randolph Street/Finian's Rainbow cartwheels. He just rolled
his eyes.</div>
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Fast
forward again, now to early May 1998. I was going through some severe
emotional crises at the time and had been stabbed in the back by some
people I thought were my dearest friends. My editor at Pocket Books had
destroyed my writing career and I was on the verge of total meltdown. I
had gone to a writers' conference -- which in fact I had organized --
where just everything that could go wrong had done so, and in terms of
my writing and my career and my personal life, I was getting nothing but
horrible advice -- shut up, don't complain, don't stand up for
yourself, do whatever it takes to get along even if it means sacrificing
ALL your creative integrity. I was emotionally devastated. Even being
in the Crowne Plaza in NYC and getting all the perks of being the
organization's president and conference chair didn't help.</div>
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From my journal, at the time:</div>
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<i id="yiv0852464928yui_3_16_0_1_1437742295697_133874">Sunday, 3 May 1998 (Morning entry)<br class="yiv0852464928" id="yiv0852464928yui_3_16_0_1_1437742295697_133800" />
A strange evening last night, and now awake at 5:15 to a foggy
Manhattan morning. I was up here reading through the old letters
yesterday evening when T*** called and asked if I wanted to go out to
dinner with H***** L****. It would have been rude to decline even
though I couldn't really afford it. So we went out, to a nice little
restaurant a half block from the hotel. H***** is very much into horse
racing, so we had an interesting little talk about Arlington Park and
horses and Round Table, of all things. I indulged myself with an
amaretto. After dinner – I loosened up a little, but I'm still very
furious at both T*** and K**** – we came back to the hotel and chatted
with P** K**, B**** D****, B**** [H****], M******* B*******, C******
K*********, etc. Somehow the subject came up and I told the little
story of my cartwheels down Randolph Street in 1968. Everyone thought
it was funny. Then someone mentioned tarot, so I came up to the room to
get my deck. While waiting for the elevator, I tried a cartwheel in
the hall. Once downstairs, in the lobby, in red skirt and red silk
blouse, sans brassiere, barefoot, I did two very nice cartwheels. </i><br />
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Everyone
of course was scandalized and humiliated, though the swanky wedding
party going into their reception in one of the ballrooms off the lobby
thought it was terrific and applauded.</div>
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<br />
I
continued to turn cartwheels every once in a while, usually in defiance
of something or other. In the lobby at Walmart when I worked there and
someone didn't believe I could do them. In the parking lot at another
job in 2005. At my 40th class reunion in 2006. I'm not sure if I've
done any since then, but I probably could. It's not like you forget how
to do cartwheels.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4364421159527172241.post-59953641879381988302015-02-12T09:27:00.000-08:002015-02-12T09:27:38.243-08:00Separation of words and selfThe past several weeks have been rather, shall we say, challenging for me, which is why I haven't kept this blog up quite as regularly as I would have liked. Two separate writing projects have demanded my time and concentration, as well as other aspects of real life. Right now, however, I am facing the prospect of about a week tending a dog recuperating from surgery, so I'll probably have a lot of time at the desk and computer to catch up on some of the blogging.<br />
<br />
One of the issues that's been brought home to me in some rather startling ways is this whole issue of writers wailing that their books are their babies. They seem to use this claim as a justification for both outrage over negative book reviews and outright attacks (usually verbal rather than physical) on the reviewers. <br />
<br />
This is not a new phenomenon. Writers have been dissing critics just about as long as there have been writers and critics. My own experience goes back just around 30 years to my early days in Romance Writers of America and judging RWA contest entries. In face-to-face critique groups and online groups, along with one-on-one evaluations, responses to criticism ranged from "You're right; I need to fix that" to "It's my book and I'll write it the way I want to! Who are you to tell me how to write <strong>my</strong> book?"<br />
<br />
After this more recent brouhaha over critical reviews which escalated to the point of reviewers receiving death threats, I wondered what is it that makes some writers react to criticism of their writing with such intensely personal outrage. The reviewers don't know the writers; all they're doing is commenting on their reaction to <em>the book</em>. And yet the writers take it so very personally. Why?<br />
<br />
I'm not sure why I happened to think of my old writing buddy EK last night, but I did, and I began to see a connection between her reaction to criticism 20 years ago and this current wave of battered egos.<br />
<br />
EK was in her early 60s when I met her, a delightful, cheerful woman with an infectious laugh and a constant smile. Nothing about her demeanor suggested she had been through some very, very hard times. Her first husband had deserted her with two small children; she had at one point lived with the children in the basement of an abandoned church. Her second husband was abusive, and in and out of jail for various not-so-petty crimes. After two more children she divorced him, but he hounded her for years and years afterward. He broke into her home, stole from her, made so much trouble that she was evicted from several apartments. The problems with him only stopped when he beat her so badly -- because she didn't have any cash in her home for him to steal -- that she ended up in the hospital and he ended up in jail for a much longer stretch.<br />
<br />
She had lived in or near poverty most of her life, unable to hold a job very long because of the issues in her personal life. One child died of AIDS in the early days of the epidemic; another disappeared into the streets. There had been other, serious problems, the kind none of us wants to have even one of but EK had several.<br />
<br />
Two other writers and I had formed a critique group, and when EK asked to join we welcomed her. At our first meeting she described her work-in-progress as a contemporary romance featuring a high school math teacher recovering from a bitter divorce and a firefighter who had just lost his young wife to cancer. Given that this was the late 1980s, EK's characters were way ahead of their time in terms of the contemporary romance market. The rest of us warned her about this, but she insisted this was the story she wanted to write, and these were the characters she wanted to write about. Okay, fine.<br />
<br />
The book began with a Prologue that provided almost all the backstory for both characters in a classic "Write Chapter 1, write Chapter 2, throw away Chapter 1" fashion. EK politely accepted our suggestions that she weave backstory into the narrative, but continued to insist it was her story and she would tell it her way. <br />
<br />
At our next meeting, we critiqued her Chapter 1 (which was effectively her second chapter), which served to introduce the firefighter hero character. Though it was competently written for the most part, we three readers found some continuity and consistency flaws and a few other mistakes. EK graciously and sometimes self-deprecatingly agreed with almost all of our assessments and said she would fix the errors. My personal feeling was that she had a workable story in process, and if she continued to accept advice as well as she had, she would probably end up incorporating her prologue's info-dumpy contents into the story and ditching the Prologue to produce a viable book manuscript.<br />
<br />
Our third meeting should have brought us to Chapter 2, but instead EK brought her revised Chapter 1. She had reworked the sections where we had found problems, and she had made some other revisions and additions. The new material revealed some other errors and weaknesses; she didn't argue with our comments and agreed these things needed to be fixed. We specifically told her to let them go for the time being and bring us the next chapter.<br />
<br />
She didn't. She brought yet another revision of Chapter 1. When we asked her why she hadn't brought the next chapter, she explained that she hadn't written it yet. "I have to have this chapter absolutely perfect," she said, "before I go on. This character is my hero, <em>my</em> hero, and to tell the truth I'm reluctant to share him even with the other main character in the story."<br />
<br />
At the time, we all kind of laughed and teased her about falling in love with her own fictional creation, but as a few more meetings went by, she brought only the first few pages of Chapter 2 along with more revisions, more additions to Chapter 1. It became clear that EK really had fallen in love with this fictional firefighter, and she wasn't about to share him.<br />
<br />
For a variety of reasons that had nothing to do with EK and her book boyfriend, the critique group dissolved after about five months. I stayed in contact with both EK and one of the other members for a long time afterward, long enough to learn that EK never did write any more on her book. The other writer, who went on to be traditionally published, and I agreed that EK really wasn't writing for publication. She was writing to create the kind of man and the kind of romance she had never had in real life. <br />
<br />
We further agreed that there was nothing wrong with this. If EK had been pushed to finish her book, if she had found a publisher for it, she would have had to share her hero; and sharing him would have broken her heart. She wasn't writing for <em>readers</em>, she was writing for herself. <br />
<br />
In at least one of the recent explosions of writer over-reaction to negative reviews, the writer had made it abundantly clear that she was writing the kind of story she loved. As in EK's case, there's nothing wrong with that. <br />
<br />
What seems to be more and more apparent in each of these emotional outbursts in response to negative criticism of the writing is that the writers are equating that criticism to attacks upon themselves. They claim, sometimes in explicit language, that their books are their babies and criticism of the book is therefore a personal affront. <br />
<br />
They claim that they don't mind low ratings (1- or 2-star ratings) or negative reviews, provided the review is constructive, is kind, is helpful. Again, they want the review directed toward them, as the writers, not toward the readers for whom the review is intended.<br />
<br />
Which all makes me wonder if in fact the writers were never writing for readers in the first place. They were writing for themselves, with really no thought to the fact that other people would be reading, people who did not have the same passion <em>for that particular book</em> that the writer had. Unable to separate themselves from their stories, the writers are unable to put themselves in the position of "mere" reader.<br />
<br />
Very often there are other specific details about the writer's experience that raise some red caution flags. <br />
<br />
The writer who over-reacts to negative reviews often has a group of fellow writers for mutual support. Most of them will have very little if any experience or knowledge of the writing/publishing business. They are writing books based on personal experience or personal passion with the intent of sharing the writing as a direct extension of the self. There is much less emphasis placed on how the resultant work will effect or impact or be received by the reader, and more emphasis placed on the personal expression of the experience or passion. In other words, the writing is writer-centered rather than reader-centered.<br />
<br />
The group is not, in fact, a critique group directing its attention to the writing, but a support group directing its effort toward the writer. The writer is encouraged to write, but the writing itself is not critiqued. Or if it is, the critique is more encouraging than critical.<br />
<br />
Even after the writer has self-published the book, there is an entire community of writers who refuse to offer critical reviews <em>because of their identification with the writer</em>. They admit they do not want to hurt the writer's feelings. They refuse to leave a negative review or low rating because to do so would be to minimize the effort the writer put into the product. They defend other writers, even when the writing is shown to be objectively sub-standard, and admit they fear retaliation if they even point out mistakes. In some cases, these writers' works exhibit the same mistakes, suggesting they themselves are not qualified to provide the kind of writing-criticism the original writer needs <em>if she wants to write for readers.</em><br />
<br />
It's easy to make the leap from this to speculate that many of these hyper-sensitive writers have never been voracious readers. They don't exhibit any kind of empathy with readers, but only with writers. They seem unable to recognize the writing flaws that distinguish their writing from "good" writing, or at least writing that fits the standards generally accepted for successful popular fiction and non-fiction. Even when they do admit, however reluctantly, that their writing mechanics may fall short, they offer a common set of excuses and/or justifications: They can't afford an editor, or the reader shouldn't complain about a free/inexpensive book, or the writer is a beginner and shouldn't be held to the same standard as professionals. Again, the writer and her feelings always have priority over the quality of the product and the reader's expectations of it.<br />
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Anyone who disagrees with them is a bully, trying to kill their book and their writing career. I'm not sure, at this point, that most of those writers ever really contemplated a writing career. They have exhibited little to no professionalism in the production of their books that would indicate they've studied how to write and how to publish. Instead, they have simply poured their "heart and soul" into words on electronic paper and uploaded them. That's not a career any more than my buying a set of golf clubs would make me a professional golfer.<br />
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A common response to these meltdowns is that the writers need to develop thicker skins, and I've certainly expressed that feeling often enough myself. After some of the most recent events, however, I'm beginning to think that's the wrong advice, simply because for these writers, growing a thicker skin is simply not possible. Their books were really never intended to be shared with a wider audience than friends and family and supporters who would be encouraging and uncritical. Their books really are their babies, part of themselves, created for themselves, even if the writers insist otherwise. There's no indication that the writers did any kind of research to make sure they were producing a work that would be well-received by the reading public. There are many more indications that they were simply writing for their own enjoyment.<br />
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And again, there's nothing wrong with this. The problem arises when the writers forget -- and perhaps they never knew -- that when one writes for other people's enjoyment, one has to take their considerations and expectations <em>first</em>, not last.<br />
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Those of us who are avid readers long before we are compulsive writers know almost viscerally that books are not their writers. Books are a creative product put into a public marketplace for consumption, discussion, comparison, and review, quite separate from their creators. The conversations we readers have with each other about those books that fall short of our expectations as readers are not about the writers -- unless and until the writer inserts herself confrontationally into that conversation.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4364421159527172241.post-21533013568044991022014-12-18T19:10:00.000-08:002014-12-18T19:10:02.524-08:00Part 1: The price of buying -- and selling -- wordsThis is going to be a very long work in progress. Rather than wait until I have the whole thing written, I'm going to post each part as it's completed and then post updates and/or corrections as needed.<br />
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The quick background is this: Effective 1 January 2015, the European Union ("EU") will require all sellers of digital media to include Value Added Tax ("VAT") in the listed prices of the item being sold, to collect the VAT from the buyer, and to remit the VAT collected to the appropriate authority. This requirement has been public knowledge for at least six months as of this date (18 December 2014) and some sellers of digital media have taken steps to comply. Others have not. Others are trying to but cannot. There appears to be a huge amount of misinformation, misunderstanding, ignorance, and, well, a lot of other stuff.<br />
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I don't have all the answers, and don't claim to. I'm just trying to ask the questions and put whatever information I find into some coherent order.<br />
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The concept of VAT has been around for quite a while. It functions as a national sales tax for some 28 European countries, and ranges from a low of 3% to a high of 27%. Much like state, county, and local sales taxes in the U.S., VAT is imposed on the buyer of <strong>physical</strong> merchandise at the time of purchase. The merchant collects the tax <strong>at the rate imposed on the location where the purchase is made</strong> and then remits the monies to the appropriate authorities. The purchaser may be from another country (or state, county, or city) where the rate is different -- higher or lower -- but the rate is charged based on where the actual transaction (where the buyer actually takes possession) takes place.<br />
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Unlike U.S. sales taxes, however, the VAT is included ("VAT inclusive") in the advertised price. Assuming a 20% VAT rate for the United Kingdom, an item with a price of £5.00 would be displayed/advertised/<strong>listed</strong> at £6.00. The customer thus knows up front what the total price is.<br />
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With physical goods, this isn't difficult to understand. VAT being a national tax, even such things as printed books could (but in actuality may not) carry the correct VAT-inclusive price printed right on them. Merchants collect the taxes at the time of the sale and then later report and pay them.<br />
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The U.S. having so many different taxing authorities -- state, county, city -- as well as various exemptions within those authorities, sales taxes are calculated after all the retail prices are added up. Again, the merchants collect the taxes and remit them to the appropriate authorities. Large retail merchants who sell a variety of goods at various tax rates have much of the complicated calculations programmed into their scanners and cash registers. Smaller merchants who only sell one category of merchandise are permitted to calculate manually; in some jurisdictions they may even be allowed to calculate tax as a percentage of the list price paid rather than adding it to the list price.<br />
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You may think I'm writing this on the wrong blog and that this applies more to selling my arts and crafts than to writing books. In fact, this has everything to do with books, and almost nothing to do with selling jewelry or wooden bowls at an art show. Well, almost nothing. We'll get to that later.<br />
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What worked for physical commodities sold in physical stores/locations was one thing. Online selling of physical merchandise posed a different scenario. In the U.S. as well as the EU, application of taxes to physical goods that were ordered online and delivered from one taxing location to another required some new requirements and strategies as well as implementation procedures. In some cases it works, and in some it doesn't.<br />
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Digital distribution of digital products across jurisdictional boundaries was a bit trickier, for a variety of reasons. The most obvious issue was that since there was no physical object being transferred, there was no physical point at which the taxing authority could intercept a package and demand payment (or evidence of prior payment) of taxes before turning the merchandise over to the purchaser.<br />
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Digital downloading via the Internet also meant that buyers and sellers could be in different states, even different countries. Which taxing authorities then applied? What rates? How could the funds be collected and remitted? What currencies would be involved?<br />
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The rapidity with which digital selling of digital products has increased apparently caught the EU taxing authorities sort of flat footed. Especially when digital behemoth -- and infamous tax avoider -- Amazon got involved.<br />
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For one thing, the EU were upset that Amazon was taking over retail markets of physical goods and not paying any VAT at all, nor was Amazon paying any corporate taxes. While various negotiations were taking place to rectify those situations, the EU took steps to begin collecting VAT on one market where Amazon had a very visible market dominance: ebooks.<br />
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The EU, in order to capture revenue from huge digital sellers <strong>and Amazon in particular</strong>, declared that VAT on digital media would be assessed based on the location of the seller. Amazon then chose to set their EU location as Luxembourg (<a href="http://www.thebookseller.com/news/eu-lines-e-book-vat-debate" target="_blank">so did Nook and Kobo</a>) whose VAT rate on ebooks is 3%, even though <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-137_en.htm" target="_blank">such a low VAT rate apparently contravened EU directives</a>. (France's rate of 5.5% on ebooks has also been deemed in violation.)<br />
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Effective 1 January 2015, that will no longer be the case. Because of the amount of VAT funds being lost, the European Commission has stated that sales of digital products -- electronic books, crochet and knitting patterns, music recordings, digital training materials, etc. -- will have to be taxed <strong>by the seller</strong> but the rate will be based on the <strong>purchaser's home location, </strong>or at least the IP registered location of the computer or ereader device to which the file is downloaded. This is similar to how U.S. sales taxes have generally been assessed on physical goods: It's not the point of sale that matters; it's the point of purchase. As online purchases of physical goods have increased, many taxing authorities (usually the individual states) have implemented measures by which sales taxes can be collected based on the buyer's location, especially if the seller has any physical presence in that particular state. But again, it all depends on the taxing authority. They're the collectors; they set the rules. (Enforcing them may be a different matter. We'll save that for another post, I think,)<br />
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There are several stipulations involved in all this beyond just the assessing, collecting, and remitting of the tax itself.<br />
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<li>The listed price posted by the digital seller must <strong>include</strong> the specific VAT amount for the prospective purchaser and that VAT-inclusive price must be posted prior to any sale. The VAT amount can't be tacked on afterward the way sales taxes in the U.S. are.</li>
<li>The seller must be registered with the EU and each member state (there are 28) in order to collect and remit the funds. (There are some procedures in place for "one stop shopping" programs to allow digital merchants to remit VAT monies to just one location, which will then distribute according to the merchant's tax return.)</li>
<li>Returns must be filed quarterly to those 28 member states.</li>
<li>Records identifying each and every purchaser's location via IP as well as corroborating indentification evidence must be kept a minimum of 10 years and it must be stored on a server in the EU for auditing purposes. </li>
<li>Sellers' records must be auditable.</li>
<li>And so on.</li>
</ol>
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Amazon is complying with the order, albeit imperfectly. Some<a href="https://www.etsy.com/teams/7718/questions/discuss/15628360/page/1" target="_blank"> other distributors</a> of digital publications are not.<br />
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Amazon's fix is not, as I said, perfect, and that lack of perfection will have a direct and potentially serious impact on the digital self-publishing author.<br />
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Digital publication has allowed author-publishers to put their <strong>digital </strong>products online via a single distributor and then sell virtually anywhere in the world. Amazon's Kindle dominates the ebook market. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/oct/21/amazon-forces-publishers-pay-vat-ebook#comment-18993668" target="_blank">One report</a> suggested that 9 out of every 10 ebooks purchased in the UK came from Amazon. But Amazon isn't alone. There are other ebook distributors such as Smashwords, Nook, and Kobo, but there are also craft-oriented sites such as Etsy.com that allow "shop" owners to upload and sell digital files such as knitting patterns and downloadable graphics files. The files are held on the website's servers -- not the seller's -- and downloaded automatically upon payment, usually through PayPal or another automated payment platform. The EU and the UK's taxing authority HMRC have stated that such platforms constitute "3rd party" sellers who are liable, as is Amazon, for the collection and remittance of the taxes as well as the recordkeeping. I'll get to the details of that distinction in a subsequent post, but I wanted you readers to know that Amazon isn't alone.<br />
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But getting back to ebooks in the EU. The VAT rates on ebooks in the European Union range from 3% (Luxembourg) to 27% (Hungary). <a href="http://www.vatlive.com/vat-rates/european-vat-rates/eu-vat-rates/" target="_blank">There are 28 taxing bodies</a>. (Because most of those member states have more than one rate, there are actually the possibilities for 75 or so different rates on various products, but this post is only concerned with ebooks.)<br />
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Let me reiterate part of this: The law that is slated to go into effect on 1 January 2015 (two weeks from today) includes the stipulation that each digital product be priced to <strong>include<em> </em></strong>the appropriate VAT amount. Thus, to use one example, a digital book priced by the publisher/author at £5.00 in the U.K. would have to be <strong>listed</strong> at £6.00 to cover the 20% VAT rate. Amazon has its amazon.co.uk website, so the Kindle edition of the book would appear there at £6.00. Amazon would collect that amount, remit the £1.00 VAT to the taxing authority (HMRC), and <strong>pay the author's royalties based on the selling price of £5.00, which the publisher/author set</strong>.<br />
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In the event, however, that a copy of the book is purchased from the amazon.co.uk site by a customer in Ireland, the numbers change. The Republic of Ireland has a VAT rate of 23%, which on that book would be £1.15. Since <strong>there is no separate Kindle pricing available for Ireland</strong>, the Irish VAT would be assessed and paid out of the posted price of £6.00, but now the publisher/author's selling price is docked to cover the shortfall, and subsequently her royalty from Amazon is based on £4.85. In effect, the author in the U.S. has subsidized the higher Irish VAT rate. The author can set a higher price, of course, to cover the Irish VAT, but that means the UK buyers will also be paying the higher price, too, and higher than they really need to. Amazon will essentially split the difference with the publisher/author.<br />
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Amazon does not provide sufficient information to the publisher/author distinguishing the number of sales to Ireland and the number of sales to the UK. The publisher/author just has to make a guess.<br />
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<em><strong>The VAT was never intended to be paid by the producers of the goods but by the consumers.</strong></em><br />
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Amazon does have a variety of websites for Kindle publishing and publisher/authors are able to set the prices for each of those venues to cover the VAT rates. But those venues do not cover all the taxing situations. Amazon.de would presumably cover the 19% rate for Germany as well as the 20% rate for Austria, since Amazon doesn't have a unique Austrian platform. The publisher/author will have to cover the 1% shortfall.<br />
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No big deal, right?<br />
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But what about situations involving France? Amazon.fr will presumably require ebooks to be priced to include the 5.5% French VAT on ebooks. Can a Kindle buyer from Sweden buy Kindle books from Amazon.fr? If so -- I've searched and haven't been able to find anything definite yet -- who pays the difference between the French 5.5% VAT on ebooks and the Swedish 25%?<br />
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So far, I have not been able to find out if buyers from Sweden even <strong>can</strong> purchase from Amazon.fr, or are they restricted to Amazon.co.uk, or can they buy Kindle books at all?<br />
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If there is a shortfall, even if it's 19.5% between the VAT-inclusive French price and the 25% Swedish VAT rate, how much you wanta bet it's gonna be charged to the publisher/author as a deduction from the selling price of the book, with a resultant diminution of the publisher/author's royalties?<br />
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So far, only France, Luxembourg, and Malta have applied <a href="http://www.vatlive.com/vat-rates/european-vat-rates/eu-vat-rates/" target="_blank">a substantially reduced VAT rate</a> on ebooks. Austria, however, only applies a 10% VAT to physical books and periodicals. Other EU member states also have lower rates on books, magazines, newspapers. Ireland and the UK impose no VAT at all to physical books and periodicals. That reduced rate <strong>does not </strong>apply to digital books and periodicals, per the EU declaration that it's not really clear that digital and print media are equal, the same, equivalent. (They are <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/ebooks" target="_blank">discussing the issue</a>, however.) After all, digital books have linkable indexes and so on. (Never mind that digital books require some kind of digital reading device; physical books don't. Or that digital books cannot be legally resold because they aren't legally "owned." Did you know that? You really don't own any of those Kindle books. All you have is a license to read them. . . .)<br />
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If the Kindle books are sold(sic) and taxed at the rate posted on the Amazon marketplace website but purchased by someone in another country with a different VAT rate, the tax is going to be applied unfairly. Either the publisher/author will have to subsidize the buyer if the posted rate is too low, or other buyers will be paying more than they should.<br />
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There is another effect of this variability in taxation: The publisher/author may take an even greater hit when it comes to royalties because of KDP's two-tiered royalty schedule. That issue is just full of math (or maths) so let's save it for Part 2, shall we?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0