It took me about 24 hours to get over my shock and hurt at the criticisms leveled at The Alice '65 to reread the comments and realize whoever did the feedback did not read the book. They skimmed it. When you do that, you don't catch a lot of things the writer was aiming for. Things that are there.
Sure, there were the stupid little things they said about the title and whining about the book being dialogue heavy, and that helped me step back and understand one of the issues. This book may be in third person, but it's totally Adam's viewpoint. It's not omniscient; it's one person's POV.
There is nothing in the book that happens that doesn't directly involve Adam in some way. The only way he knows what's going on with Casey and Lando and others is through dialogue and observation. We only have his memories and past experiences, only delve into his mind. To shift into Casey's mind and memories, or Lando's or anyone else's would have broken that focus and made it a totally different book.
So the complaint that I don't explore the other characters is made by ignoring what I'm actually doing -- telling one person's story, not several. If that reader couldn't get into the book and give me feedback based on the book's reality, then they weren't doing their job; they were telling me how they would have written the story...and that's not what this was supposed to be about.
I've had that happen with screenplays. I used to post scripts on Triggerstreet to test them and get feedback, and I found there were occasions someone would come along and tear a script apart because it wasn't written in the way they think it ought to be written...meaning like they would have written it. I ran into that when I uploaded Find Ray T.
I got good response to it. Became one of the Top 5 scripts in ranking. Then a guy did feedback that totally tore the script apart, line by line. I checked out other scripts he'd given feedback on and he'd done the same thing to them...every one. And did he have a script available to read to see why he thought his way was so perfect? No.
I have to be reminded, now and then, that people have different tastes. And while there are people out there who just like to trash other people's work, no matter how good it is, it's also possible the reader had bad enchiladas for lunch or had a fight with their significant other and just wasn't happy about anything. And sometimes the reader just isn't ready in their life to read your work so should hand it off to someone else.
Hell, I didn't like War & Peace the first time I tried to read it, but 10 years later read it and it's one of my favorite books. So I should put a sign over my writing table, reading, So what if they don't like it? What matters is, do you?
And with A65, I do.
Sure, there were the stupid little things they said about the title and whining about the book being dialogue heavy, and that helped me step back and understand one of the issues. This book may be in third person, but it's totally Adam's viewpoint. It's not omniscient; it's one person's POV.
There is nothing in the book that happens that doesn't directly involve Adam in some way. The only way he knows what's going on with Casey and Lando and others is through dialogue and observation. We only have his memories and past experiences, only delve into his mind. To shift into Casey's mind and memories, or Lando's or anyone else's would have broken that focus and made it a totally different book.
So the complaint that I don't explore the other characters is made by ignoring what I'm actually doing -- telling one person's story, not several. If that reader couldn't get into the book and give me feedback based on the book's reality, then they weren't doing their job; they were telling me how they would have written the story...and that's not what this was supposed to be about.
I've had that happen with screenplays. I used to post scripts on Triggerstreet to test them and get feedback, and I found there were occasions someone would come along and tear a script apart because it wasn't written in the way they think it ought to be written...meaning like they would have written it. I ran into that when I uploaded Find Ray T.
I got good response to it. Became one of the Top 5 scripts in ranking. Then a guy did feedback that totally tore the script apart, line by line. I checked out other scripts he'd given feedback on and he'd done the same thing to them...every one. And did he have a script available to read to see why he thought his way was so perfect? No.
I have to be reminded, now and then, that people have different tastes. And while there are people out there who just like to trash other people's work, no matter how good it is, it's also possible the reader had bad enchiladas for lunch or had a fight with their significant other and just wasn't happy about anything. And sometimes the reader just isn't ready in their life to read your work so should hand it off to someone else.
Hell, I didn't like War & Peace the first time I tried to read it, but 10 years later read it and it's one of my favorite books. So I should put a sign over my writing table, reading, So what if they don't like it? What matters is, do you?
And with A65, I do.
No comments:
Post a Comment