Authors often tell each other: do not read reviews. The reviews that rave about your book go to your head. The reviews that pan your book go straight to your heart. No good comes from either. But author Rona Simmons has another thought. What if we used bad reviews to challenge ourselves? To figure out what works and what doesn’t? What if some of those bad reviews had something valid to say? It’s an interesting thought — and Rona has some great tips and examples below.
Please welcome Rona Simmons back to WFW, and share your thoughts in the comments.
Amy xo
Our Love/Hate Relationship With Books
Can understanding what readers “hate” improve your writing?
by Rona Simmons
Have you ever wondered what it takes for a book to make a best seller list—whether New York Times, Barnes and Noble, or Amazon? I have. I thought an understanding of what sets best sellers apart would lead me to the “secret sauce” that captures readers and keeps them reading to the last word. But, after perusing several best seller lists, I found myself bleary eyed, empty handed, and still searching for the magic ingredient.
Until that moment, I’d given little thought to the other side of the coin. What books do readers dislike and why? Why do they lose interest after reading a few pages or even most of the story? Why do some develop such strong dislike they rush to post a scathing review and anoint the object of their loathing with a devastating, single star?
Did a list of “books readers hate” even exist? It did. In fact, contrary to what I thought, finding one was easy. But once again the lists alone provided little instruction. They included obscure, poorly written works and works forced on readers at an early age. Much like the green peas they had to finish before leaving the dinner table, those readers hated them still.
I returned to the list of best sellers, a new approach in mind.
Insights from “one star” ratings
I paged through one of the best seller’s many reviews, tapping at full click speed. Past the Amazon.com five-star ratings. Past the four star-ratings. Then, at the three stars, my cursor hovered. I read a handful of “it was okay” entries. The samples seemed timid, the readers’ comments too polite or too fearful of expressing an honest opinion. I paged down, going deeper and deeper until my PC binged. I’d hit bottom.
The number of one-star reviews was surprising. The same held true for the next womens fiction title on my list and the one after that. Hundreds of one-star ratings and in one or more instances, thousands, sullied each book’s reputation. Some, to be sure, were hate mail. One writer denigrating another’s work, I asked myself? To what gain, I could not imagine.
After compiling, sorting, grouping, and tallying the comments, I found the reasons for low ratings fell into five groups. In rough order of the number of mentions, they were:
· Characters: one dimensional, stereotypical, or wimpy women, protagonists with whom the reader did not identify, or stories with too many characters to follow
· Plot: unrealistic plots with far too many coincidences, predictable plots, or stories that jumped back and forth in time
· Skill: poor writing, sloppy editing—editing that failed to catch spelling, grammatical, or punctuation errors, anachronisms, unintended repetition, and factual inaccuracies
· Style: most often, the offense was dense writing, prose containing too much description or so much description the story became secondary or even irrelevant
· Series: works failing to meet the standard of earlier works in a series, or works retelling too much from earlier editions
Lessons learned: whatever book I love is on someone else’s hate list
The insights were to some extent merely the inverse of what experts suggest produce a good book. No surprise there. But then, a few titles on the “books we hate” list were books I had read and rated four or five stars. That too should not have surprised me. Like most things in life, I had learned, there are two sides to the coin or story.
Consider the books you’ve lost interest in or left unfinished or, perhaps, rated poorly. What did you find to be the culprit and how can that knowledge improve your writing?
Rona Simmons’ new novel, Postcards from Wonderland, is the story a young woman who comes face-to-face with a Prohibition era mob boss in a fight to save her husband’s dreams, her marriage, and even her own life. The book is due out in March from Deeds Publishing and though she’s waist-deep in promotional activities with the launch, Rona’s already talking about a third novel and looking forward to reading her five star reviews.
A very interesting post, Rona! A thoughtful review might well be one that examines style, POV, time shifts, character development, etc. but at the core of many community reviews seems to be personal taste. As you say, I think we can learn a lot from them. The community is our audience after all and I think it’s very possible to be true to yourself as a writer while making thoughtful changes to gain a wider audience. However, as my sister always reminds me, “you will never please everybody, just stay true to yourself.”
Susan … you are oh so correct, in fact understanding who you are and what your own aspirations are and how you determine success are the key topics in one of my upcoming speaking engagements. I’m glad to know there are others out there who agree. And let me know if you can dig around and find the time to do that deeper dive.
Hi Rona,
I wish it were possible to learn something from one-star reviews but my guess is that would be rarely the case. But if I could know one thing from them, it would be, “Where did our front cover and back cover copy marketing go wrong that you picked it up in the first place?”
Everyone is free, of course, to dislike any of my books for whatever subjective reason. “Liking” is just that—subjective! So the one-star reviews that drive me nuts are the ones that simply say, “Not for me.” If you know darn well it’s not your kind of book, why anoint yourself as its supremely unqualified reviewer?
As a 19-year dance critic—and someone who believes criticism can enlighten and contextualize our arts and create an aura of importance around a work that may be flawed in its execution—it’s hard to accept this Amazon era in which everyone is a critic. What they need to learn is that quite often, whether or not you “liked” a novel is the least interesting thing you can share with the reader of your review, because s/he doesn’t know you. This is especially important for works intended as book club fiction, which are hoped to inspire discussion of important issues and life truths. That one-star basically says, “Enlightenment—meh. Not for me.”
Kathryn, I held out little hope for learning from them as well .. but after reading dozens, no hundreds, for past best selling novels and diving into the details (ignoring those who provided little insight), I did find the small nuggets mentioned in the post.
I’ve encountered a few one-star reviews lately where the readers described feeling like the topic wasn’t meant for the genre: Alzheimer’s shouldn’t be written about in graphic novel form, metal illness shouldn’t be comedy, etc.
The one that bothers me almost to tears are the one-star reviews for books about fat people. Either the readers are sad because the fat people depress them, or readers are angry because the book contained a confident, happy fat character, which readers perceive to mean fat people are in danger because they don’t know they’re unhealthy. Weird stuff out there. Good luck with your promotions, Ms. Simmons!
Grab the lapels.
I’d attribute these comments to people who do not read widely. I, for one, enjoy reading a story told from the viewpoint of a different, atypical, non-stereotype character or in am innovative format or style. Hooray for all the physically and mentally challenged heroes, including those that don’t look like Dick and Jane! Write Sally Write!
I was just looking at book reviews this morning and thinking I get more out of the detailed 2-3 star reviews than anything else. The ones that say general things like “great plot” don’t do anything for the writer or readers. I want to know what the story is about, but more, how it resonated with the reader. Could they relate to the main character? Did the descriptions carry them through time and space to experience life alongside the protagonist? Did their emotions surge during stress and conflict? These are the things I hope to bring to my readers. On a different note, was the story realistic? Was there a character arc? Where there important details that caused confusion when they didn’t relate to the other parts of the story? The review I read this morning of another author’s work, pointed out in detail the things that didn’t work for her in the story. Other reviews complained about the mention of God even though it is categorized as Christian Fiction. I say this only to conclude that you can’t please everyone! I believe that my stories are intended to touch the lives of specific readers. If a review helps me to improve the next story and reach more readers, then I will take the good and the bad. Thanks for bringing this topic to the table and reinforcing my feelings about book reviews 🙂