That is so very important LeeAnna, Robert and Harper! I'm glad you underlined that point. In my reviews I always call out and applaud the good stuff—and trust me, it's there in just about everyone's writing. In differing degrees and differences of kind, to be sure, but it's there. Anyone who's been writing ten years or more has managed to pick up at least a couple of tricks and core competencies.

A side note to those reviewers who don't do this: What are you thinking? What do you imagine your job is? The writing world doesn't need another sour, gimlet-eyed critic who imagines their self-appointed role is to pounce with a mad fluttering of wings and raucous, outraged caw-caw-caaws! all over another flawed manuscript. Or rather, once you've done that—and thoroughly energized and enjoyed your razor-beaked, beady-eyed self—try and find it in your heart to skritch-scratch out in the sand a couple of quick, deft words of praise for what the writer has done well.

PS. Most reviewers on BC are exceptionally large-hearted and good about doing this. In fact, every review I've ever gotten from a critiquer here who criticized perceived flaws and failings in one of my manuscripts managed to point out at least a couple of things that worked for them. (It helps me hear you. Thank you!) On the other hand, I've winced when I've read a couple of posted BC reviews that were filled with nothing but hectoring tones and chiding mini-lecture. Eeeesh, people! Did someone start with you that way?      

I find it disheartening to see several books on BC getting solid, close, constructive criticism from half their readers, and cheerleader style "I was drawn in from the first sentence" reviews from the other half, and from the writer's comments they're taking all the rah-rah criticisms as "the truth" and explaining away all of the book's short comings deliniated in the other reviews as "to each his own, I guess."  We have some very strong editors on this site and it just seems a waste for folk to walk away thinking, "well, I guess they just didn't like it."

Salutary reviews from other writers don't necessarily mean much more than that the writer was in a good mood when she read your book.  A lot of us spend so much time checking our books for "rule violations" and "pace" and "word count" that when a book simply doesn't break any of these strictures the main thing we feel is relief and we're liable to ignore the lack of vivid language, deep characterization or real novelty in the work.  And that does the writer no good at all when it comes to getting the book published. 

-Kevin

Re: Kevin: I "thumbs-upped" your comment because I think your over-all point is a good one. But honestly, isn't that human nature at work? Show me the writer who dismisses all complimentary criticisms and only embraces negative or proscriptive ones and I'll show you a masochistic hack at work sardonically amused that he's been found out and exposed publicly.

I would also say: Wait on writer reaction on some of these criticisms. It can take weeks, months or more for some of those "not sure about this" criticisms to register as correct and helpful with the critiqued writer.

I would also ask: What is the goal here? To collectively produce a book that is focus-grouped into palatable product capable of selling to millions of readers in the shortest amount of time for the maximum amount of publisher profit? Sounds like a marketer's wet dream. Not my dream—or the dream of any serious artist with a vision and voice worth preserving in all of its idiosyncratic, flawed glory, I would hope.

FYI: Was re-reading Michael Chabon’s Wonder Boys last night and ran across the un-translated French phrase “arrière-pensée.” Would that make it past the focus group today? Would Lovecraft’s thick-as-a-brick-&-twice-as-chewy mechanistic-materialist prose? Robert E. Howard’s pulpish prose poetry? How about Kafka’s nonsensical time-line distortions and narrative goof-ups? Kafka’s stories oftentimes don’t make sense! (And I’m not referring to their surreal, Dadaist quality. And for the record: Kafka fan, though with serious reservations and qualifications.) Hemingway’s anti-Semitism? PKD’s occasional lapses into paranoid misogyny?

On a tangential but still very pertinent note: I've read some of these BC books and their associated criticism. Perhaps not the identical books but the same type as the ones you call out here. The good, solid, constructive criticism stands out and the unwarranted cheerleading (notice I said unwarranted; I will shamelessly cheer and applaud any spark of brilliance or technical competence in the writing I critique—as well as underline the moments that caused me to frown and go “Hmmm . . .”) rah-rah stuff causes me to wonder: Are these family and friends coming to the rescue of one of their own? Because it is obvious, you know. To others besides yourself, I mean. And if those writers can’t or won’t learn (and I include myself amongst that group potentially damned to obscurity and oblivion due to wooden-headed tone-deafness and aesthetic retardation) so what? Why are you losing sleep over it? That just means less meaningful competition for your own work to be hailed and acclaimed; a quantitative diminution in the ranks of the great unwashed beating at publisher’s doors vying for eyeballs that could and should rightfully remain focused on your manuscripts.

You always get me going, Kevin! I like that about you. You might read veiled sarcasm into this comment but nothing could be further from the truth; you inspire and provoke me to thoughtful (for me this is thoughtful; for you this may be barf-full—heh!) paroxysms of half-laudatory, half-contentious prosody.

Now I’ve got to go write before I burn out all my energy on inconsequentials again . . .

Great discussion!  I find it truly comforting that members of the BC community can get so upset about folks who take criticism so poorly.  I think it says more about you than about those being critiqued.

   Years of teaching experience (and, of course, teaching is what you are trying to do with a helpful and honest review) has taught me that I can never be sure what to expect in return for trying to help.  I’ve had people apologize to me for doing poorly despite my efforts, and thank me for the time I’ve devoted in trying to help them.  At the same time I’ve had many who only look at their grades and then file evaluations clearly indicating that as far as they are concerned I am the product of generations of incestuous relations among mentally deficient lower primates.  There’s the great spectrum of humanity in those reactions which can be grist for the mill of character development.

     Maybe it would help if the star rating were listed at the end of the review as opposed to the top.  I have also had people pull their story after I posted a review in which I tried to be helpful and comment on both the good and bad.  I often wonder if the review was even read, or if the person (with a very tender ego) just looked at the star rating and bolted.  Maybe it’s also a question of maturity.  In that case we can only hope that the writer will retreat to a corner, lick her/his wounds for a time and then decide to return to the fray.  What else can we do? 

     I guess what I find most disturbing is when I read a very poorly written piece, and am about to write a review only to find that someone has posted a (from my viewpoint) completely unjustified glowing review.  At that point I know I can still post my review, but at the same time I also know that it will be as warmly (and thoughtfully) received as a person wearing a Rainbow Coalition t-shirt at a KKK gathering.

      And Carl, I’m honored by your mention, and in the same sentence with Kevin! Doubly honored – thank you.

       And to all – you make BC a great place to be.

Great comments, one and all: Kevin, Tom and LeeAnna!

@Kevin: We've got our own Siskle/Ebert dynamic going here; heh!

I agree with you completely there re: I would very much have readily called out rare wince-inducing moments of bad judgment, poor taste and/or weakness in these great writers' writings if I'd been allowed the honor and privilege. At the very least I would have arched a quizzical brow in their direction and done my best Seth Meyer’s imitation: “Really? Really?”

I should have better articulated and elaborated on my original thought: There are no perfect writers writing perfect manuscripts, anywhere. And I most certainly wince when I encounter naked racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, misogyny (What is the word for women who hate men? They set my teeth on edge as well . . .) and all manner of strident ideology and demented religious fervors in a text.

But given that even The Greats have their rare (and sometimes not-so-rare, eh?) misfires and miscues what hope for us, mere mortals? By which I mean to say: I don’t expect anyone I critique here on Book Country to ever immediately and enthusiastically embrace the entirety of my criticisms with fervor and transformed “I’ve-seen-the-light; thank you for the review!” conviction. I’d smell a rat. For one thing I’m never entirely sure and confident about my own proffered  criticisms; I remain very uneasy that many times I miss entire luminous-eyed, hooty-owled forests for a single sickly sapling that’s caught my attention . . .

@Tom: Great insight into the vexations and challenges of modern-day teaching. Did you hear my sympathetic groans carrying out to you? Many years ago I told one Professor G. (a teacher at Oakton Community College in Des Plaines, just outside Chicago) who taught a late-night class in Roman History that I appreciated the fact that he did not talk to his class in the patronizing, honeyed tones of a “group facilitator” cajoling a kindergarten play group. In fact I distinctly remember his storming into class one evening, slamming down the thick stack of essays he’d spent the previous night grading and barking out, “Warning note to you all! It can be difficult for me to grade you when I cannot understand what it is that you are trying to say.” Then, scowling fiercely and muttering under his breath, he stalked about the classroom flicking returned essays at white-faced students in a silence so preternaturally quiet and absolute that you could have heard a mouse piss on cotton. How I loved and admired that man!

(Though we spent the rest of that semester arguing with each other on-line: He was a fervid rightist cheer-leading for the invasion and occupation of Iraq; I the leftist ex-marine "only" supporting a short-term incursion into Afghanistan to wipe out the terrorist camps established there. Btw: I did my final paper for him on Marcus Tullius Cicero, the "Vain Golden-tongued Voice of Republican Rome." Got an A+ on the paper and an A on course but I'll never forget his scrawled comment on the last page of my paper--still have it--"I think you've met a kindred spirit." Leave us understand that Prof. G. was not a Ciceronian . . .)  
  

One way to approach this is to consider something we are all familiar with – movie reviews.  Using that approach we can come up with some basic truisms: 

1)      almost nothing gets unanimous reviews.  Check out RottenTomatoes on-line. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie get a 100% on the Tomato Meter, although I have seen the occasional 0% (but that is very rare);

2)      some reviewers like everything, and some like nothing;

3)      if you read enough reviews, you gradually discover reviewers you generally agree with and some you always disagree with.  I will guess that you then tend to rely on the former and ignore the latter.

So how does this apply to BC?

       Based on 1, expect to get bad reviews at least occasionally.  When you open the new review and you see a poor star rating, approach the review with a sigh, not a shriek of horror. 

       Keeping 2 in mind (and here Kevin’s point is apropos) ask yourself if the reviewer presents good explanations to back up their points.  You might not agree with them, but you can see their thought process.  If the review is all “this is wonderful!” or “This all sucks!” with no further explanation, shrug and move on - nothing to see here.

       Consider 3 if you are unsure about the validity of the points the reviewer has made.  It’s very tough to look at criticism of your own work objectively.  So go to the reviewer’s home page and check out some other works they’ve reviewed.  Read one or two of those stories, and then the reviews your reviewer posted – do you agree with them?  If you find the person’s reviews cogent and well argued it will put you in a better frame of mind when you go back and read the person’s review of your work.  If you totally disagree with their other reviews you have all the more reason to ignore them.

Just 2 more cents on my part.

Robert, I been teaching at a college for years.  Unfortunately, after teaching technical writing and requiring essays in some of my other courses I’ve now forgotten the difference between their, there and they’re; the use of apostrophes (aren’t they just supposed to be sprinkled randomly?); spelling; and the general purpose of punctuation.  Just backwash from - reading, two many’ studnt righting eports!

Tom

@Kevin: I posted this under another the Suggestions thread this morning (as a response to PureMagic, who contributed some thought-provoking suggestions of his own to this on-going discussion):
....................................
 Well, the problem with the star system being visible to the writer is just that--it's visible to the writer. Even if it's only visible to the writer, many of them--as Tom W. pointed out--take that initial low-star review as a slap to the face and never quite recover enough to hear the criticisms proffered. (Or immediately pull their writing off the site.)

I don't think there are any perfect answers here. And I don't really expect anything to change; I threw this out there to see what others think. (Academy Awards, anyone? Hugo? Nebula? Oftentimes "there can be only one", so perhaps there's a good counter-argument to be made re: Toughen up now; that's the Real World calling . . .) 

Perhaps I should sign off as a sophist, or William Jefferson Clinton this morning, taking both sides of the argument at the same time . . .

......................................
I don't see how you can make everyone happy here. I am amused, startled and somewhat chagrined, however, that adults hunger and lust for that "5-gold-star" rating of teacher/reviewer approval every bit as much as second-graders do.

(And I'm not an exception to that rule, Kevin. I can hear Stephen King in my head right now: "Tell the truth, don't truckle." So here 'tis: I experience a rush of energizing opiate-bliss endorphins when the rating is high and a stomach-plummeting fuckfuckfuck! when the rating is low, just like any other mere scritch-scribbling mortal. 'Course, I immediately get over it (or . . . do I?, as a mugging Saturday Night Live sketch character might ask directly into the camera) and I then test, compare and contextualize the experiential reader's comments and criticisms against what Umberto Eco would call the "model reader's" response to a "model writer's" text.
 
This all sounds very scientific and logical but the whole process is fraught with knotty problems of cognition both epistemological (how do I know what I know?) and phenomenological (the highly-subjective, idiosyncratic and uniquely “you” responses that ensure no two people ever process the same phenomena in exactly same way).

The only thing I’m absolutely certain of is that writers and critics will be arguing with each other as long as writers write and critics critique.

Hello Carl,

    Fascinating the way this discussion has developed.  When I suggested putting the star rating at the end of the review, it was in the hope that the writer would take the time to read the review first, and thereby maybe understand the reason for the star rating.  My fear is that (I assume a newbie) writer will see a poor star rating and run screaming into the night.  BTW, I’m not being totally altruistic here.  I find nothing as soul crushing as trying to write a thoughtful and helpful review of what is probably a first draft, only to find that after reading it the story is pulled and the writer disappears from BC.  I generally go off and do something else for a few days, unable to even consider reviewing another story for a while.

     Thinking it over, I found two problems with my suggestion.  First, much like the person who reads the last chapter of a mystery first, many such writers would probably just scroll down to the end of the review to see the star rating before taking the time to read the review – thereby defeating the purpose of placing the star rating at the end.  Second, and here I’m afraid I must totally agree with Kevin, I have a strange feeling that the type of newbie we’re talking about would see every critical comment in their mind’s eye in 36 font Bold Italic lettering, while all positive comments would be in tiny print.  You are absolutely right Kevin – that’s human nature.

      So Carl, your suggestion wouldn’t work, as mine won’t.  We all have to develop a rather thick hide (aka a bit of maturity) in able to do this. I really wish there were some way to help people with this, but unfortunately it’s up to the individual to recognize when others are just trying to help, and accept it for what it is.   

Tom