Comments on: Revenge of the Writers!

By: Gyp Oriens

Gyp Oriens — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 01:49:43 +0000

Once I had someone read a story of mine and he said I should “use more metaphors and similes.” When I asked him why, he said, “well, you’re supposed to, aren’t you?”

The story was written in the present tense, first-person perspective of someone who was injured an an earthquake and dying. I dunno, but when I’m bleeding profusely and probably have broken bones the last thing I’ll be doing is thinking in metaphors and similes.

By: Philippa

Philippa — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 05:19:28 +0000

Someone once volunteered to read through a short story I mentioned in conversation. They later commented that they hadn’t liked it, weren’t sure what was happening and didn’t really think anything worked, and then followed this up by saying that, by the way, maybe they were wrong, as they’d never read a short story before and, come to that, weren’t much into my genre. All this while smiling and shrugging apologetically.

Why they offered to read it and offer comments *in the first place,* knowing that it was a short story in an unfamiliar vein, is beyond me.

By: Glenda Larke

Glenda Larke — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 06:21:27 +0000

Just had a lovely review today, from a truly lovely man, so this is not a complaint! Only thing is, he began by saying:

“The final book in Glenda Larke’s second fantasy series is a fitting end to a superb creator of new worlds.”

Um, maybe the tome fell on my head and thus fittingly ended my career? Lol!

By: betsy dornbusch

betsy dornbusch — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 20:43:12 +0000

An editor once said one of my short stories was too violent. The setting was on the front line of a war.

By: David Louis Edelman

David Louis Edelman — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 15:23:53 +0000

I had one potential blurber who singled out the fact that one of my characters ran “halfway across London” with a pillow under his arm as utterly ridiculous and implausible. The nanotechnology, teleportation, mental communication, interplanetary colonization, and cheap universal quantum computing she had no problems with.

By: Deborah J. Ross

Deborah J. Ross — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 04:29:14 +0000

One of the biggest challenges in my first published novel, JAYDIUM, was sympathetically portraying a character who was very, very different from me. I worked so hard to get inside her head, only to have Condescending Self-Important Author tell me how autobiographical the work was. Because, of course, I could not possibly have created a character with imagination and literary craft!.

Then there was the writers-group critiquer who refused to comment on a story of mine, calling it “sentimental trash.” Gardner Dozois published it in ASIMOV’S. It got bandied about for awards.

You shrug, you go back to work.

By: Carol Berg

Carol Berg — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:19:45 +0000

I had one contest critiquer long ago, who said I would never possibly sell a story where we didn’t know the first person narrator’s name until the end of the second chapter. (Happily - by the time I received the critique Transformation had already been sold.)

Carol

By: Katharine Kerr

Katharine Kerr — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 21:14:43 +0000

Some of the most annoying comments are those by reviewers who think they know what the author was trying to do, such as the one Richard got. They are usually wrong, since they’re not psychic.

By: Erin Underwood

Erin Underwood — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 19:24:01 +0000

I had one instructor (and I won’t say who because y’all know him) tell me that my prose clunks. He then dropped my manuscripted so that it landed with a “thunk”.

Gulp. Damn him, but he was right! When I dropped the manuscript it thunked, too!

Thankfully, the last manuscript that I dropped didn’t thunk so badly. haha…

–

I can just picture Nevyn telling Jill to “use the Force”. Yikes! That’s rich!

By: Richard

Richard — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:23:39 +0000

While I’ve gotten reviews, both good and bad, that made me wonder what story the reviewer was reading, I’ve only gotten one since I’ve been publishing that made me angry. That was when a reviewer accused me of cheating by withholding crucial information, even though, within the context of the story, that information was solely in the hands of a character who had a vested interest in NOT revealing it. I still get ticked when I think of it. Accuse me of bad writing and I’ll shrug it off (de gustibus and all), but one thing I do not do is cheat the reader.