In today’s Internet age,
finding someone to read and critique your work is like tripping over piles of
dirty clothes in a teenage boy’s bedroom – it’s not that hard.
While a lot of book reviews
on Amazon and other review sites are pretty spot-on, you can’t always take it
as the gospel (as evidenced by this New
York Times article “The
Best Book Reviews Money Can Buy”). How
else to explain gushing five star reviews for crappy books? Seriously, did we read the same book? On the flip side, sometimes, people are just
downright vicious in their criticisms.
It’s clear they get off on putting people down and nine times out of ten,
without the anonymity of the Internet, they wouldn’t dare say even a fraction
of those nasty things in person.
In short, sometimes you just
have to take the feedback the masses give you with a grain of salt because you
can’t please everyone all of the time.
As
I’ve mentioned previously in this blog, I’ve decided to take the plunge
into self-publishing via Kindle. As a
girlfriend of mine declared when I told her of my plan, “let the people decide!” Now, while I fancy myself an okay writer and have
even managed to make a living as a freelancer for the past five years, I’m
realistic. As much as I would like to
rush and upload the manuscripts that have been collecting virtual dust on my
computer for the last ten years, I realize I need someone to vet me first. It’s one thing to dash off a one-page press
release, quite another to birth a 70,000 word manuscript filled with multiple
characters and a plot.
In his brilliant book, “On
Writing,” Stephen King makes the case for the “IR” or “Ideal Reader.” The Ideal Reader is the audience made up of
one person you try to please with your writing (for King, this is his wife,
Tabatha). Will they bust a gut at this
passage? Will they cringe? Will they think this is a sparkling piece of
prose or the worst piece of shit they’ve ever read?
In trying to think about who
I’d like to read my completed manuscript, I agonized. A lot of folks give it to their significant
other, but since I’m currently single, that’s out for me (of course, my ex
didn’t like to read, so he probably wouldn’t have done me much good
anyway). There are friends, of
course. To be honest, most of mine are
loaded down with toddlers and newborns at the moment and just don’t have to
time to sit down and read anything that’s not a picture book.
I finally settled on my youngest
sister as my “IR.” I chose her for a few
reasons. One, even though she’s family,
I knew she wouldn’t sugar coat it. In
fact, she’s pretty much renowned for hating everything. It’s kind of her shtick. Two, she’s extremely smart with an unusually high
bullshit meter. Three, she’s a voracious
reader. While she doesn’t read suspense,
which is what I write, she wouldn’t be jaded – I knew she could give me a good perspective
from a pure reader’s point of view.
I asked her if she’d be
willing and she gave me an enthusiastic thumbs up.
Yay!
After fiddling with the
manuscript based on the feedback I got from my weeklong writing class, I sent
it to her, bracing myself for the onslaught of criticisms.
I was happy to hear she liked it (yay! I mean, since she hates everything). She had some good, solid suggestions
for improvement and with one exception (remains to be seen if I’ll implement),
I incorporated everything she complained about.
She was thoughtful in her criticisms, which I appreciated.
While in Toronto for class,
one of my fellow students offered to read anyone’s manuscript when they were
ready. I decided to take her up on
it. I think this will be worthwhile
because she doesn’t know me from Adam, so she’s certainly not obligated to give
me a good review, plus, it’ll be good to get another perspective. I’m curious and nervous to see what she has
to say.
It can be nerve wracking
unleashing your baby onto the world, but getting solid criticism from others can
only help you. Joy Fielding said that in
addition to her husband, she has two additional people that she always gives
her manuscripts to before she submits to her publisher. She said it was based on the feedback of one
of those readers that necessitated rewriting the first ten chapters of “The Wild Zone” three
times. Stephen King says he has a group
of four to eight core people he lets read his work while in draft stage. Tabatha even shamed him into cutting two
pages of back story in “Bag of Bones”
down to two paragraphs.
Choose your IR wisely. You don’t want someone to blow sunshine up
your ass; you also don’t want someone to tell you it’s terrible unless they can
give you solid feedback as to why.
Either way, look for people who will help you improve your work.
It can only help.
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