Well, I got my AAR review for WHISPERS!
This time Cheryl reviewed it–my third reviewer for AAR.
Interestingly, she loved the beginning and didn’t like the second half. I honestly think the second half is by FAR the strongest part of the book. So do most people who have read it and responded.
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Cheryl thought that Alcy’s running away was “boneheaded” and “reckless” and thought she should have confronted Dumitru about stealing her money. Okay. So there’s a guy who is knowingly and deliberately stealing a fortune from you, who has already made it clear that for the sake of his land, he will gladly lock you up for the remainder of your natural life if necessary…and so the best way to go about dealing with the situation is to tell him “the gig is up”? Alcy might have just tried to ignore it, but she didn’t have the personality for that–she would have blurted something out the next time she saw him. This wasn’t a Big Mis. She knew exactly what he was doing. What would talking have accomplished except getting him furious at her?
Alcy knows that she could face a life of incarceration if she tries to fight him. She knows the danger she faces in running away, and she knows how sheltered and unprepared she is, but she really would rather die than face the possibility of spending the rest of her life locked up in the keep. This isn’t harebrained or reckless. Sure, she’s heartbroken, but she is weighing the possibilities and chooses the one she sees as the least dangerous for HER. Just because someone disagrees with you and you know they disagree doesn’t mean that if you just talk about it, you’ll come to an agreement. The best–the absolute best–that Alcy might have expected from such a scenario is a big fight that ended in sex while they STILL disagreed and her pretending to cave just so that she could sneak off the next morning when he didn’t suspect it.
When Dumitru catches up, she is proven right–it takes BOTH their lives being put into all kinds of danger for him to change his mind. She isn’t being foolish. She’s stuck between two terrible choices and chooses the least terrible.
Damn Dumitru for not keeping his pistols dry and his eyes on the woods because he’s being distracted by his wife. Damn Alcy for stepping out on a spit of land for a drink rather than keeping her escape routes clear. Damn them both for not thinking clearly while they were coming down with an illness. But don’t say that Alcy should have just argued with Dumitru. She knew it wouldn’t work, and she was proven completely right when he caught up with her. (Don’t damn Alcy for not realizing there would always be an HEA–just because there IS an HEA at the end of a romance doesn’t mean that EVERY path would lead to it.)
The thing is, the H&H WEREN’T truly close before–they had an approximation of closeness, but they kept themselves apart from each other. They weren’t yet really in love. They were in a honeymoon kind of stage where they make everything peachy and pleasant and swallow any small disappointments and enjoy each other and smile, smile, smile because it really could be so much worse and they are practically giddy with relief that it wasn’t. Alcy wasn’t any more forthright with Dumitru than she’d been with anyone else–her honesty wasn’t soul-bearing but reflexive. And there’s a HUGE difference between the two!
I have no idea how this is a cliche, either, any more than an arranged marriage is a cliche. *sighs* It would be a cliche if Alcy tried to run but got treed by wolves or something of that sort–but though she’d exhausted and saddle-weary, she’s doing just fine on her own until Dumitru shows up and would have made either Orsova or a village farther upstream without a problem.
But I suppose people will read things into what books that simply aren’t there.
[…] Ms. Joyce launches into a long explanation of why Cheryl’s opinion is wrong and coincidentally, every reader, like Tara Marie, who agreed with Cheryl. What does that do to the readership? Pisses them off. Essentially, Lydia Joyce was saying “You could not possibly understand my book. You simply aren’t smart enough.” But I suppose people will read things into what books that simply aren’t there. […]
Pingback by Dear Author.Com | Should Authors Shut Up and Write? — November 6, 2006 @ 6:36 am
Um. No. I’m saying, “You’re bringing something from the outside into my book.” And they were–they were reading things that simply weren’t there. There’s a WORLD of difference between saying that and stating that you’re too stupid to understand what I wrote. If I meant that, I’d say it–or rather, I’d just ignore you. But I didn’t mean that, and so I didn’t say it. You also forget that it was a PUBLISHED REVIEW. This can be held to a different level of criticism than the comment of a reader who simply had some sort of problem with the book. I respond much less frequently to the second (including praise), even when I DO respect the individual giving a well-considered opinion. Why? For the same reason that it wouldn’t be fair to treat a published novel and someone’s webpage of fanfic the same way. A novel’s fair game. And so is a major review source.
What do I mean about reading things into a book? Lessee…someone has already declared that he will lock you up for the rest of your natural life rather than let you (and your money) leave, and so when you find out that he’s planning on stealing more of your money, you…yell at him? Because that will make him NOT lock you up?
Yes, if this were a typical romance, Alcy could argue with Dumitru, because in typical romances, there IS NO REAL RISK. It’s all an illusion. Really, the hero is a good, sweet guy, and he wouldn’t actually sleep around or lock someone up or whatever. Faux ho! Fake rake! It’s all tissue paper costumes and tin foil swords!
But guess what? If you go in with those kind of expectations, you’re going to be disappointed in my books EVERY SINGLE TIME. I don’t write that way. I refuse to.
In my books, there is a real risk. Alcy COULD have been locked up for a year or longer. Sarah MIGHT have ended up at a half-starved whore on the streets of Venice–or, hell, she could have drowned in a canal. Victoria COULD have ended up a cripple or could have just turned back to her old life, leaving Byron and everything at Raeburn behind her. Very, very nasty things can–and often enough do–happen to my characters. It isn’t some sort of pretence of risk. It’s not a GAME–there’s no bluff to call. The characters are gambling with their futures, and just because it IS a romance and it will end happily doesn’t mean such an ending is foreordained no matter what path they choose.
Yes, there are some people who are “too stupid” to understand my books. But they don’t bring up a particular plot point they don’t like. They complain that none of it makes sense and that there are so many big, confusing words that the books are IMPOSSIBLE to understand. These people just aren’t my readers. I’m destined to piss them off just by having “big words” in a book.
At some point, EVERY writer must decide who her audience is, whether she’s deciding that she doesn’t care about people who are anal about history or she doesn’t care about people who like a fairly basic vocabulary. I could stand around and simper about how “my books are for everyone,” but if I did that, I’d be a liar. No one’s books are for everyone, and there’s not an author alive who truly believes that they are.
My books aren’t for people who don’t like dark romances. They aren’t for people who can’t believe in love. They aren’t for people who demand that their heroines always be nice. They aren’t for a great number of people. If honesty about the writing process and writing choices are a problem for you, you can find someone who will lie through her teeth and smile and hand out peppermints with pictures of her book cover on them in a desperate hope that you’ll like them, as if life were a popularity contest. I’m not like that. I don’t do the sugary crap. It turns my stomach. I respect my readers too much to treat them like that.
As far as “stupid” readers go–those people I ignore publicly. Why would I waste my breath talking about people who aren’t even in my audience? Why would I want to, when what I really want is to snatch my book out of their hands and forbid them from ever coming within 100 yards of another one?
If I address something publicly, it’s because I respect a person’s opinion enough talk about it. I am frank about things actually I mess up or don’t portray clearly–I loathe the epilogue to MUSIC OF THE NIGHT, and I am horribly frustrated that I left out something really important from the book in the edits. (Amusingly enough, there is a big logistical “error” in one of my books that I’m waiting for someone to catch, but no one’s mentioned it anywhere. I knew it didn’t work physically when I wrote it, but it worked too well for the story to remove, and so I said to hell with physics and left it in.) I hardly think I’m flawless. But readers can be mistaken sometimes, too…believe it or not.
Was I unrealistic because I didn’t not pound in the realities of Alcy’s situation, assuming that readers would take my book as I had written it, without hauling in the baggage of their past experiences in the genre? Maybe. But I cannot change the way I approach my books because of fear that a few readers—yes, a few of *my* readers, my target audience–might misunderstand part of my book part of the time. That would turn my books into everything *I* hate as a reader–constant repetition, unceasing over-explanation, and overall, a condescending, wearisome tone.
Even the readers who misunderstand ONE element in ONE particular book would find such a change frustrating because just because the reader didn’t “get” ONE element doesn’t mean that she didn’t get ten others without them being beaten into the ground, and each person who misunderstands something will likely misunderstand something different.
I don’t expect my readers to be brilliant. They are, however, not stupid. My attitude isn’t about arrogance. It’s about respect. I can either treat people like idiots and write to them like babies, or I can treat them like reasonably intelligent people and risk occasionally confusing an intelligent person as a result–particularly an intelligent person who’s used to being treated like a baby most of the time, anyway.
Yeah, I’m smart, and I got sick to death of hiding it along time ago. I refuse to do it anymore because it shouldn’t be something to be ashamed of or hated for, and I hope that my standing up will help others who have faced discrimination, too. (I guess I’m still too much of a hypocrite to post my IQ range, but I can still hope that the day will come when it won’t be any different than dress or shoe size.) There is nothing in the world wrong with being smart any more than there’s something wrong with having blue eyes or brown skin, and it is NOT “showing off” to refrain from talking down to people any more than it is showing off for a tall person not to stoop. I’m 5′6″, too, and 128lbs! So frigging what? My height doesn’t make you any taller or shorter, nor does my intelligence make you any smarter or dumber. If I were 6′ tall, a 5′8″ woman would still be pretty tall, even if I were still taller. If I were 5′ tall, a 5′4″ woman would still be pretty short, even if I were still shorter. Same for weight. Same for intelligence. But this has almost nothing to do with my writing. I write ROMANCE, not self-absorbed navel-gazing “literary” fiction designed to glorify my own ego. I write for other people—a large audience of other people. Not for all other people, true, but I still write for *most* romance readers, even throwing in my not-nice heroines and my dark romances.
I’m not trying to write books that trick people. Sure, you have to be “this tall to ride,” but that’s only because teacup-and-saucer rides just aren’t that exciting to many readers after a while–including me, and I’m not going to write books I wouldn’t want to read! There are difficulties, of course. If you’re used to mostly teacup-and-saucer rides, there might be some things on a roller coaster that don’t seem to make much sense at first (why isn’t it going around and around?), and since I’m trying to build a roller coaster, which is harder to do, there might also be a jagged turn here or there that isn’t done as smoothly as it should be when a teacup-and-saucer ride done with the same level of skill would be seamless. Any exclusionary steps I might take aren’t as a result of my hating “short” people but because, overall, I want to give a more exciting ride, even if it does leave a few people out. And I’m just not pretending that teacups-and-saucers will cut it for everyone.
The bottom line is that I talk about certain reviewers and about certain reviewers’ problems with my books because I assume that they’re intelligent, level-headed, generally sensible people. I talk because I respect them enough to do so. You’ll know if I think you’re an idiot–because I just won’t speak about anything you say.
And, BTW, even though I wouldn’t do what Krissie did, I still like her immensely for it. I can’t help but find someone honest incredibly refreshing.
Comment by Lydia — November 6, 2006 @ 8:04 pm
[…] I made a post about how that didn’t make sense several months ago. I didn’t say, “You stupid! You not understand brillant writer!” (Insert DH’s fake Chinese accent here.) I didn’t say that she was smoking the locoweed. I didn’t say that my feelings were hurt and so I was going to take my toys home. I have a long history of responding to reviews, including glowing ones. Mireyawanted more of a plot than VEIL had. I mentioned that she’d like MUSIC better. Blythe (I think it was) liked VEIL well enough to give it a B+. I mentioned that I was surprised that she liked it that much because I didn’t think it was really the kind of book she normally seems to like. I also mentioned that I was thrilled that she thought that the characters were grown up, and I mentioned didn’t think that my style of writing qualifies as purple, no matter how good the sex is. Rosario didn’t like the mystery element of MUSIC because it was too obscure. I don’t know whether I mentioned this, but I think it was pretty much perfect because 90% though it worked while the remaining 5% were split between “too obvious” and “too obscure.” The AAR reviewer of MUSIC didn’t like the epilogue. Well, good. It sucked. Sorry, guys. I tried and failed. So I didn’t pitch a fit when Cheryl didn’t like WHISPERS that much because she wanted the characters to “talk things out”. I didn’t say that she was an idiot, and I didn’t personally attack her (which seems to be a like that some reviewers–though not Cheryl–fail to draw when reviewing an author’s work). I said that a) her expectations didn’t make sense in terms of the situation and the characters and the b) she was reading something into the story that just plain wasn’t there. Both of these statements were true. She was bringing a truckload of baggage from reading other romances into reading MY book and so was making declarations that simply don’t work for this story–and make no sense in terms of what actually happens in the book. It’s not like I think I’m omnipotent. I’ve admited writing things that don’t work, things that I’m unhappy with. In this case, though, I didn’t make a mistake. She was creating things out of ghosts of other books. Her criticisms had nothing to do with the words I had actually written on the page. But the long and the short of it is: IT ISN’T THAT BIG OF A DEAL. Really. I’m a PUBLISHED WRITER. That means that people respond to my books positively or negatively. And Cheryl is a PUBLISHED REVIEWER. That means that she’s a big girl, too, and people–including the author–and respond to her reviews positively or negatively. […]
Pingback by Lydia Joyce - Blog — November 6, 2006 @ 8:36 pm