Dissecting Reviews: An Inside Look at Reviewers’ Comments on Editing
This is my first in a series of posts about how to dissect a review and learn from it. Thanks to everyone who submitted your ideas! If you have an idea for a post, you can still let me know. I’m even open to guest posts on the subject as long as we all play nice. We’re here to learn—not attack each other.
We as writers are responsible for the quality of our work. In the age-old wisdom of Joe Konrath, “don’t write crap.”
Still, you have to remember there’s only so much we can do at this one point in our lives. We’re writers—we’re always learning, always improving. Years from now, you’ll look back on your first book and go, wow, did I really use that old cliché?
My point is this: no matter how many rounds of professional editing you go through, you’ll have mistakes—a small plot hole here, an oddly-worded sentence there, and all-too-easy plot development near the end (I know I know I’m sorry). The goal is for you to do your very, very best and improve as the years pass.
Now, I am not saying you should shrug off errors and just hit “accept and publish” on Amazon. NO. Do not do that. You need to write well, to research. If there are gaping plot holes in your book, you need to hone your skills a little bit more before you publish.
If you’ve never written a thing in your life (or even if you have), do not write one draft and put it online! Doing that sort of thing is feeding the “indie books are crap” stigma that is only now beginning to go away.
Readers deserve quality work, and it is your responsibility as the author to give them your absolute BEST. I’m not talking kindergarten-best. I don’t give two licks about gold stars or participation medals. I’m talking about your absolute, I’ve-read-this-damn-thing-ten-billion-times-and-I-can’t-take-it-anymore BEST.
Make sure your novel is coherent. Organized. Well-thought-out. Your characters should be dynamic. Sure, you can have a cliché or two, but don’t write cardboard. Do not publish until you’ve written in all of the above AND had it edited by a professional.
Okay, so will some people still say you needed an editor after twelve million rounds of editing? Sure. That’s annoying, but it’s the way things are. There are a couple of reasons for this:
The Writer
The problem: sometimes, people only hire a proofreader when they need a copyedit or a full critique. So, yeah, the writer had tons of editing rounds—of him editing his work himself. You can’t do that. That’s not editing in the sense we mean it professionally.
The solution: get a real editor, whether it’s a hired copy editor or a group of talented writing friends who know their stuff.
Editing doesn’t mean hiring a proofreader and sending the book to print without typos. You have to have several rounds of editing from different people, with at least one critique, one copy-edit, and a proofread. You don’t have to pay for an editor at every stage—you can have a good author friend copy-edit, for instance, or ask beta readers to catch typos for you.
But, and this is a big BUT, I recommend you hire or barter with a professional for your copy-edit phase. A detailed line edit can make the difference between “good” and “amazing.” It’s crazy how the little details can stick with people and make them fall in love with your story.
The Reader
Sometimes, the source of the “editing” comment comes from the reader, not the writer. Here’s what I mean:
The comment: Sometimes, an editor who also reads and reviews can’t help themselves. They line-edit when they read, and nitpick in their heads. They make a critical remark in the review and follow it up with, “most readers won’t even notice this, so it’s probably not important.”
“So why did you write it?” we ask, shaking our computer monitors.
The lesson: I fully admit that I’m one of these readers. I can’t help it. When I read, I proofread unless the story just sucks me in. Sometimes I’ll even notice errors then. It’s the editor in me. So I recommend people like me try not to mention the tiny things in the review unless they really bugged you in some way. As long as you enjoyed the story and there weren’t typos or errors, wasn’t it still great? I admire people who can enjoy a novel and edit at the same time, but please remember not to get too involved in your editing and forget why you’re reading—for pleasure.
The comment: Occasionally in a review, the reader just missed something. When we read, we don’t catch all the details. Sometimes we misinterpret, and if we went back and re-read, we’d get a different view of what was said. It’s amazing, really. So sometimes, people will mention a writer needs an editor because details were missing…even when that’s not true. It’s not anyone’s fault, of course, but more of a miscommunication.
The lesson: It’s still possible to learn from this sort of review. If you see it a lot, maybe there’s something you as the author could have cleaned up and clarified. Pay close attention to the examples people give—were they specific? Did a lot of people comment on the same parts of the story? If so, ask yourself (or better yet, a few of those readers) what exactly needs clarifying and what details you can add to make things more coherent.
The comment: A very small number of readers actually look at a book and go, “Oh, it’s indie. There must be something wrong with it. Let the hunt begin!”
When they do this, they purposefully look for issues. They pick and prod instead of enjoying the story, and end up with a bunch of criticisms that a lot of times aren’t really that important.
The solution: Luckily, an ever-growing number of readers are realizing how many talented writers have gone indie because it’s just the better financial decision for most new writers. It’s really awesome how this revolution has given writers a chance to actually make a living writing!
Writers, it’s important to give these reviews a fair look. Can you learn anything from them? Yeah. Often, there is good advice in these reviews. But if you can’t read it without getting mad, just put it away until you can be calm and approach it evenly. If you can’t, then you won’t learn anything from reading it, and that’s the whole point in reading your less-than-glowing reviews.
Discussion time! Have you guys gotten any other editing-type comments in your reviews, or have you given similar comments in your reviews of others’ work? What is the most helpful editing comment you’ve gotten from a rating?
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However, I do have one saving grace. I’m a writer. I may not be published(outside of academia), but I have a writer’s soul and a writer’s sensitivity. I’ve had my work nitpicked in classes before. While I appreciate the wisdom gleamed from certain sessions I’ve also come to realize that you just can’t please everyone. Ultimately, you have to please yourself. You have to surrender the illusion that your first book will be your masterpiece. In fact, I hope that my first book isn’t’ perfect. As a writer, I want to improve with every book. And how could I improve upon perfection? And you couldn’t be more right about the importance of an editor. No writer—no matter their skill or background—can be expected to flawlessly proof their own work without the hindrance of personal bias. Writers are artists in the same way that painters or designers are. We put so much of ourselves into our work that critiques become especially difficult. Because who among us can honestly critique ourselves? And then there are those of us who are overly critical of the manifestations of their art and futilely seek perfection. The bottomline is that a second pair of eyes(or more, if you can manage to snatch some readers with free time) is incredibly important. While writers do need to learn how to edit their own work, the input of a different perspective is incredibly valuable. Naturally, the hope is that by the time you have a few publications under your belt your writing will be more polished and require less editing. But it will always require something.
When I was a frehsman in college, the most helpful comment I received was from my Intro to English professor. We were charged with some original writing and had to subject our writing to commentary from out peers. The process was incredibly helpful, but one day after class my proff pulled me aside and said,
“You’re really great at reviewing other people—very helpful and detailed. But you really suck at editing yourself”
This is a lesson that I’ve never forgotten and I like to think that I’ve grown out of some of my vanity and learned when to acknowledge my mistakes.