Stephen King on how to deal with "highly subjective opinions"

Jordan Henderson's new painting "Contraindications," has received mixed reactions from my subscirbers after reading my critical review.

For example, one reader wrote, "I also agree, it was not one of his best. In fact, I found it a little concerning that it was so different in style and message."

While another praised it, saying, "Myself, I love the painting, it is a testament to the idiocy that is rampant within the mental health challenged communities!

Even Stephen King admits to receiving similar thumbs-up-thumbs-down reactions from test readers (but it hasn't stopped him from selling 350 million copies of his novels). Here's an excerpt from his how-to non-fiction book On Writing:

When you give out six or eight copies of a book, you get back six or eight highly subjective opinions about what’s good and what’s bad in it. If all your readers think you did a pretty good job, you probably did. This sort of unanimity does happen, but it’s rare, even with friends. More likely, they’ll think that some parts are good and some parts are... well, not so good. Some will feel Character A works but Character B is far-fetched. If others feel that Character B is believable but Character A is overdrawn, it’s a wash. You can safely relax and leave things the way they are (in baseball, tie goes to the runner; for novelists, it goes to the writer). If some people love your ending and others hate it, same deal — it’s a wash, and tie goes to the writer.

Well, in this case, the tie goes to the artist.

John C.A. Manley

P.S. I've had similar mixed reactions to my two novels. For example, my good friend, Paul Jackson, has never been able to finish reading Much Ado About Corona. But he had trouble putting down All the Humans Are Sleeping — even leaving this review on Amazon: "This book is a winner in my opinion, captures so much of the undercurrents now surging in all of our lives." Check out other absolutely positive reviews (I've actually not see any negative reviews yet) at AlltheHumansAreSleeping.com.