Are Critics Too Harsh?

Ahh yes. The dreaded critic. The one who is hard to please and always....always, sees the glass as half empty. The one who takes pleasure in finding the smallest, tiniest inconsistency. The one we all fear and despise, but secretly seek affirmation from.

I spend a lot of time reading reviews to see where other authors went wrong, to see if I can avoid making the same mistakes. I always here complaints like:

• I liked the antagonist better
• The friend was stereotypical and/or gave horrible advice
• The main character was too self-centered
• The mother/father wasn't believable or was stupid
• Things were too easy for the main character
• I didn't empathize for the main character
• The writing was terrible
• The voice was terrible
• The plot was boring, nothing happened....
  And so on

And these are really good points. They are all mistakes we have all fallen into. In my critique group, every single person complained about my main character's mother...A complaint I have seen pop up with many other writers. I banged my head against the wall because I said I would make sure to make the adults as pesky and interfering as they are in real life. But...I failed. 

Now everyone is entitled to their opinion and if it's shared with every other person who has read your book, it most likely is a valid opinion. Still, I find some reviewers can be snarky and do their best to poke holes through even the most solid plots and characters. 

Hmmm, the same way we could poke holes through living, breathing people too...

My point? As a writer, it's great to keep an eye out for common mistakes and to try to avoid them. Take constructive criticism with a grain of salt. When our time comes, and we have our book published and ready to take the world by storm, remember this: 

• Not everyone you've met liked you and not everyone who'll meet your book and it's characters will like them either. 
• A bad review is more fun than a good review. Seriously. Go on Goodreads and read reviews on a book that you love and read the one star ones. I can spend hours laughing at the witty ways these readers put down the books they read.
• Which leads to... a reviewer isn't doing his/her job if they don't have anything bad to say (I don't agree but it's an unfortunate fact). 
• Look for the good reviews, those are the ones that count.

• Although it may not apply to some books out there, there is a reason why YOU got published. YOU are one of the few that made it out of the slush pile that consists of millions and millions of manuscripts at any given time. YOU made it to a point where your book can even get bad reviews.

So look forward to the day when you'll cringe from the witty but cruel remarks. It just means you made it.