Sometimes, the best way of understanding our writing is through the eyes of others.
Let’s look first at one star reviews. Some writers read them and fall into a pit of despair. This is not a wise approach to those reviews.
A one star review shows what that reader hates. They’re amazingly good value at telling me that these people are not part of my audience. Five star reviews show the opposite. This is why I need to read all my reviews. I read them to find out where my audience lies and how they read (or don’t read) me.
Let em give an example. The reader who wanted a more obviously Medieval Middle Ages in Langue[dot]doc 1305 didn’t want a Middle Ages that was written by a Medieval historian who specialised in the cultural and social side of things. He (I’m thinking of a particular review) probably wanted one that touched on all the feelings and images of the Middle Ages that popular culture shares. I was explaining, through my novel, that the actual past is infinitely more interesting and complex and often more subtle than the way the public tends to think about the Middle Ages, so my novel was not for him.
This is not a criticism. The views readers share don’t have to be my views. They don’t even have to be within a half a continent of my views. Different likes and dislikes in books are important.
I like expanding my small world, and so I look out for books by writers who are from vastly different backgrounds to me, but… I still mostly read speculative fiction right now, just as I read mostly Russian authors at one point in my teens. We all have our favourite types of story and ways of telling stories, and these inform our book choices and to criticise someone for disliking a book that’s entirely outside the range of things they enjoy is to waste everyone’s time.
What about critical reviews? The ones by experts who are famous for looking under a book’s surface and pulling them to pieces? They carry the same caveat: I have to know whether the reviewer enjoys my kind of writing to know if they’ve tackled it fairly. Even then, even if they’ve written about me because they must and not because they want to, all critical reviews are very useful to writers. They give insights into what others think we’ve done. At their best, those insights can be profound.
These reviews are why I’m pleased with my little academic study, Story Matrices. I wrote it at an impossible time and so it could have been an impossible book. It’s not visible enough because things are still a bit impossible at my end of things. When it’s visible, the analytical reviews of it show me that I did what I set out to do.
This doesn’t mean that they don’t find problems with my work. One complained about the short chapters, but for me, those chapters were to enable general readers to dip in and out of it and not to be intimated by some of the concepts. I give a nod to the criticism, because the reviewer was right in that the chapters were tiny. He loved one chapter in particular (the one about Irish fantasy) whereas other reviewers have loved other chapters. I used a range of examples to explain my research, and some were really obviously science fiction or fantasy and some were not, but all are important to SFF.
The examples I used echo in so many other stories. Each critical reviewer so far has loved a different set of those examples. This one loves the Irish chapter, and another loves the discussion of Regency fantasy, and still another told everyone about how I explain the Potter universe. So far, not a single critic has panned the work (this will change over time – I rejoice while I may) and none of them have been at all negative about the explanations I use to describe world building and writing and shared experience. So… I’ve learned about how my work is seen from a number of directions, and I hear that it is good.
I didn’t think it was. Being invisibly disabled, has, since COVID, carried a huge price in terms of local visibility and even friendships with local writers. On bad days, it feels as if the world is walking over my grave. On good days, it feels as if I’m a beginner writer starting out and have to contact everyone and let them know I exist all over again.
I don’t want to give up my writing right now because, although I can’t even attend a book launch locally. Why can’t I attend? Most people at book events in Australia don’t take tests, wear masks, or even know what the ventilation is like. In Canberra, specifically, not being visible means I don’t get lifts and there is no public transport near me any more and I can’t do what my sister told me “Walk a few blocks further” because I literally can’t walk even half that distance right now. Loads of reasons and I feel small every time I have to ask, again, about any of it. This is what makes me feel small about my writing, not the one star reviews.
What balances this invisibility? Why, visibility, of course. Every time I attend an online SF convention (Octocon, Balticon, Boskone, Eastercon, Konline, Punctuation and more – these are all full of wonderful people and fascinating programmes) I am surrounded by friends and, through being on panels, get a share of the most interesting discussions. This also applies to academic conferences. I attended one two weeks ago where my paper proposal had been rejected, so instead of presenting, I took notes and thought things through and chatted and… it was lovely. One doesn’t have to be the centre of attention to not be alone and to learn.
The centre of attention. This is a rare thing for most writers outside the launch of their own books. This Friday I will be that. The Australian Studies day conference in Germany, this year run by Muenster University, has invited me to give a reading. A long reading. And to be interviewed by a scholar who studies and who teaches my work. I will learn a lot, that day.
I already feel as if I count, that I have not wasted my time in doing what I love. I’m more than nervous, because I’m more used to being forgotten than this, but I’m reading from 2 of my favourite novels and I intend to make these books come alive for my scholarly audience. This is a rare type of learning for all but the most famous of writers, and I shall treasure every moment.
The bottom line, the deep truth, the heart of the matter is that all these types of learning matter for writers. They help us know how we are seen by others. Even when the paths look as if they lead to that pit of despair, they’re still important to us. Giddy heights, pits of despair, even sloughs of despond: they all help us understand who we are, why we’re writing and who our audiences are.
PS Sorry for the bits of Bunyan. I read him when I was eleven and he stuck. The local library at the beachside town we visited every August had a limited library and Bunyan as the only writer in the children’s sector whose work would last me more than a half hour. In some ways this is good and in other ways this is amusing. Mostly, though, it means I lean into certain language when I talk about certain topics.
Despite the language, there is no Christian intent. In my world view, none of us move towards heaven by encountering this or that challenge. The challenges are part of our everyday. They’re the best and worst of the learning we need to get by. The best of times and the worst of times are like the best of learning and the worst of learning and … by another writer I read when I was eleven.