Amy Metz’s essay on reviews has prompted me to offer a few thoughts of my own. My own concerns are with the standards appropriate to the sort of review one might post at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
Reviewing a novel involves the selection of a reviewer’s perspective. There are two “polar” perspectives:
- The reader-for-pleasure’s perspective, which focuses on those aspects of the book that entertained and captivated him, left him unmoved, or actively irritated or angered him;
- The critic’s perspective, which focuses on the technical and stylistic characteristics of the novel and how well they conform to good (or at least accepted) practice.
There are, of course, an infinite number of ways to blend the two “polar” perspectives. The indie writer is often torn about how much of each to adopt.
My usual approach is much closer to the reader-for-pleasure than the critic, as the typical prospective purchaser is far more likely to be that sort of reader, and therefore far more likely to get value out of a reader-for-pleasure’s opinions. But there are books that evoke my inner critic. I normally try to keep him chained down and silent, because he’s one mean son of a bitch.
My critic comes out when a book has grotesquely violated what I deem to be the minimum standards for fiction writing: the bedrock requirements that must be met to make a novel readable at all. There aren’t many such, but they’re imperative and absolute:
- Your characters’ words, deeds, and thoughts must be consistent with your novel’s timeline.
- Avoid plot-irrelevant digressions, long expository lumps, and the deus ex machina ending.
- Have someone proofread your book for egregious errors of grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
- Formatting counts; keep it neat and consistent.
- Even in the speculative genres, a certain minimum of plausibility is required.
An otherwise well-told story can survive stumbling over one or two of those standards…once or twice. But repeated violations are cause for my critic to come roaring out of his cage brandishing a one-star review, with accompanying acerbic comments about the author’s carelessness about his craft.
An example: Some years ago, I was asked by a friend to critique a techno-thriller written by one of her friends. The author was obsessed with weapons. He simply couldn’t keep himself from rhapsodizing about the technical characteristics of various guns and other armaments. Perhaps 25% of his 200,000 words went to such descriptions. The effect on the action was too jarring to be borne. The tragedy there is that, stripped of all the “gun porn,” he had a good story that a thriller aficionado would find worth a typical eBook price for such things.
Another example: A book I read recently suffered badly from wooden characterization – so badly that its author appeared to be aware of that failing. His remedy was to insert huge expository lumps into the action, specifically for the purpose of telling the reader about the principal characters’ histories! Those lumps of in-stream backstory were so large that they overwhelmed the plot line, making it nearly impossible to remember what had happened in story past and what was happening in story present.
A final example: A book I read recently was so poorly proofread that even the names of the Marquee characters were frequently misspelled. More, the formatting was wildly inconsistent. Paragraphs were sometimes indented, sometimes not, and were sometimes separated by blank lines, but at other times not. What could anyone say about such disrespect for the reader’s eyesight?
In my opinion, he who presents the public with a book that badly flawed deserves a one-star review from my critic. Indeed, I feel it’s morally obligatory to give it to him, so that he’ll get some sense of where he’s gone wrong and what he must do to improve. If his friends and relatives read his book without commenting on such dramatic failures of craft, only reviews from unhappy readers can offer him the guidance he needs.
All that having been said, keeping one’s inner critic in his cage the greater part of the time is probably for the best. Many a reader will pass undisturbed over a moderate sprinkling of violations of standards and errors of craft. The point of fiction, after all, is to entertain. Even the most experienced, most polished writers will occasionally veer off course, yet deliver a hugely satisfying fictional experience even so.
There are other reasons for which a scathing review is sometimes appropriate, of course. But at Amazon, reviews that are non-specific about the book’s sins frequently indicate a degree of animus in the reviewer: perhaps he dislikes the author’s themes – this is sometimes the case with politically or religiously polemic fiction – or perhaps he dislikes the author personally. Those reviews are usually glaringly obvious, and should be dismissed. I trust it’s unnecessary to counsel you, Gentle Reader, against writing such a review. After all, we’re all ladies, gentlemen, and persons of good will here, aren’t we?