I mentioned in my last post on chess that this month’s talk in my writing circle was on sharing work. It started with a discussion on how nervous we felt about sharing our work. Most of our writers seemed very nervous about sharing work. Their reasons ranged from concern about plagiarism, through dislike or inexperience with social media, to fear of criticism. My advice was that there will generally be people who love your work, and people who hate it. I cited Claire as an example. I bought The Tiger in the Smoke for her at Christmas. It is said to be J.K. Rowling’s favourite crime novel. The author, Margery Allingham, is considered to be one of the four Queens of Crime, alongside Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers and Ngaio Marsh. Claire gave up reading it because she didn’t really care about any of the characters and there were too many threads. It’s a fair criticism, Allingham makes the London smog virtually one of the characters. It is a phenomenally great book though!
Yesterday I realised that I should heed my own advice about sharing work. I was somewhat stung by a three star review of Called to Account. The reviewer cited spelling errors and observing that “most appear to be from speech to text transcription, a great tool but dangerous when not followed up with careful editing.” I have never used speech to text transcription. I use ProWritingAid which is a very advanced spelling, grammar, and style checker, followed by professional editing. The reviewer added that there were “anacrnonisms”. Hmm, physician heal thyself! I calmed down when I reread the Kirkus and the Historical Fiction Company reviews. Such alleged errors would not pass their professional forensic examination.
I think the problem with sharing work, and Amazon reviews in particular, is that there seems to be more of a motivation for readers to share what they haven’t liked, than what they have. My resolution going forward is to always post a positive review when I’ve enjoyed a book, rather than rushing on to the next one.