In two different reader’s groups I belong to on Facebook, I
recently saw a question posted asking what fellow group members didn’t like to
see in a story. Several group members chimed in with their answers. Naturally,
I had my own answer as well.
As I watched the comments wrack up, I reacted as an author
and not a reader. My first inclination was to take all these comments and make
a spreadsheet along the lines of what not to do. Something I could refer back
to when editing to make sure I wasn’t doing anything to cause readers to turn
away.
There were several comments and the thread got pretty long
before one best-selling author chimed in with her opinion and it wasn’t what
you would expect. Instead of telling group members what her deal breakers were,
she pointed out that likes and dislikes within books are as varied as the books
themselves and that’s okay. The author expressed her dismay that readers would
be disparaging these things instead of celebrating differences. From there,
several people felt put in their place and apologized. Others pointed out it
was meant to be fun while a few people took exception to being chastised for
exercising their rights to free speech.
Here’s the thing. Everyone was right and that’s okay.
There are a lot of topics brought up in online groups that
are meant to spark discussion. I read every comment for this particular one,
and no one came across as hurtful. Most of it was straightforward. ‘I hate it
when characters fall in love instantly’ or ‘I don’t like to read books where
main characters cheat on each other’ and even ‘I don’t like books about males
getting pregnant.’ These are just a small sample of the comments, but most were
along these lines. Some even had people commenting on their comments to voice
their agreement.
The lone author, who waved her metaphorical mom finger, was
also right. You will never find a book that everyone loves, and that includes
some of the most popular and best-selling books out there. If you’ve ever
written a book review, you know that’s true. You go to write your five-star
review and a one-star review catches your eye. You read it and are surprised
and maybe a little incensed to find everything the other reader hated about the
book was what you loved.
The author’s basic point was that you read what you want and
do it without putting others down. While I didn’t think anyone was putting
authors down, her comment did get me thinking about how right she was.
Something I knew firsthand. When I started out in this business, my goal was to
get an agent and then let the agent get a book deal. No two agents ever had the
same feedback on my book.
One would say the characters were well developed but
the plot was weak while the other would say the plot was strong, but the
characters could be better fleshed out. And they were talking about the same book!
So, I have a few takeaways from this experience. One, I am
not going to keep a spreadsheet of readers’ dislikes. Not only are there too
many, but readers’ tastes aren’t universal. I could omit something that someone
likes and end up losing readers that way as well. Two, I’m going to write what
I want. I have a loyal reader base who have demonstrated how much they like
what I’ve done so far. I’m not going to compromise the integrity of my
storytelling for fear of alienating a few readers who might not even be reading
my work in the first place. Three, and most important of
all, that old cliché is true, even when it comes to books. One person’s trash
really is another person’s treasure.
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