Yvonne's Blog: Author Blog Challenge

Once again, instead of the daily prompt I bring you a guest blog post by Virgil Moore, author of Demon Vampire. I just started reading his book and I can tell it's not a story to be read quickly, it's the type in which you need to take your time and enjoy it. This post gives some advice on how to deal with criticism:

My most memorable experience is easy to surmise, yet unrelenting to me while being a writer.

Criticism.

Two four letter words thrown together with an extra added just to ruin your day.

This has been both a hard and pleasurable task to handle in my little time as a published author. I know that with anything that is written, there will always be dissenting opinions. However, my affluent irritation towards unconstructive views has always been ironclad and overflowing with more primal instincts than I will admit.

For this reason, I have come up with three solutions for bad criticism.

The first is to learn from it. Analyze all of the talking points that are constructive and take them to heart. If one person saw a flaw in your writing, other might as well, and that's something that should be addressed.

If there are no constructive perspectives given, behead the fucker. That's right. If they are voicing a negative opinion just to be mean, call them out on it. Respond to their name calling by asking them to define exactly what they found amiss in your novel. Force them to be detailed instead of being childish like their previous commentary was. Others that read this will see that you want to grow in your writing, but won't take vague shit that any word monkey might sling. Don't be cruel in your retort, just express that you would like a greater perspective on their view of your work so that it might further your career and help your future readers. As far as verbally gutting the bastard, you can leave that glimmer of anger where it belongs, the small twitch in the corner of your left eye.

The third option if there is no way to provoke a detailed and productive iota of thought from your critic, is to ignore it. You won't be able to please everyone and childish exchanges read over and over again by future readers of your little tiff will be turned off to learning more about your overall work. There is such thing as bad press, it's when your writing platform is bent out of shape by one or two heated comments you decided to pop in response to a bad review. Don't let it touch you. That's right, if you don't propogate it, it won't spread easily to the bulk of your readership. More over, your true fans will be galvanized by it and believe in you even more. Some of them will be just as pissed as you were after hearing about it and talk about your book in a good light more so.

Of course you will let the message get to you. You were the one that is affected the most. The good news is that through ignoring a childish review, you can focus on what actually matters, your writing.

Virgil Allen Moore