Will You Keep Turning Pages?
That's all I can ask.
Hi Everyone! Welcome new subscribers! Happy August. I hope you’ve had a great month.
Genre, reviews, and reader expectations have been on my mind lately.
Over the past week, a reviewer tagged me multiple times on separate platforms. She’d listened to the You Shouldn’t Have Done That audiobook, which came out in late July. (Check out a sample here.)
She begins her posts and reels (yes, both) by stating she nearly DNF’d (Did Not Finish) it at the 10% mark and again at 20%.
After that ego-boosting opening, naturally, I considered DNF-ing the rest of her review. But I soldiered on. And, friends, she had a lot of thoughts.
She didn’t care for the narrator. Personally, I think Cat Protano knocked it out of the park. And after narrating my memoir, I have even more respect and admiration for voice actors. But, hey, everyone’s entitled to her opinion.
In addition to a few other complaints, this reviewer’s main gripe was that the book was marketed as a “thriller,” but she wasn’t sure it truly fulfilled the genre’s requirements. She conceded that yes, there’s a missing person. Yes, you’ve got characters making bad choices and, yes, there’s murder and a general sense of “something bad is about to happen,” yet she said she felt like she was watching it all unfold.
Hmmm … as opposed to what? I wondered, leaping inside the pages?
I got a nostalgic laugh remembering the show Super Why—one of my boys’ childhood favorites. In the animated series, characters live in Storyville and jump inside books to solve problems and change and/or fix the endings.
Ultimately, her review (which she admits is “chaotic”) had a happy ending. She was glad she stuck with the story. (Put that rousing endorsement on my next cover, please!) While she urged her followers to pick it up, she remained flummoxed by how to categorize it.
I’m sharing this not to knock this reviewer as I’m truly grateful for every person who reads or listens to one of my books. But I stand by the idea that reviews are for readers rather than authors. The book is complete; I cannot go back and add elements that would make it align with this reviewer’s definition of a thriller. Plus, the publisher positions the novel and there’s not a lot you, as the author, can do about that.
Also, I wouldn’t tag an author in anything less than a glowing review—maybe that’s because I know what goes into writing a book or because I was raised by a mother who repeated, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything!” Of course now that she’s in her 80s, all bets are off. She’s more in line with Alice Roosevelt Longworth’s, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, sit right here by me,” as she roasts everyone in her circle. She’s basically the Don Rickles of the Rummikub set.
Of course, everyone is welcome to share his or her thoughts on a book, but I don’t need to read them. Often, reviews—not just of my own work but of anyone’s—destroy what’s left of my faith in humanity.
When I see a posthumously published memoir about the final months of a young mother’s cancer journey receive two stars because, “This was sad, y’all,” I want to scream. I also can’t stand what I’ve come to think of as “star stinginess” where a reviewer says she enjoyed the read but is rounding down from 3.5 stars to 3.25 stars because, “I know the world’s a hot mess with climate change and genocide and all that, but the one thing I absolutely cannot abide is pages with deckled edges. Who’s with me?”
Why am I telling you this? (Other than to vent to a new audience since my family doesn’t want to hear it anymore…)
I’m putting the finishing touches on a manuscript and while I’m pleased with how it turned out, there’s no question it’s a slow burn. I’m fine with that. But where will it sit in the market? And how many negative reviews will I receive if I dare to refer to it as a “thriller?” Do I pepper the cover with phrases like, “A simmering, slow-motion unraveling for people with patience and plenty o’ time …” or “May not meet all your thriller hopes and dreams by page 12—proceed accordingly!”
Personally, I don’t need a book to fit neatly into one genre in order to enjoy it. Over the past few months, I listened to Broken Country and Culpability. Both are considered literary fiction yet each has thriller-y elements. I didn’t stop the recording to shake a fist in the air and demand “Pick a genre already!”
As a reader, all I ask of a book is that it makes me care about the characters and the plot enough to see how it all comes together. As a writer, that’s what I’m trying to offer, regardless of what you call it.
On the topic, Andromeda Romano-Lax and Caitlin Wahrer, who write the always interesting PRESENT TENSE: Suspense, Mystery, Thriller Craft and More have put together a free 8-week summer school. Their first post focused on genre. Next week’s will explore tension, and I’m looking forward to it.
Where I’ve Been & Where I’ll Be
Thank you to everyone who voted in last month’s newsletter’s poll in which I asked you to weigh in on the project I should write next: A romcom about finding love at midlife or a revenge-themed suspense. Finding love won by a landslide and I was all in. Then, I appeared as a guest on Suzy Vadori’s Show Don’t Tell podcast. (I won this through Writers Helping Writers. Yay!) Suzy workshopped the first page of that revenge-themed suspense idea and now I’m back at a crossroads again.
I also completed the ‘How to Write a Novel’ Reedsy course I began in April. I’ll definitely miss it and the lessons on endings gave me a lot to think about. If you’re in the market for an online course with daily lessons and weekly live editing sessions, I highly recommend it. I didn’t come close to the 50k-word goal but I do have about 9k in two very different projects, so there’s that!
I often say that the best part of writing is the friendships I’ve made along the way. Nina Badzin, host of the Dear Nina podcast, kindly had me on as a guest. We talked about intergenerational friendships as that’s a subplot in my romcom Claire Casey’s Had Enough. You can listen here:
Upcoming events:
If you’re near Morris County, NJ and looking for a memoir workshop, I’m teaching in person starting Monday, Oct. 6. with The Writers Circle. Register here. I’d love to see you!
I’ll be at Bedford Books on Wednesday, Oct. 8 from 6:30 to 8 p.m. to celebrate the launch of the paperback version of Claire Casey’s Had Enough. Please join me if you can!
I’m super excited to celebrate the launch of my pal Lisa Kusel’s latest thriller, Long Way Down, which delivers more metaphorical explosions than the Cooper family quarry at the center of their fortunes and misfortunes. We’ll be at The Wallflower Collective in Burlington, VT in October. kim windyka, who writes the wonderful Substack, The Scenic Route, which gives me extreme wanderlust, was recently there and now I’m dying to check out this place in person!
Time for my obligatory cat photo…
As always, thank you for reading!
I feel misled. This was clearly marketed as a "news"letter, yet no news! The author clearly pulled a bait and switch. Not one mention of people being caught cheating on their spouses at a concert, or stranded whales in places they shouldn't be, let alone what the weather will be like today halfway across the country. This was obviously more of a thriller, and I don't need that kind of excitement at this time or morning.
I unfollow and restrict reviewers who tag me in negative reviews (and will unfollow when I see them doing this to other authors, too). They're more than entitled to their opinion, but bringing it to *my* attention? It's bad literary citizenship and poor judgment. So sorry this happened to you, Liz.