Reviews, Reviewers, and Writing Fiction
Posted Jun 27, 2005
Last Updated Jun 21, 2012
First a caveat: Anything I write is from my own personal viewpoint, and I am sometimes wrong. Nonetheless, I've been in this business since 1968, am reflective by nature, and assume that what I write may be useful to other writers.
Next, I'm not writing about "literary criticism" here. Literary criticism commonly deals with more than a single book. As for "critiques": here I use the word to mean a private evaluation of a work, for consideration by the author. The sort of thing done by teachers of creative writing, or in workshops.
Reviews, though sometimes instructive to writers, serve primarily as suggestions to readers of what they might or might not like to read. Critiques, on the other hand, aim at assisting writers, hopefully improving their skills. In another sense, reviews evaluate the product. Critiques evaluate the skills used in creating it. The two processes are kin, and while they are readily distinguished, they are hard to disengage.
I'll look first at reviewing, then at critiquing.
A review is the expression of a reviewer interacting with a story. Difficulties can arise when the reviewer judges the story by the techniques used in writing it. It may be appropriate, in reviewing, to evaluate the techniques, but only insofar as they enhance or degrade the impact of the story on readers.
I'm talking about the story told, not some other story the author wasn't trying to tell. The reviewer may wish the author had written a different story -- say one in which the sensitive artist, instead of the hunky warrior, gets the girl. But that's a question of preference, not the innate quality of the story.
Reviewers are artists with their own story preferences. Some prefer action-adventure, some romance, or alternate history, or fictionalized biography, or high fantasy, or... Some despise military SF, some despise stories with spiritual elements, some resent anything that crosses their social or political prejudices -- right wing, left wing...whatever. We all have prejudices (well, maybe not you, but some of us do); some are aware of theirs, others aren't.
Horse breeders are artists. Some are interested only in thoroughbreds, others in carriage horses, or fjeld horses, or the heavy draft breeds (much less now than in the past), etc., bred for different uses in different environmental and cultural conditions. To judge any of them by the standards for the others is irrational, but they are all horses.
As for stories -- they differ by more than type, and each story has its own particular combination of needs, so the reviewer has fewer firm reference points. On the other hand the writer has many nuanced tools, usable in many combinations for specific circumstances, needs and preferences.
The rational and central criterion in judging a story is: does it work for readers? Does it do what the writer intended? (More or less, as interpreted by readers different ages or cultures. Our nine-year-old daughter read Rölvaag's Giants in the Earth, and enthused over it. I'm sure if she read it now, at age forty-eight, it would seem a considerably different book.)
Meanwhile, how well do different aspects of our subject story work? That's where product and technique become difficult or impossible to separate.
Prejudices can intrude in reviewing, some flagrantly, others subtly. And some reviewers, when one of their buttons is pushed, switch into critiquing mode. Sometimes thoughtfully, but also sometimes punitively, as if to punish the author for the enormity of his sin. (I specifically recall a prominent reviewer savagely attacking a novel by Buz Busby, a novel I'd enjoyed. It seems to me his problem was with the story itself; not how it was written, but that it was written at all. That was a dozen or more years ago. With his mid-life crisis now behind him, would he see it differently if he revisited it today?)
An annoyed reviewer can lose track of what the story is about, or for whom it was written. The question should be: does the style harm that story and in what way, not does it offend the reviewer. And that's asking lot of a reviewer, especially one who tends to feel passionately about things. Some do a much better job than others at recognizing that what bothers them may be a matter of individual perceptions, allowing for their differences and even pointing at them.
#
That covers the basics as I see them. Now let's look at writing technique, as it affects (or afflicts) the story. For example, story arc (alias "plot trajectory"), pacing, believability, ideas, color, characterization, aesthetics, and simply whether the story is interesting or otherwise appealing. Inevitably of course from the reviewer's background and tastes.
Personal taste may act in ways the reviewer isn’t aware of. In a review of my short fiction collection, Otherwhens, Otherwheres, a reviewer said very nice things, but brushed off the two stories from theme anthologies as “weak, concentrating on concept and setting rather than story.” But how weak were they, really? Especially considering that concept and setting can be important and interesting, which is to say contributive. In these two cases, one was the anthology editor's favorite; the other was my personal favorite in its anthology. I chose them for my collection because they seem to work well outside the anthology context; many anthology stories don't.
Perhaps the reviewer doesn't care for theme anthologies. As books -- sets of stories -- theme anthologies tend to be uneven, and portray the story universe more or less inconsistently, harming the book's credibility. But some of the stories can be delightful. I believe the novelet “The Railroad” is very good. It’s a story of diverse individuals whom I consider excellently drawn, each with his or her own purpose, ethnicity and situation, caught together on a railway car in circumstances initially seeming mundane and benign, but which turn grim. How grim becomes clear as the story proceeds. Each character is affected differently and responds differently, but at the end they tend to draw together -- all except Migruder -- committing themselves to the only option short of suicide.
The story is, of course, most meaningful in the context of the entire anthology volume, and even more so in the context of the extended series.
The other story was “The Stoor’s Map," from a Warner Books anthology. It was a hobbit knock-off, written as a cover story for art already in hand (by the Brothers Hilldebrand; I’ve assumed it depicts the face-off between Samwise and Shelob in The Return of the King). I consider it an excellent knock-off, and again with a rich ethnic feel.
Suppose the reviewer did not dislike theme anthologies. Might she then have enjoyed those two stories? Maybe not. My point here is, reviewers have personal tastes.
Tastes we as authors probably benefit from more often than otherwise.
#
Some reviewers recognize their preferences and aversions, and where they apply, and say so in the review, so their readers can factor them in. But some reviewers seem to assume that their preferences reflect God’s own; that it’s their duty to promote and defend them, and never never confront that they’re a matter of taste.
In the contemporary version of this God-dictated order of desirability, tension may well be number one, and the modulation of tension, notably “story arc,” is close behind. This seems to be the most widely and strongly, and I feel wrongly held truth propounded by the literati, the writing “gods” -- usually prominent reviewers, and some professors of creative writing. And probably some editors. They have as believers many lesser-known reviewers, many liberal arts graduates, and some authors. And many readers who forget why they read, especially readers who belong to book discussion groups led by senior believers. (Of course, as with other species of believers, some are less steadfast than others.)
Let me add here that I am not knocking the value of those "truths." They are not natural law, but they do reflect experience and observation, and we are well advised to know them. They are useful.
Tension can add force to the action and fire to the reader, and story arc -- the curve of intensity through the course of a story -- can help build that intensity. And in our culture today, there is a hunger -- a greed -- for intensity; for many Americans there is no such thing as enough intensity, as if they need it to remind them they're alive. (Intensity dominates TV advertising.)
But we are also well advised to be aware of the limitations of those "truths." There may be stories we want to write which don’t fit them, and when we do, we need to lay aside some particular "truth" while we write that story.
When someone didactically states that a story, to be any good, must do, be, or have such and such, my mind tends at once to pull up very successful stories which disprove it as a law.
It's likely, however, to be broadly useful.
#
There are numerous books on how to write fiction; I own something more than a dozen. Altogether they pitch many methods, and probably all of them have at least some validity. But one well-known author and reviewer goes so far as to say if your story doesn’t follow his [excellent] formula, it isn’t a story! What he did, of course, was to redefine “story”; my dictionary lists ten definitions as a noun and two as verbs; his isn’t one of them.
#
Ten or so years ago, our daughter-in-law Jill read a popular series of novels by Jan Karon, “the Mitford novels.” Set in a fictional contemporary village in the North Carolina foothills, they deal with the doings of the villagers. Jill gave my wife, Gail, a copy of one in which the primary thread (not an actual recognizable plot) was the local Episcopal priest. Gail, who tends to be impatient with slow novels, commented to me that she'd liked it a lot, but when I asked her what it was about, she said “nothing much, actually.” Curious, I began reading it.
It had nearly zero tension, nor anything I’d consider a story arc. A few sittings later I finished the book, and found myself missing Mitford’s villagers. It had been a very pleasant read, definitely not exciting, but very enjoyable. Charming. Ms Karon’s mix of human characters and small-town events worked nicely, even with very little tension. Yet it was not a collection of short stories. While the various characters and doings didn't constitute well-defined subplots, the threads were interwoven, with a fair seasoning of surprises. They worked, and therein lies a lesson:
The nearest thing to a genuine law of creative
writing might be, “if it works, it works,”
regardless of conventional wisdom.
On another tack, a friend interested in writing recently sent me a list of rules he’d been impressed with: an exercise in didactics. One of the statements was that “show, don’t tell” is the "golden rule of writing." I wrote back he shouldn’t ignore that other, less known rule, “tell, don’t show.” A lot of aspiring writers tell at great length and show little, so “show, don’t tell” is the more widely applicable advice, and comes more readily to mind. But a novel built exclusively on “show, don’t tell” could easily become deadly long and tedious. “Tell, don’t show” is very useful for getting quickly from one place in a story to another.
#
Some readers much prefer stories that focus on one character, or a couple, or a limited group. Something like that. But how important is that in the overall readerly scheme of things?
As an observation, it's a useful datum.
But do you enjoy reading histories? Most of them don’t focus on one character or small group (though some do, of course). Do you enjoy biographies? Biographies have a strong focus, but most have no story arc. And I argue that it is entirely valid, and for some stories necessary, to be without one or both of those features. So if there’s a story you want to write which seems best approached without a narrow focus, or without a story arc, write the SOB that way. If it works, it works!
Of course if it doesn't work for your intended readers, that's something else. You have to make it work.
#
I once partnered in a bookstore program with a local romance writer who declared that a novel, to be successful, must be 70 percent dialog. "How about 60 percent?" I asked. "Or 80?"
Not 60, she said, and not 80; 70 percent.
"Does that apply to other than romance novels?" I asked.
"To all novels," she answered.
In that regard, I recently read a formatted review in which one of the boxes asked whether dialog "outweighed" narrative in the story. Have you read any Icelandic sagas? They are very exotic, full of intrigue and rich in treachery, with large dollops of violence. But dialog? Even the conversations tend to be written as narrative, or verse.
#
As for character as a defining feature or set of features, not only individuals have it. Ethnicities also have character, as do families and communities. Written into stories, these add diversity, flavor -- and realism. One of the weaknesses in much amateur writing is a tendency to treat people as ethnically homogeneous, or ham up or otherwise mishandle ethnicity. Most readers may not notice, but some will be unhappy with you.
People who write short stories have to paint character with small strokes. When we write novelettes we have more room. Reviewers too paint on small canvases. They don’t have room to remark on everything, even if they want to. They tend to stress the strong and weak points in a story, which often includes the characterization of principle players, but perhaps not often of ethnicities, families, and communities.
Gypsies played an important role in Steven King's (oops, "Richard Bachman's") novel Thinner, and in places, King had them speaking "Romany" (without translation). To my surprise I could read them! Romany, it seems, is the same as Swedish, but without the diacritical marks! (Not really.) Some of it even made sense, while some was totally non sequitur, but they were real Swedish words. King may have decided finding or dealing with a Romany speaker was too much trouble, but there seems to have been a Swede next door, and...
#
Some reviewers and professors consider expository lumps evil. Perhaps, if they're really lumps. ("Data dumps" is another term for them.) "Show it happening," they say. Put in such black and white terms -- "expository lumps" or "data dumps" -- this is both perceptive and misleading. As for "show it happening" -- that is generally good advice, to the extent it's artistically feasible. Victor Hugo's Les Misérables was published in 1862. In it Hugo spent -- what? Two healthy chapters? -- on the early life of an incidental character whose entire role was to steal some silverware... I was impressed even in 1940 (at age 14); it seemed hardly worthwhile.
Different era, different public. And of course there are stories in which substantial information is necessary early on, and to "show it happening" may not be feasible, or may simply be clumsy. There is something to be said for directness.
The key is to make it interesting. "Make it interesting."
#
I’ll close this with a comment: Reviewers have their own styles, their own charm. When A.J. Budrys reviewed for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, his reviews were the first thing I read. Just as John Campbell's editorials were the first thing I turned to in Astounding and Analog. They were art in their own right.
NOTE:The piece was published in the July 2005 issue of THE SFWA BULLETIN, "the public face" of The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
Next, I'm not writing about "literary criticism" here. Literary criticism commonly deals with more than a single book. As for "critiques": here I use the word to mean a private evaluation of a work, for consideration by the author. The sort of thing done by teachers of creative writing, or in workshops.
Reviews, though sometimes instructive to writers, serve primarily as suggestions to readers of what they might or might not like to read. Critiques, on the other hand, aim at assisting writers, hopefully improving their skills. In another sense, reviews evaluate the product. Critiques evaluate the skills used in creating it. The two processes are kin, and while they are readily distinguished, they are hard to disengage.
I'll look first at reviewing, then at critiquing.
A review is the expression of a reviewer interacting with a story. Difficulties can arise when the reviewer judges the story by the techniques used in writing it. It may be appropriate, in reviewing, to evaluate the techniques, but only insofar as they enhance or degrade the impact of the story on readers.
I'm talking about the story told, not some other story the author wasn't trying to tell. The reviewer may wish the author had written a different story -- say one in which the sensitive artist, instead of the hunky warrior, gets the girl. But that's a question of preference, not the innate quality of the story.
Reviewers are artists with their own story preferences. Some prefer action-adventure, some romance, or alternate history, or fictionalized biography, or high fantasy, or... Some despise military SF, some despise stories with spiritual elements, some resent anything that crosses their social or political prejudices -- right wing, left wing...whatever. We all have prejudices (well, maybe not you, but some of us do); some are aware of theirs, others aren't.
Horse breeders are artists. Some are interested only in thoroughbreds, others in carriage horses, or fjeld horses, or the heavy draft breeds (much less now than in the past), etc., bred for different uses in different environmental and cultural conditions. To judge any of them by the standards for the others is irrational, but they are all horses.
As for stories -- they differ by more than type, and each story has its own particular combination of needs, so the reviewer has fewer firm reference points. On the other hand the writer has many nuanced tools, usable in many combinations for specific circumstances, needs and preferences.
The rational and central criterion in judging a story is: does it work for readers? Does it do what the writer intended? (More or less, as interpreted by readers different ages or cultures. Our nine-year-old daughter read Rölvaag's Giants in the Earth, and enthused over it. I'm sure if she read it now, at age forty-eight, it would seem a considerably different book.)
Meanwhile, how well do different aspects of our subject story work? That's where product and technique become difficult or impossible to separate.
Prejudices can intrude in reviewing, some flagrantly, others subtly. And some reviewers, when one of their buttons is pushed, switch into critiquing mode. Sometimes thoughtfully, but also sometimes punitively, as if to punish the author for the enormity of his sin. (I specifically recall a prominent reviewer savagely attacking a novel by Buz Busby, a novel I'd enjoyed. It seems to me his problem was with the story itself; not how it was written, but that it was written at all. That was a dozen or more years ago. With his mid-life crisis now behind him, would he see it differently if he revisited it today?)
An annoyed reviewer can lose track of what the story is about, or for whom it was written. The question should be: does the style harm that story and in what way, not does it offend the reviewer. And that's asking lot of a reviewer, especially one who tends to feel passionately about things. Some do a much better job than others at recognizing that what bothers them may be a matter of individual perceptions, allowing for their differences and even pointing at them.
#
That covers the basics as I see them. Now let's look at writing technique, as it affects (or afflicts) the story. For example, story arc (alias "plot trajectory"), pacing, believability, ideas, color, characterization, aesthetics, and simply whether the story is interesting or otherwise appealing. Inevitably of course from the reviewer's background and tastes.
Personal taste may act in ways the reviewer isn’t aware of. In a review of my short fiction collection, Otherwhens, Otherwheres, a reviewer said very nice things, but brushed off the two stories from theme anthologies as “weak, concentrating on concept and setting rather than story.” But how weak were they, really? Especially considering that concept and setting can be important and interesting, which is to say contributive. In these two cases, one was the anthology editor's favorite; the other was my personal favorite in its anthology. I chose them for my collection because they seem to work well outside the anthology context; many anthology stories don't.
Perhaps the reviewer doesn't care for theme anthologies. As books -- sets of stories -- theme anthologies tend to be uneven, and portray the story universe more or less inconsistently, harming the book's credibility. But some of the stories can be delightful. I believe the novelet “The Railroad” is very good. It’s a story of diverse individuals whom I consider excellently drawn, each with his or her own purpose, ethnicity and situation, caught together on a railway car in circumstances initially seeming mundane and benign, but which turn grim. How grim becomes clear as the story proceeds. Each character is affected differently and responds differently, but at the end they tend to draw together -- all except Migruder -- committing themselves to the only option short of suicide.
The story is, of course, most meaningful in the context of the entire anthology volume, and even more so in the context of the extended series.
The other story was “The Stoor’s Map," from a Warner Books anthology. It was a hobbit knock-off, written as a cover story for art already in hand (by the Brothers Hilldebrand; I’ve assumed it depicts the face-off between Samwise and Shelob in The Return of the King). I consider it an excellent knock-off, and again with a rich ethnic feel.
Suppose the reviewer did not dislike theme anthologies. Might she then have enjoyed those two stories? Maybe not. My point here is, reviewers have personal tastes.
Tastes we as authors probably benefit from more often than otherwise.
#
Some reviewers recognize their preferences and aversions, and where they apply, and say so in the review, so their readers can factor them in. But some reviewers seem to assume that their preferences reflect God’s own; that it’s their duty to promote and defend them, and never never confront that they’re a matter of taste.
In the contemporary version of this God-dictated order of desirability, tension may well be number one, and the modulation of tension, notably “story arc,” is close behind. This seems to be the most widely and strongly, and I feel wrongly held truth propounded by the literati, the writing “gods” -- usually prominent reviewers, and some professors of creative writing. And probably some editors. They have as believers many lesser-known reviewers, many liberal arts graduates, and some authors. And many readers who forget why they read, especially readers who belong to book discussion groups led by senior believers. (Of course, as with other species of believers, some are less steadfast than others.)
Let me add here that I am not knocking the value of those "truths." They are not natural law, but they do reflect experience and observation, and we are well advised to know them. They are useful.
Tension can add force to the action and fire to the reader, and story arc -- the curve of intensity through the course of a story -- can help build that intensity. And in our culture today, there is a hunger -- a greed -- for intensity; for many Americans there is no such thing as enough intensity, as if they need it to remind them they're alive. (Intensity dominates TV advertising.)
But we are also well advised to be aware of the limitations of those "truths." There may be stories we want to write which don’t fit them, and when we do, we need to lay aside some particular "truth" while we write that story.
When someone didactically states that a story, to be any good, must do, be, or have such and such, my mind tends at once to pull up very successful stories which disprove it as a law.
It's likely, however, to be broadly useful.
#
There are numerous books on how to write fiction; I own something more than a dozen. Altogether they pitch many methods, and probably all of them have at least some validity. But one well-known author and reviewer goes so far as to say if your story doesn’t follow his [excellent] formula, it isn’t a story! What he did, of course, was to redefine “story”; my dictionary lists ten definitions as a noun and two as verbs; his isn’t one of them.
#
Ten or so years ago, our daughter-in-law Jill read a popular series of novels by Jan Karon, “the Mitford novels.” Set in a fictional contemporary village in the North Carolina foothills, they deal with the doings of the villagers. Jill gave my wife, Gail, a copy of one in which the primary thread (not an actual recognizable plot) was the local Episcopal priest. Gail, who tends to be impatient with slow novels, commented to me that she'd liked it a lot, but when I asked her what it was about, she said “nothing much, actually.” Curious, I began reading it.
It had nearly zero tension, nor anything I’d consider a story arc. A few sittings later I finished the book, and found myself missing Mitford’s villagers. It had been a very pleasant read, definitely not exciting, but very enjoyable. Charming. Ms Karon’s mix of human characters and small-town events worked nicely, even with very little tension. Yet it was not a collection of short stories. While the various characters and doings didn't constitute well-defined subplots, the threads were interwoven, with a fair seasoning of surprises. They worked, and therein lies a lesson:
The nearest thing to a genuine law of creative
writing might be, “if it works, it works,”
regardless of conventional wisdom.
On another tack, a friend interested in writing recently sent me a list of rules he’d been impressed with: an exercise in didactics. One of the statements was that “show, don’t tell” is the "golden rule of writing." I wrote back he shouldn’t ignore that other, less known rule, “tell, don’t show.” A lot of aspiring writers tell at great length and show little, so “show, don’t tell” is the more widely applicable advice, and comes more readily to mind. But a novel built exclusively on “show, don’t tell” could easily become deadly long and tedious. “Tell, don’t show” is very useful for getting quickly from one place in a story to another.
#
Some readers much prefer stories that focus on one character, or a couple, or a limited group. Something like that. But how important is that in the overall readerly scheme of things?
As an observation, it's a useful datum.
But do you enjoy reading histories? Most of them don’t focus on one character or small group (though some do, of course). Do you enjoy biographies? Biographies have a strong focus, but most have no story arc. And I argue that it is entirely valid, and for some stories necessary, to be without one or both of those features. So if there’s a story you want to write which seems best approached without a narrow focus, or without a story arc, write the SOB that way. If it works, it works!
Of course if it doesn't work for your intended readers, that's something else. You have to make it work.
#
I once partnered in a bookstore program with a local romance writer who declared that a novel, to be successful, must be 70 percent dialog. "How about 60 percent?" I asked. "Or 80?"
Not 60, she said, and not 80; 70 percent.
"Does that apply to other than romance novels?" I asked.
"To all novels," she answered.
In that regard, I recently read a formatted review in which one of the boxes asked whether dialog "outweighed" narrative in the story. Have you read any Icelandic sagas? They are very exotic, full of intrigue and rich in treachery, with large dollops of violence. But dialog? Even the conversations tend to be written as narrative, or verse.
#
As for character as a defining feature or set of features, not only individuals have it. Ethnicities also have character, as do families and communities. Written into stories, these add diversity, flavor -- and realism. One of the weaknesses in much amateur writing is a tendency to treat people as ethnically homogeneous, or ham up or otherwise mishandle ethnicity. Most readers may not notice, but some will be unhappy with you.
People who write short stories have to paint character with small strokes. When we write novelettes we have more room. Reviewers too paint on small canvases. They don’t have room to remark on everything, even if they want to. They tend to stress the strong and weak points in a story, which often includes the characterization of principle players, but perhaps not often of ethnicities, families, and communities.
Gypsies played an important role in Steven King's (oops, "Richard Bachman's") novel Thinner, and in places, King had them speaking "Romany" (without translation). To my surprise I could read them! Romany, it seems, is the same as Swedish, but without the diacritical marks! (Not really.) Some of it even made sense, while some was totally non sequitur, but they were real Swedish words. King may have decided finding or dealing with a Romany speaker was too much trouble, but there seems to have been a Swede next door, and...
#
Some reviewers and professors consider expository lumps evil. Perhaps, if they're really lumps. ("Data dumps" is another term for them.) "Show it happening," they say. Put in such black and white terms -- "expository lumps" or "data dumps" -- this is both perceptive and misleading. As for "show it happening" -- that is generally good advice, to the extent it's artistically feasible. Victor Hugo's Les Misérables was published in 1862. In it Hugo spent -- what? Two healthy chapters? -- on the early life of an incidental character whose entire role was to steal some silverware... I was impressed even in 1940 (at age 14); it seemed hardly worthwhile.
Different era, different public. And of course there are stories in which substantial information is necessary early on, and to "show it happening" may not be feasible, or may simply be clumsy. There is something to be said for directness.
The key is to make it interesting. "Make it interesting."
#
I’ll close this with a comment: Reviewers have their own styles, their own charm. When A.J. Budrys reviewed for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, his reviews were the first thing I read. Just as John Campbell's editorials were the first thing I turned to in Astounding and Analog. They were art in their own right.
NOTE:The piece was published in the July 2005 issue of THE SFWA BULLETIN, "the public face" of The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.