In high school, I wrote a poem about a girl in the woods and an enemy hunter who was going to kill her, but when he saw her, she was too beautiful and he walked away instead. When it was read to the class, a country boy (the whole place was country, but I just mean this was a guy who knew his way around a shotgun and a deer blind.) spoke up that it really resonated with him, at how gorgeous the deer was to the hunter who had only come there to shoot it. And it blew me away that he got something so different from it than I had intended. I didn't argue; I thanked him, because he had shown me that there could be more to what I wrote than I had written.
Hi David! Thank you for sharing this - I love it. It’s a little mind blowing, those moments where someone took away something from our writing that we didn’t intend, but which is no less valid. Very cool.
I read ALL the reviews for my first Sanjida Kay thriller. One of them gave me a poor review because I described my main character looking out of the window and seeing a hot air balloon floating past and the review did a little shouty ALL CAPS thing about how this doesn't happen IRL. What? Not even in Bristol where the novel was set? Capital of hot air ballooning with an annual balloon festival? Another reviewer said they loved 'Bone by Bone', until the epilogue where the mother's parents paid for her severely bullied child to be sent to a private school to put a stop to the bullying. The reviewer said she couldn't believe how terrible my (me, the author) politics were and had to give a lower star-rating. I was OUTRAGED! On BOTH accounts. And I'm afraid I did reply. And then after that, I stopped reading all reviews. I care, hugely, if people like my books. But, as you say, Michelle, it's literally not your book any more, not once someone else is reading it and can think what they please about it. So yes, don't do it!
Wonderful read. (new subscriber)
In high school, I wrote a poem about a girl in the woods and an enemy hunter who was going to kill her, but when he saw her, she was too beautiful and he walked away instead. When it was read to the class, a country boy (the whole place was country, but I just mean this was a guy who knew his way around a shotgun and a deer blind.) spoke up that it really resonated with him, at how gorgeous the deer was to the hunter who had only come there to shoot it. And it blew me away that he got something so different from it than I had intended. I didn't argue; I thanked him, because he had shown me that there could be more to what I wrote than I had written.
Thank you for bringing this memory back to mind.
Hi David! Thank you for sharing this - I love it. It’s a little mind blowing, those moments where someone took away something from our writing that we didn’t intend, but which is no less valid. Very cool.
I read ALL the reviews for my first Sanjida Kay thriller. One of them gave me a poor review because I described my main character looking out of the window and seeing a hot air balloon floating past and the review did a little shouty ALL CAPS thing about how this doesn't happen IRL. What? Not even in Bristol where the novel was set? Capital of hot air ballooning with an annual balloon festival? Another reviewer said they loved 'Bone by Bone', until the epilogue where the mother's parents paid for her severely bullied child to be sent to a private school to put a stop to the bullying. The reviewer said she couldn't believe how terrible my (me, the author) politics were and had to give a lower star-rating. I was OUTRAGED! On BOTH accounts. And I'm afraid I did reply. And then after that, I stopped reading all reviews. I care, hugely, if people like my books. But, as you say, Michelle, it's literally not your book any more, not once someone else is reading it and can think what they please about it. So yes, don't do it!