I recently made a grave mistake: I looked at some of the bad reviews of my book. Every writer knows that looking at the bad reviews isn’t what we’d call a healthy practice. Reading intensely negative reviews has a tendency to hurl writers into a chasm of depression and doubt, and yet all of us have at some time or another willingly taken that swan dive into the darkness. This wasn’t my first time reading a negative review, and given how wounded and angry I became after reading the opinions of my first vitriolic critic, it’s surprising that I didn’t learn my lesson. Nevertheless, I felt drawn to a single star review like a trembling mortal is drawn toward the hateful eye of some Lovecraftian horror.
One might think it would be easy to disregard hateful reviews, especially if they draw false parallels or otherwise misunderstand the book. Certainly the apple that is blatantly rotten can be easily tossed aside before any damage is done, right? Wrong. Writers and other creatives gravitate toward the rotten apples; we pluck them from a barrel of gleaming specimens and stare into their putrid flesh like one transfixed. We fancy that we can see ourselves in the rotten apples—a vision of self that is fed by our own insecurities and very real shortcomings. Building memorable characters is difficult for me, and is therefore something that I work tirelessly to improve. When someone tells me that my characters are indistinguishable from one another, I’m cut to the quick. All the praise that I’ve received for creating good characters is forgotten in the face of a criticism that is my fear made manifest.
It’s astounding how deadening hateful critiques are to the creative process. The inner critic is always eager for ammunition and will harry my creative impulses until they are pummeled down by a hail of doubts. There is no surer route to writer’s block than to let doubt have the ascendency. I cannot write if every idea is questioned and every sentence is interrogated. Doubt can also ruin good creative discipline. I can be consistently productive, churning out page after page of really good material until doubt comes like a wrench to bind the cogs of my writing mechanism. Why would I sit to write for hours at a time when everything that I do is bad? Why toil at a manuscript, pouring my spirit into its words, if it will be a failure in the end, a poor imitation of someone’s greater work?
In my experience, it takes a while to bounce back from reading a hateful review. This time around, I’m recovering faster thanks to good habits. My recovery process is below, in no particular order. I hope it will be helpful, should you ever need to climb out of a chasm of doubt.
Read back through your work. In the midst of your doubt, it all might appear clumsy or broken, but I guarantee that you will find something worthwhile. There will be a scene that is well executed, a line that is beautiful, and that will shine a light on the lies of doubt. You are capable of producing art.
Cherish the praise you’ve received. There’s usually many more positive things that people have said about your work than there are negative. Everything someone loves is a victory. If even one person enjoyed your work, then it was all worthwhile. Art is successful if it has reached one person, everything beyond that is just success piled on success.
Address your weaknesses, don’t wallow in them. If you are worried that your characters are weak, work to improve them. Nothing is quite as reassuring as taking steps to fix a problem; it’s a way to take back control. If you don’t know how to fix the problem, try something! Eventually you’ll figure out what needs to be done, and that realization often comes after going in the wrong direction.
Realize that this is a journey. The more you write, the better your writing will become. What you’re working on now is probably way better than what you were working on last year. If you want to be a better writer keep writing!
Read a book. Even the most fabulously successful authors have issues, some of which are glaring. Books aren’t good because their authors did everything right, books are good because their authors did something right. You can do something right too, and you’re probably already doing it!
Realize that there is no accounting for taste, or for trolls. Even your favorite authors get hateful reviews. You aren’t writing to please everyone, and your work isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea. Some people will surely love it and others will hate it, and that’s alright. Some people hate the way I dwell on natural descriptions while others think it is the best part of my work. I love writing descriptions I would never destroy something I saw to be beautiful just because someone else didn’t like it.