This announcement went out a few days ago.
Fellow writers, have you tried the AI block yet? (I have not.)
If you’ve used it, or plan to, will you credit the AI Assistant?
Maybe WP is working on an AI Reader that will read, like, and comment on posts. Think of the time we’ll save!
I’ve been seeing a trend in book reviews questioning the use of mental illness in works of fiction, as a plot device or even the main theme of a novel. (And yes, that includes reviews of one of my books.)
Also, it happens to be Mental Health Awareness Month, so this is a good time to address the topic.
This post has more questions than answers.
Some reviewers declare they will not read or favourably review any book that uses mental illness as a plot device to create tension or conflict.
But what about the unreliable narrator? What about the psychological thriller? What about the character who does terrible or puzzling things because of mental illness?
When might it be OK?
If it’s never okay, that means writers are limited to pure evil (whatever that is) to motivate the serial killer, or inexplicable confusion for the unreliable narrator. Or simply an inexplicable tendency to lie. Is it okay to leave it up to readers to carry out a diagnosis?
And why is it okay to show murder, bloody combat, and child abuse in fiction, but not mental illness?
What about all those characters who remember or discover terrible things that were done to them as children?
Psychological conditions are common in real life and therefore in fiction. It’s just as unacceptable to pretend they don’t exist as to treat them casually and thoughtlessly. But I see objections, in recent reviews and articles, to writers using the terminology or descriptions of symptoms because it’s “unfair,” or because it might “trigger” a reader who has experienced or is experiencing mental illness.
And what about suicide? Is it ever okay to mention or depict that in fiction? Strangely enough, even though a search on “mental illness in fiction” brings up many articles that say don’t do it, a search on “suicide in fiction” yields lists such as “the 10 best suicides in literature.” Is suicide just too useful as a plot device?
And what about trigger warnings? How detailed should they be? What about spoilers?
For what it’s worth, I think it’s undeniable that a greater awareness of mental illness requires us writers to avoid treating it casually in our fiction. We must think of it as something that can affect any of us, rather than a peculiarity of people who are “not us.”
Have you read or written books that mention or include mental illness? Is anyone prepared to revise their published works to address issues mentioned here?
For a more extensive look at the issue, have a look at this post from Rabbit With a Red Pen.
The Wikipedia entry titled “Mental disorders in fiction” lists numerous works that include mental illness.
Despite the block of wood in the photo, I can’t say writer’s block is why I’m not cranking out the prose right now.
I just don’t feel like writing.
There are so many books to read…
And it looks like Spring has been postponed.
What about you, fellow writers—and readers? Are you writing, thinking about writing, reading, or doing other things altogether?
Lots of action at Writers Supporting Writers lately! The latest video chat shows us in crabby mode, admitting to our reluctance for live events, bemoaning our marketing efforts, but concluding that writing is definitely worthwhile.
View the video, or just listen, HERE. Please add your comments, disagree with us, or offer some helpful advice. (Comments closed here.)
And yes, we’re not happy with the site’s problems (no Reblog button, Likes not working properly, etc.) Another round of seeking help and fiddling with the settings has not helped. But we’re not giving up, so please bear with us.
This is a follow-up to Chuck Litka’s post about editors on Writers Supporting Writers. This time, he asks: Who do indie authors rely on to help them produce readable books?
Read Chuck’s post HERE and please share your thoughts in the comments. (Comments closed here.)
This provocative question is considered by Chuck Litka at Writers Supporting Writers. Read his post HERE and contribute your thoughts in the comments. I’ve closed comments here.
Since I started blogging, I’ve written at least half a dozen posts about book reviewing, the most recent ones in 2019. I just read over them, but didn’t think I’d finished with the topic. A recent post by a fellow writer inspired me to revisit it.
I read a lot of books and write some sort of review about almost all of them. I also assign star ratings. Sometimes I have reservations about the whole process.
One of these is the familiar 5-star system used on Amazon, Goodreads, and by many individual reviewers. It’s a blunt instrument, reducing the worth of a complex piece of writing to a number. It has been used for malicious attacks, in which a group assigns a bunch of 1-star ratings to a book in order to pull down its overall rating. But many potential book buyers (including libraries) use a book’s star rating as an indicator of quality when deciding to buy or not.
Many reviewers avoid 1- and 2-star ratings. This is the opposite of the malicious attack. Low ratings are considered unkind. Sure, but if a book is badly written, doesn’t it deserve a bad rating?
If 1 and 2 stars are avoided, that leaves only three ratings: 3 stars (OK), 4 stars (good), 5 stars (excellent). I assign 4 stars more often than any other rating. Sometimes I look at my list of 4-star books and realize how different they are from one another, in quality, genre, and voice. How dare I equate all these books with a number? Imagine rating your friends that way!
One idea is to decouple the star rating from the review. Even if the review points out problems with the book, the rating is benign. But doesn’t this muddy the reviewing waters and mislead potential readers who pay more attention to ratings?
Then there’s the rating without a review. As both a writer and a reader, I disapprove of this practice. I suppose 5 stars without a review is a quick way to indicate a reader liked the book, but any other rating, especially a low one, needs an explanation. The “Before You Go” prompt at the end of a Kindle book, that asks the reader to instantly supply a rating, may account for some reviewless ratings. It’s too easy to rate and run.
In the old days before the internet, book reviews were written by literary types and appeared in magazines and newspapers. They were lengthy and serious, and were mostly about “important” books. Popular mass-market books weren’t considered worthy of such reviews. Many of them had endorsements by other authors in the front, but that was more like advertising.
Now anyone can write any kind of review of any book, on Amazon, on Goodreads, on their blog, or on social media. Writers plead for reviews at the end of each book, earnestly informing the reader of their importance. They seek out book bloggers and “BookTokkers,” hoping one of them will supply a review.
The word “review” covers everything from a couple of sentences to multiple paragraphs of praise or condemnation. For some readers, a book review is suspiciously similar to the book report of school days, or the paper for the college course on Literature. Especially an objective, analytical review, that compares a book to standards for its genre and examines its place in the author’s ouevre or a literary canon. It’s much easier to write an emotionally-based review, which isn’t so much about a book as the reader’s experience of reading it. Let’s face it, it’s easier to express feelings than organized thoughts.
Reviews by writers are instantly recognizable by phrases like “too much telling,” “too many filter words,” and “needs a developmental edit.” But a review of a published book isn’t the same as a critique group comment or a beta reader’s report, something reviewers should keep in mind.
My reviews fall into several categories.
First are quick, casual reviews for trad-pubbed books that already have hundreds or even thousands of reviews. A few remarks, or even a rating without review are enough, unless I have strong feelings about a book that simply must be expressed.
For most indie-published books, I write longer, thoughtful reviews.
I’ve participated in several Reading Rounds on Goodreads in the last few years. The deal with those is you don’t select the books you are obliged to read and review, which means a book may not be a good match for its reader. In such cases, I evaluate the book by the standards of its genre, more than my personal views of it. This is also a good approach when I dislike a well-written book for some reason.
I write my short, casual reviews directly on Goodreads and copy them to Amazon or Smashwords, depending on where I bought the book. Goodreads Reading Round reviews must be posted on both Goodreads and Amazon, regardless of where the reviewer obtains the book. I always write my RR reviews on Word, as well as any others I want to brood over for a while before posting. If I’m making critical comments about a book, I want to make sure they are precisely worded and not flippant or malicious.
Some readers write only positive reviews. Three stars or better, with few critical remarks. If a book has serious problems, they simply don’t review it. In the case of books by fellow writers, a personal communication with the author replaces a negative review.
On the face of it, this seems like a good policy. “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything.” Good advice from Mom. But is it really helpful to writers and readers? If readers write only feel-good reviews, doesn’t that distort the picture for everyone? If a book has no reviews, does that mean it’s undeserving, or merely undiscovered? In the absence of negative reviews or ratings, how would a reader know the difference? I believe it’s possible to write critical reviews in a way that benefits both writers and readers.
That said, I have never given a book a 1-star rating, or written a totally negative review. If I find a book to be that bad, I generally abandon it soon after starting to read it, and I don’t review books I haven’t read in entirety.
As a reader, I tend to pay more attention to thoughtful critical reviews than enthusiastically positive ones. I uniformly ignore 5-star raves (especially those with attached gifs) and 1-star condemnations (especially those with profanity).
This can be a tricky one. A bad review from a friend can damage the friendship, especially if it’s unexpected. In such cases it’s probably a good idea to communicate one’s concerns about the book privately and not write a public review at all. There’s always the option of the hypocritical good review, but that has its own problems.
Have you noticed the contradictions in this screed about reviews? Negative reviews are okay, unless they’re for books by friends. Ratings without reviews are irritating, but fine for books with hundreds of reviews. Avoiding low ratings distorts the review process, but I’ve admitted I rarely give 2 stars, and have never used the deadly 1-star rating.
If nothing else, this shows how complicated book reviewing is. So…
Writing a review takes time and effort. Readers with TBRs bursting at the seams are eager to get on with the next book. Finishing a book means we have to marshal our thoughts about it and express them in readable prose. This can feel more like a duty than a delight, especially for books that don’t generate enthusiasm.
But…
In conclusion, I encourage writers to write reviews for the books they read, especially those of fellow indies.
For those who haven’t had enough, here are links to some of my old posts on reviewing:
Views on Book Reviewing from November 2010
Book Reviews and Readers’ Appetites from January 2011
The Elusive Review from July 2015
Book Reviewing: a Murky Business This one, from 2019, is so similar to the current post, I think I’ll just shut up about reviewing, already!
Interested in more posts like this? Subscribe to Audrey Driscoll’s Blog!
A writer must write. Once you stop writing new stuff, you become a former writer. I don’t think there’s an official number of days or months without writing after which you lose your writer’s license, but six months to a year might be it.
I published my most recent book in May 2022. Since then, the only original material I’ve written has been blog posts and book reviews. My posts are short and my reviews are informal. I don’t think of them as “real writing.” Novels, short stories, poetry, and polished essays on specific subjects—those are the real thing.
If I don’t want to stop calling myself a writer, I’d better start writing something new. Soon.
For more than twenty years, my writing efforts were directed to the four novels I call the Herbert West Series and the two that succeeded it, She Who Comes Forth and She Who Returns. There is also a collection of short fiction I published in 2020, but seven of its fourteen stories are spinoffs from the series. I lived in the world of those novels for more than two decades.
It’s time to write something different. Vague ideas have been fermenting in the bottom of the old writing vat for years. When something specific bobbed to the top, I would make a note in the Writing Ideas notebook. (That’s if the notebook and a pen were on hand at the time, or if I managed to remember the great idea long enough to write it down. If only one could find the place where all the lost great ideas end up!)
This is my Writing Ideas notebook. I have recently combed through it, looking for anything that doesn’t relate to stuff I’ve already written and published. I now have a list of story ideas, plot outlines, and half-baked thoughts to work with.
The preceding was a circuitous way to get around to this declaration: During 2023, I will write a number (as yet undetermined) of stories or other works based on those notes.
I will report progress on this project in July 2023. The idea is that once written, some of these pieces will coalesce into something bigger. Not a novel, exactly, but something held together by themes that persist in haunting me. Even if that doesn’t happen, I will at least have a number of original pieces and maintained my Writer’s Cred.
Fellow writers, what do you do when you don’t have a work in progress? Do you worry that you’re no longer a real writer if you’re not working on something substantial?
Interested in more posts like this? Subscribe to Audrey Driscoll’s Blog!
Chuck Litka recently sent queries to a couple of dozen agents. Here is his post on Writers Supporting Writers, reporting on which agents replied, or not. Read it HERE and add your comments.
Comments are closed here. Please comment on the original post.
I’ve heard you can’t really multi-task, despite people who claim they can.
I don’t entirely agree. I can do more than one thing at a time, but only to a point. For example, I can perform simple familiar tasks, like washing dishes, while thinking about something I’m writing or intend to write. And listening to a news program. In fact, I need to have some sort of mental input while doing manual work, even something like sewing, which is not simple or familiar.
But there are limits. I’ve tested them.
First, let me describe the usual scenario in my writing and blogging space. There’s the computer, with a bunch of weather-related tabs open, plus WordPress, plus Goodreads and a few others. Also email, of course. There’s an old-fashioned mini-stereo setup behind and to one side of the computer. It can play CDs and even cassette tapes, although it’s hardly ever called upon to do that. Mostly it’s a radio, and if I’m at the computer, it’s always on, cranking out music, news, or a current affairs program. Sometimes there’s music on the radio and at the same time a podcast on the computer, talking to me through one earbud. And as well as listening, I’m reading blog posts, or even writing one.
Is this ideal? Probably not, but it seems to work. Is it multi-tasking? No. It’s sequential tasking. The old brain can deal with only one or perhaps two of these inputs at a time. The music seems to seep through the other stuff, but if it fully engages my attention, I disengage from the other tasks so I can listen properly. Otherwise, I’m taking in and focussing on only the words I’m reading, writing, or listening to, for sequential short intervals. I have to admit, I miss a lot of details of the radio programs while paying attention to blog posts or whatever I’m writing. Quite often, my attention is caught by the host thanking the interviewee or announcing the performer, having missed whatever was said, played, or sung. Annoying, but there it is.
When this input-juggling is working well, I can actually get things read or written and switch focus in time to get something out of whatever I’m listening to. It’s not the best way to absorb information, but it’s the only way I’ve come up with to keep up with the blogs I follow and what’s going on in the world, as well as creating blog posts and other writings.
Maybe this is why by the end of the day I don’t trust myself to write comments on people’s blog posts. The brain is worn out!
A final thought: if a long writing session is too challenging, a five-minute one jammed in between other mental tasks is manageable. Several such sessions actually produce visible results. Note: I don’t write first drafts of novels this way; that’s a whole other process!
Ideal combinations:
Ideally, only two inputs at a time, you notice.
On the other hand, I don’t watch anything. At all. Well, maybe the odd video, but only if it’s a short one. No TV, no streaming. I read a lot of books. I do this reading away from the computer and even the radio, mainly during meals and before going to sleep.
Fellow bloggers, how do you avoid brain overload? Do any of you multitask?
Our garden, gardens visited, occasional thoughts and book reviews
~info of great importance for a very small percentile of the worlds populous~ ⚡️
Photos. News. Projects. Books. Guides. Equipment
The Blog about everything and nothing and it's all done in the best possible taste!
History, Photography, and Travel in Western Canada
Reflections by Helen De Cruz
Crafting Magic through Prose & Poetry
Mental meanderings of philosophical provocateurs
Maker of fine handcrafted novels!
"Birthplace of American Independence"
Blog magazine for lovers of health, food, books, music, humour and life in general
Adventures and mishaps in science fiction, fantasy, and mystery
Becky Ross Michael: author & editor
Ice Ages, river gods and the rise of civilisations
SteveTanham - writing, mysticism, photography, poetry, friends
Books & Poetry
A HUMANE SOLUTION TO HUMAN-DEER CONFLICT
The musings of a Londoner, now living in Norfolk
Dreams, Horror and Religion in Popular Culture
Passionate Teacher and Future Children's Author
Celebrating what makes Brittany unique
reflections on living, singing and managing
Seeking the magic and light in life's journeys
A writer influenced by her Swedish heritage and Yorkshire upbringing
Poetry of a changing Earth. The grief is real--so is the hope.
Writing Magic, Myth and Mystery
Growing Community
Organic gardening in the Rogue River Valley
Celebrating gardens, photography and a creative life
Personal commentary on political and social issues in western Canada.
Let's Talk About Writing, Publishing, and Everything In Between
Exploring the World of Fiction
Reviews of books...and occasional other stuff.
We are all just babes in the woods.
Fiction Writer in Poet's Clothing
Short essays about novels and other fictional works
A great WordPress.com site
Drift among the scribbles of writer Janet Gogerty
Writing to know what I think.
mostly poetry, miscellany
Loves cats, writes mysteries.
Music and the Thoughts It Can Inspire
Ripping News and Cutting Satire Since 1888
A harmony of hues, melodies, aromas, flavours and textures that underlies our existence!
Welcome to my world: digging, harvesting and other stuff
Writing writing and more writing
Audrey Driscoll's Blog 