DEAR BLOGGERS: THANK YOU FOR MY 1-STAR REVIEWS

After the whole Hale / Harris Twitter fiasco, I wanted to take a moment to thank bloggers for my own 1-star reviews. 

I'm honestly not being sarcastic.  I mean it: thank you.

I've said it before, but it's true--I read all my reviews.  The good, the mixed, the straight-up negative.  I think blog reviews are every bit as important as trade reviews.  (Editors and publishing insiders offer only one viewpoint.  Readers offer others.)  I comb through blog reviews seeking patterns: what readers thought worked, what they thought missed the mark. FERAL, the YA psychological thriller that released last August, has been utterly eye-opening.  More so than any other book I've published.  A few of the bigger lessons I've learned so far:

* AS A GENRE, THE PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER IS CHANGING

I've already blogged about this one a bit, but it's true: FERAL hits just about every item in a checklist for the elements that should be in a classic psychological thriller.  Hitchcockian pace?  Attention to a character's inner workings?  Water as a metaphor for the subconscious?  Check, check, check.  (Even the FERAL cats are a nod to Hitchcock.)  Do modern readers see the term "psychological thriller" and believe that the emphasis should be on "psychological"?  Nope.  The emphasis, for modern readers, should be on "thriller."  Even psychological thrillers should be action-oriented (or move at a faster clip).  Point taken.

* THE IMPORTANCE OF A LIKABLE NARRATOR

I was introduced to this lesson with PLAYING HURT; some readers thought Chelsea was a selfish, unlikable character when she cheated on her boyfriend.  I heard it again with a few FERAL reviews.  I have to admit, I consistently struggle with this one.  I believe part of my job, as an author, is to present a character's unvarnished truth.  A novel is a unique experience because we're actually inside another person's head; that doesn't happen in any form of entertainment--not TV, not a movie, not a play...In a book, we're not just watching a character navigate through a sticky situation; we're actually experiencing the sticky situation, because we're looking through a character's eyes.  I think that means I have to present my characters warts and all.  I have to show all the things they keep inside, the things that they wouldn't want the rest of the world to see.  That can, at times, make them less than admirable (as it does when Claire reveals in FERAL that she blames her best friend, at least in part, for her attack).  I am, though, currently working on an NA manuscript, and this lesson, more than any other, is helping with my revisions.

* READERS OF GENRE FICTION ARE MORE DEMANDING THAN READERS OF LITERARY FICTION

When I was in college, "genre" was a bad word; it was lesser fiction.  That's baloney.  Readers of genre fiction know the ins and outs of their preferred genre (mystery, romance, etc.), and expect authors to deliver.  Nothing is more challenging for an author than finding a way to be original while meeting the established criteria for a specific genre.  And I'm definitely up for that challenge...


I've long said that I would hate, hate, HATE it if A BLUE SO DARK, my first published book, turned out to be my best book.  I want to get better with each book I write.  But I can't get better in a vacuum.  I have to have feedback in order to do that.  No one provides more honest feedback than book bloggers.  I'm grateful for it, I welcome it, I'm learning from it.

Thank, guys.  Seriously.  Thanks.