How Not to Take Criticism. Eastlit issue 11. Steve Rosse. Advice.Eastlit

6. How Not to Take Criticism

by Steve Rosse

Recently a reader on Amazon made this comment about one of my books: “The problem I have with this book is that I find the writing somewhat craven. Too much pandering to the Thais…”

Beautiful word, “craven,” and a word that’s not used enough these days, so I enjoyed this comment a lot. As for my writing being “pandering” to the Thais, I have heard the same thing from other readers, but I have heard that I was too critical of my hosts from just as many.

On one occasion men in uniform took me into a windowless room and threatened to revoke my work permit and residence visa because I was not being respectful enough to certain Thai institutions. They kept their thumbs casually hooked into their pistol belts to let me know they would have preferred me to be a bit more craven.

The point is: you can’t please everybody.

Reader comments can be one of the great joys of writing, as well as a wonderful learning tool. I sold my first story in 1980, to a science fiction magazine, and upon publication received my first letter from an outraged reader. He taught me something very useful about the business of writing, so with that first story I learned to pay close attention to what my readers say.

I’ve been blessed with a lot of comments from readers in the thirty-three years since then. I’ve written for some wonderful editors, and for some wonderful readers who wrote letters to me and letters to those editors. I’ve been buttonholed by readers at book club meetings and in writing classes, in bars, restaurants, buses, trains and airplanes. There have been professional and amateur reviews published in newspapers and magazines (and more recently posted on Amazon and Reddit), comments on blogs, comments on Facebook. And one night in 1994 somebody threw a dead dog on my lawn. That was a comment, too.

I’ve never been shy about expressing my views of other people’s writing, and currently have reviews of about fifty books posted on Amazon. I think that any reader, me included, has the right to say whatever he feels about anything he has read. I think a writer should be flattered by any attention paid his writing; twenty years later I’m still excited by the idea that a reader hated my writing so much he threw a dead dog on my lawn.

If I was going to write a review of one of my own books, the thing I would say is this: “Steve Rosse is glib, but none of his stories has a plot.” It seems obvious to me that of my many weaknesses as a writer the biggest by far is that I have no idea how to construct a plot. So I produce scenes, lots and lots of tiny little disconnected scenes.

But in those thirty-three years of readers’ comments, nobody has ever said that. I cannot remember one person criticizing my pathetic lack of plotting skill.

Readers have carped about my smug self-righteousness, my misanthropy, my liberal politics, my haughty disdain of sex tourists, my hypochondria, my obsessions, and my love of the semicolon. Some readers’ comments have been unintelligible gibberish. Some have been utter genius. A few have been psychotic and a few have been sycophantic.

But not one reader has ever pointed out the thing that I have always thought was my biggest failing as a writer.

Here’s the only thing I know for sure about readers’ comments: a writer can’t respond. A reader gives us his attention for the moment he’s reading our story and we have that one chance to make him feel something.

You can’t sit down with everybody who ever reads your words and tell them, “Well, it was just a first draft…” or worse, “This is how you should respond to my words.” You can learn a lot from a reader’s comments, but a reader won’t learn anything from your reply if he didn’t learn it on first reading your story.

We get one chance. Just that one chance.

So take your time, work hard, and make it count.