Writing & Reviews & Lord Tennyson

Any writer who has a book out there might sooner or later get a bad review. Its almost unavoidable. 

In a moment of boredom, I Googled my name and found a review from a site in the UK. It was like a stab in the heart. The reviewer said my book, Soul Mates,  was about "animal abuse." In real life I've rescued and fostered hundreds of dogs. My two dogs are rescues. One from a puppy mill in Missouri and one from a hoarding situation. I've seen what animal abuse can do and that was not the point of my story. So this reviewer might have just ripped out my broken heart and stomped on it. The person didn't even finish the book, just made a judgement in the first few chapters. My first reaction was wanting to write to her and explain a few things. Like what she thought was happening wasn't the main point of the story. She didn't give it a chance, she didn't wait for the hero to come in and save the day. It was so opposite of what she thought it was about. I just wanted to reach out and talk to this reviewer. 

I held back. I didn't want to react with emotion. I wanted time to think about it. 

After a few days a light bulb went off over my head. 

>Ping< 

Another thought came to me. I made that reviewer feel things. Whatever she read made her ...angry? emotional? care?  

Soul Mates on Amazon

After that I realized maybe her review wasn't so bad. It showed me that my writing reached her. Of course, I believe if she finished the book her review might have been much different, but now I'm okay with the knowledge I reached her and made her care. 

The first review I got for that book;

"I cried, I laughed and I cried again. Being an animal lover and having four Chihuahuas myself, some parts were a bit tough for me but thank goodness those were brief. I couldn't put the book down until I finished it. Definitely a great read." ~Amazon Review

No matter how many things we toss out into the world, not everyone is going to like it, not everyone will give it a fair chance. We just need to move on and keep writing. Focus on the positive. Send a prayer and healing energy to the people who send negativity. 

Once in a golden hour
I cast to earth a seed.
Up there came a flower,
The people said, a weed.

To and fro they went
Thro' my garden bower,
And muttering discontent
Cursed me and my flower.

Then it grew so tall
It wore a crown of light,But thieves from o'er the wall
Stole the seed by night.

Sow'd it far and wide
By every town and tower,
Till all the people cried,
'Splendid is the flower! '

Read my little fable:
He that runs may read.
Most can raise the flowers now,
For all have got the seed.

And some are pretty enough,
And some are poor indeed;
And now again the people
Call it but a weed. 

~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Writing, Word Count, and Series Writing

I usually never give a negative review. If I don't like a book, I simply move on. (this came from my mother who always said, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.") However, the book I've got on my ipod is a bit of a crazy maker.

It's Evanovich's latest Stephanie Plum novel, Takedown Twenty. For those not familiar its about a woman bounty hunter who is in a love triangle between a cop and another bounty hunter. That's the short version. But that "Twenty" in the title stands for the 20th book in the series. Whew! That's not only a lot of books but a lot of work to make each one different and unique. In the beginning these books were very entertaining, funny, and fast paced. Everything I like in a good book. I love the page-turner, keep-me-up-all-night book. This book ain't it. :(

I think one of the main problems in the 20 books is that somewhere along the line the main character, Stephanie Plum, stops growing. She's stuck in this emotional vacuum of tracking bad guys, falling down stairs, getting food/trash thrown at her and bouncing between the two boyfriends. This happens over and over and over in all twenty books. Nothing new, everything predictable. Sadly I can't even bring myself to pay for these books and usually just download them from the library. In the beginning I used to run right out and buy two hardcovers as soon as they came out. One for me and one for my mother in law.

Now I'm in book 20 and really have to wonder if the writer was just trying to make a word count. A few chapters in, the main character stops at a store and then the writer lists about 20 items that she bought including napkins, vegetables, two magazines, blah, blah, blah... As a writer, all I'm thinking is; was she trying to make a word count???  Why does the shopping list need to be in the story? Since it's written in the first person it makes me think of that annoying person you meet who dumps every tiny detail of her life into every conversation.  I want to scream; is there a point to all this blather?

Back to the main plot. Is this twenty something woman ever going to grow up? Change? Don't we all change and grow? Doesn't she want to get better at her job or improve her life in any way? She's an inept bounty hunter, which lends to the comedy aspect, but if she never improves or learns the skills of her job then how is this book any different than the 19 before it? She strings two guys along and they follow like puppies...for 20 books?

I think in every book we look for what happens next. Like in the Hero's Journey we need challenges met and the return of the golden chalice. Without that, what's the point? In Takedown Twenty I felt like I'd already read it. Nineteen times.
Too bad. Evanovich is an awesome writer but somewhere along the line...we lost the fact that its a journey, not a scene.

Book Review; Key Death by Jude Hardin

Just finished reading Key Death by Jude Hardin. I love detective/crime type books and usually I can figure it all out before the end, but Jude stumped me with this one. I had no idea what was going to happen next and this definitely kept me turning pages.

Nicholas Colt is the kind of smart, witty character you just gotta love. He doesn't always make the wisest decisions but the drive and determination of this disenfranchised private detective has you rooting for him right from the start.

Called into service by a woman desperate for answers from her past, Nicholas Colt goes the extra mile to get the answers and in the process unearths a serial killer's secrets. We read enough graphic details to send chills down our spine as the author moves us through the story at a fast pace.

I liked Key Death so much I'm giving it *****5 STARS*****
and I already bought Jude's Hardin's first book in this series; COLT

Movie Review; Die Hard 5

Die Hard 5, or A Good Day to Die Hard is a high action film where John McClane comes back, but this time its his son, John Jr.or Jack, who is in the heart of the action. McClane goes to Moscow to find his son who happens to be there on assignment. McClane is dragged into a world of spies and crooked Russian politicians. If you like car chases, major crashes and bombs exploding this might be the movie for you. If you like a good plot? Eh.

There were a few weak points in plotting that had me questioning things from the start. I don't want to give away the plot here but in one assassination attempt a man walks in and is fairly close to the subject and tags the guy in the shoulder? Really? So right away we knew there was something off here.The movie maker may have thought he was setting up a twist, but this action was so blatantly staged we were waiting for reveal instead of being surprised when it happened.

During the scene when father and son first encounter each other, Jr. simply drives away leaving Daddy in the street. What was weird about this scene is that Jr. was being chased by bad guys so he was really leaving  Daddy in the line of fire.

Jr. shows dislike for this father throughout but its never really explained why he feels this way. In one scene John Sr. says something to someone else about working too much and not being there for his kids but never do we hear Jr explain why he's being such a jerk to his father. I thought this was a weak plot point. If you're going to put this in the story, we need Jr's reason from Jr. Not some two minute remark from Dad to another person. Without Jr's point of view he comes across as a jerk. Main characters should be someone we connect with, not someone we think is being a jerk.

Car chases and fight scenes: although action filled with flipping cars, mega crashes, high powered gun fights and fist fights, these weren't filmed from the best angles and sometimes it was hard to keep track of where everyone was in the scene. Some of the explosions had father and son falling from the top floor of a building, crashing through scaffolding and walking away almost unscathed. Kinda unbelievable. In all the other Die Hard's the injuries kinda matched the accidents. Here the disbelief factor was high, another detractor to the movie.

Good point throughout the movie; Explosions were big and lit up the whole screen. There were times during the movie where I cringed, closed my eyes, and almost jumped out of my seat. There was a major twist at the end that really made the movie and did kinda surprise me.

In spite of the weak plotting points this movie was a pretty good action film. It had all the right ingredients but when I left the theater I felt it could have been better. As we walked out I wasn't left with that feeling you get from a really great film. The one where the characters stay with you for a while and you don't want to let the go.

The film has the potential to be great so what happened? I didn't get one Yippie Ki Yay.

I give it 3 and a half stars out of 5. Sorry Bruce.

When Bad Books Happen to Good People

Someone gave me a book by an author I've never read before and said, "This book was awful. Do you want it?"
Of course I took it. I wanted to disect it so I'd see what makes a bad book.
Was it just a matter of taste? Or something else.
Structure? Plot? Dialog?
So I'm reading this book and find it breaks all those rules I've ever been taught by critique groups and friends who are published.
Info dump.
Run on, stilted, useless dialog that does nothing for the story.
Too much tell instead of show.
And I hate the heroine because she says the stupidest things. Its like shes playing two different parts in the same movie. Hot/Cold, Hot/Cold.
Sometimes I'm not even sure where I am. She walks into a hospital room and "Joe" is asleep. She just starts talking and he answers her like he's been awake the whole time. I look back...yep, he was asleep. Wow, he woke up quick.
But the biggest problem I think is that everything in the book is like a bad soap opera (and forgive me, I actually I love ABC's soaps!). In this book, he is linked to she and oh, a coincidence! she slept with this other guy and now she's sleeping with him too.
Its supposed to be a thriller and the police come across as idiots and put all their faith in a probation officer to do their job. I have a friend who is a probation officer and she doesn't solve crimes. Its a real stretch. This character seems to do everything but her job. Very unrealistic.
Whew! Sorry for the rant but I think this bruised my brain.
My question is; How do books like this get published? Is it just that this author has nine other books out so everything she writes will get published? Where are the editors? How does this get pasted the gate keepers?
Opinions?