Some thoughts on negative feedback
I know I’m avoiding something when the candy wrappers start piling up on my desk. Halloween is, of course, partly to blame. I live in a very rural area, down a long dirt road where no trick-or-treater would ever bother to venture. And after years of buying candy for kids, it’s a reflex to grab a giant bag at the grocery store check-out counter, even when I know I will be the only one indulging. (My husband doesn’t have a sweet tooth, damn him.) Generally, I can make those bags last for months, doling out a single fun-size Milky Way bar a day, but for the last two days I’ve been grabbing handfuls from the bowl on the dining room table. With all that sugar circulating in my bloodstream, you’d think I’d be super productive. But no. I have been staring at the same pages for two days, unable to write a word.
This is certainly due to a recent experience I had at a book event. After the initial nerves at the book launch, I have come to love in-person readings. (Aside: I had to dunk my face in cold water a dozen times to calm down. My face was bright red as a result, but my heart no longer acted like I was preparing to run a marathon. Pro tip for anyone facing a public speaking event.) Conversations, solo lectures, Q&A, and book clubs—these are all fantastic. Having the opportunity to talk about the setting, the characters and themes, the plot, and, often, my journey to publication is simply wonderful. Readers are wonderful. They pay attention. They bond (or not) with the characters in unexpected ways. They offer insights and observations that never occurred to me as I was writing. And they react to scenes with enthusiasm and emotion. After these many months of such evenings, Port Anna no longer feels like it belongs only to me. It also belongs to the readers. I consider this a gift.
It's not that I haven’t been challenged on some of my and my characters’ assumptions. I have learned, for instance, that Maine long ago outlawed pine logs for fireplaces since their combustibility makes them dangerous. I didn’t know that, and hence neither did Gwen. And Gwen’s lack of engagement with class issues and social differences proved a sticking point for some. My justification for her semi-obliviousness is this: she is both a ‘summer’ person and a ‘year-rounder,’ belonging to both worlds, and in some ways, to neither. In both cases—a factual correction to the manuscript and an observation about the social strata in a seasonal community—I welcomed the feedback and took notes for the next Port Anna-based manuscript. (No more pine logs.)
This isn’t quite what happened recently. After a number of kind remarks about the book, a member of the group, an older man, leaned forward and pointed a finger at me, assuring me that there would be more to come. The gesture poked a nerve, returning me to my graduate student days when a very senior professor questioned how I could have been admitted to the master’s program at Columbia with only an art history minor from a non-Ivy. (Sigh.) Unlike the girl I was in my twenties, intimidated and insecure, I thought I was ready this time.
Reader, I was wrong.
I had been asked beforehand to come prepared to explain why I wrote the book. I therefore spent a solid ten minutes discussing the myriad ways this novel came to be: the influences, the life stories, and the losses. My love for Maine. My attachment to a childhood cottage, long since sold. Above all, I spoke about grief.
Evidently, not well enough, though.
The finger came out again with an accusation. I had not explained why. There were too many threads to follow. These weren’t well developed enough. I didn’t finish some of my thoughts. The criticisms went on.
I’m told I managed it well. I’m fairly certain no one knew that I found this distressing. And yet. Sleep proved difficult. The candy wrappers are piling up.
My colleague, Lidija Hilje, brilliant author of Slanting Toward the Sea, published a piece today on the paralyzing effect of the negative review. Although I can certainly appreciate the need to see what others think of your work, I don’t read mine. (Once someone on Goodreads gave me two stars because Port Anna didn’t have enough ghosts, I opted out.) But I did have to listen to this lecture from behind a pointed finger. There was no mute button.
Lidija’s conclusion at the end of her essay is a lovely one. Novels are read in relationship. The stories they offer hold hands with readers whose understanding is always already colored by their own life experiences. This is certainly true. We never see a story through the same lens as the author. And as I said, I have found this wonderful.
But what happens when a reader doesn’t recognize the lens through which they see? Or one who thinks the author ought to write the story the way they want it?
Port Anna has been released to the world, my offering to the universe. It doesn’t just belong to me. It’s every reader’s, too. It’s yours to do with as you wish. But that doesn’t mean that I wrote the book for you. I wrote it for me. I wrote it the way my head and heart told me to. (With, of course, the invaluable help of a number of brilliant editors.) So, man with the pointing finger, I’m sorry the book didn’t wrap up the way you wanted it to. I’m sorry you felt disappointed. But here’s a thought: maybe before you tell an author that they didn’t “do it right,” you can write your own story. I promise to read it with generosity.
