Four Ways To Fight the Review Trolls

How to Cope with Negative (or Even Cruel) Feedback

By Katherine Rivas

"It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends."-Samuel Johnson

Authors, understandably, are hurt by bad reviews. A book is a vessel of effort and emotion, a labor of love, practically like one’s own child. Editors and agents have always advised authors not to respond to (and sometimes not even to read) reviews, unless there was some particular and easily corrected factual misapprehension.

The Internet has given writers and readers a powerful and usually constructive tool to engage with one another. At the same time, the anonymity, or at least detachment, the Web offers has helped to foster a widespread culture of meanness. Though many responsible outlets (this blog, for instance) do their best to uphold high standards of civility among commenter, if you publish widely enough, the day will come when you receive feedback that is not only unappreciative, but even hateful.

There’s also the one-star/five-star problem to contend with: people who take to the Internet to write a review of anything, be it a hotel or a poem, typically do so either to boost the product, or (probably more often) to trash it.

So if you’re looking over your pride and joy on Amazon.com, and suddenly you see a review that hurts your feelings, what should you do? Here are a few pointers:

1. Don’t feed the trolls.

After you receive a harsh or vindictive review, your first instinct may be to fire off an angry response. Refrain. This is exactly what such people feed off of. You will be sucked into a vicious back-and-forth that will do nothing but deplete you emotionally, and perhaps also make you look unprofessional.

2. Try writing the response...on paper

And don’t send it. Composing letters in anger can be purgative, but sending them is almost always a bad idea. This way, you can achieve the emotional catharsis of a “comeback” without extending the nastiness.

3. NEVER pose as a reader to defend your own writing.

You may think this is a clever workaround. But it’s dishonorable and dishonest, and people have ways of finding out your identity. That’s what happened to romance author Candace Sams in late 2009, setting off a literary sideshow of the highest order. Don’t let it happen to you. Your true fans will stick up for you, unbidden. Stay above the fray.

4. Avoid your own reviews in the first place.

Abstinence is the best policy. Take it from William Faulkner: “The artist doesn't have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews. The ones who want to write don't have the time to read reviews.”

~Katheryn Rivas is a regular contributor to Online Universities.com, a leading online university student resource for those interested in pursuing a distance education. She welcomes your comments at katherynrivas87@gmail.com.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including the award-winning second edition of, The Frugal Book Promoter: How to get nearly free publicity on your own or by partnering with your publisher; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog:

Q&A a la Ann Landers: Misinformation, Poetry, Rhymes and Being Ticked Off

Questions from author and poet Dawn Colclasure :

I am writing to you because I am hoping you can help me out with something. I'd posted a poem online and someone pointed out that there might not be a perfect rhyme using the words "abuse/truce."

You can read the poem . Now that I think on it, I realize maybe I did get that pairing wrong, because first I used "abuse" paired with "use" so I think the pronunciation would've differed here, to where it wouldn't be the same as "truce."

Being deaf, I guess I tend to forget the little nuances in how most words are pronounced and how they can be pronounced in different ways. But what do you think? I know you write poetry so I'm hoping you can pick up on that for me. Just please let me know your thoughts on that. I'd so appreciate it.

And I guess this kind of thing would make for an interesting discussion on deaf poets employing rhyme in their verse! :)


Answer: First of all, these two rhymes ("abuse/truce") are perfect rhymes when you use "abuse" as a noun and not a verb. They're not from the same spelling family, but they sound the same. The word "use" also sounds different depending on how it is used, as a noun or a verb. But either way they're rhyming words, though they may be slant rhymes rather than "perfect rhymes" that your critic seemed to prefer.

The issue for me, though, is not whether these words rhyme or not but that your critic feels that rhymes must be perfect. Off-rhymes are perfectly legitimate. In fact, many poems don't rhyme at all. Then there are internal rhymes, also perfectly legitimate and sometimes preferred by poets because they aren't so well, er, blatant.

This kind of criticism bothers me because when we, as writers, are critiquing others, we need to encourage them to experiment, to find their own voices. It seems that deaf poets or blind poets or young poets or ancient poets might have some amazing things to contribute if we don't stifle their creativity.

The other reason it bothers me is that we, when we play the part of critiquers, need to be very careful about the way we critique another's work. I rant about misinformation that gets passed around the web all the time. This bit about perfect rhymes is a new, rather distressing one. By the way, there is a book out there—Merriam Webster's Rhyming Dictionary—that helps with perfect rhymes and refers writers to those that aren't quite so cheerfully in tune. Every poet (and writer of literary prose) would benefit by having it handy.

Also, I have some critique guidelines based on those used by writers' program teachers at UCLA. I added some twists to it based on my own experience facilitating critique groups. Anyone who would like one may e-mail me for a copy. HoJoNews@aol.com. Put CRITIQUE GROUP GUIDELINE REQUEST in the subject line. It will come to you by attachment.

Now, back to the sound of your rhymes. I don't know anywhere in the world where "use," "truce" and "abuse" aren't rhyming words in English. Even among people who speak English with different accents. Even among those who prefer poems without rhymes. Even among those who don't perceive that some words change their sound depending on the part of speech they function in.

As an aside, consider two of my favorite words, obtuse and abstruse. They are favorites for no other reason than that they confuse so many people.

PS. Dawn is the author of Burning the Midnight Oil: How We Survive as Writing Parents.
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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author THIS IS THE PLACE; HARKENING: A COLLECTION OF STORIES REMEMBERED; TRACINGS, a chapbook of poetry; and two how to books, THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON'T; and THE FRUGAL EDITOR: PUT YOUR BEST BOOK FORWARD TO AVOID HUMILIATION AND ENSURE SUCCESS.
Her other blogs include TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com and AuthorsCoalition.blogspot.com, a blog that helps writers and publishers turn a ho-hum book fair booth into a sizzler.