Critics making suggestions in what changes are needed in your book

[B.R.Stateham]

Got one of my books on Authonomy. com being looked at. It's a historical detective novel about an art thief. It's a detective with lots of action and a fair amount of World War One histroy thrown in. Here's the problem; it's the three thousand or so readers in the site who have the potential of reading the book and voting for it up or down. And many make suggestions on how to improve it. But for every ten people who say they love this or that inclusion of fact . . . or writing style . . . or description . . . there are five who say they absolutely hate the very same thing.

And I've come to the conclusion there are lots of readers in there who love to read. But there are quite a few in there who prefer to . . . what I call . . . nitpick. "This comma shouldn't be there," or "Change 'that' to 'which'. "

So who do you believe?

[Bob]

I agree.

I did a review of the second draft a few days ago. A great story based on an actual event. The novel is book two of the author's current series. I zeroed in on three things. 1) The author was overly concerned with the action and left the setting vague to the point of confusing. 2) The author used the wrong gun. I mean the WRONG gun. 3) The MC lacked personalty for too many pages.

The author's response ... OMG ... What was I thinking? I just read those chapters again and I have no idea how I missed those points.

A critical eye can find things where the writer is too close. The same things a reader will find.

Smiles
Bob