Entering the Vortex: Writer/Reader Interaction

An older friend of mine told me a story of when he was in a London pub in the early 80's. He was drinking alone at the bar and Paul Weller, his hero and the 'angry young' singer formerly of the band The Jam walked in and stood next to him and ordered a beer. The Jam had split and Weller was now fronting the much-maligned, The Style Council. My friend turned, saw Weller and instead of thanking him for all the joy he had brought him, he simply cried, "Paul! The Style Council! What are you doing?" Weller downed his pint and walked out without saying a word.

This is not how Kathleen Hale deals with consumer criticism. Hale should be known in the publishing world as the author of two young-adult fiction novels, as well as having an essay published in a New York Times bestseller collection. Yet Hale is perhaps best known for her alarming, obsessive and perhaps even criminal reaction to a bad review from a book blogger.

In one of her many self-deprecating admissions (read: excuses), she refers to 'the postpartum stage' a writer goes through: the novel she has labored over is released and creative-control is gone for good, something she clearly struggles with, as we all do - a recent blog asked when does the writer know they are 'done’. Surely the work being published is that moment. And once out there, a writer should stand behind their work and not feel they have to defend or take exception to every gripe that a reader may have. Surely a writer should have dignity.

In a recent interview, the hugely respected British Comedian Stewart Lee, stated that if he was starting out today, he wouldn't last more than one gig; he would go home, read the instant bad review and wouldn't have the “self-belief to get through that stuff.”
So along with dignity, new writers need to be brave. The dawn of the online reviewer and the book-blogger signals another new dynamic to the brave new world of publishing. Would Hale have reverted to stalking if the review had been glowing? Clearly not. It seems that some artists are happy to bask in the distance between creator and consumer when the going is good yet charge out of the trenches when ‘BiG_READA!’ in Idaho takes exception to a writer’s work hitting the printing press.
In the digital age, the line between ‘reviewer’ and ‘troll’ is an incredibly thin one; when a netizen leaves a racist comment on a Kanye West, there is as much chance that the author is a bearded hipster exercising his woeful lack of irony as it is a Neo-Nazi draped in a Confederate flag. A broadsheet reviewer has a real name and a reputation. An online review may exist to simply enrage.

As writers, we should respond to a bad review as we should do to a workshop critique; take notes and move on, and if we are talented/lucky enough to get published, relish an achievement that proportionally, very few earthlings ever manage. And as my mate Charlie tells me when someone's behavior threatens to send me off into a rage: “Don’t enter the void!

And as you can see, I have tagged Hale in this blog post. I look forward to hearing from you, Kathleen.