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How to Make Negative Reviews Sound Positive

– Anirban Nanda

Anirban Nanda is an engineer by profession and writer by passion. When not writing codes, he can be found in his room with scattered books and coffee-cups, mulling over some story idea or reading books. He has published his stories in 8 anthologies till now and won few prizes. His recent anthologies ‘When They Spoke’ and ‘Defiant Dreams’ published by Readomania are in amazon bestsellers list. 

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Reviewing a book is a tricky job for two main reasons:

  1. The author is eagerly awaiting your review, and every review that they get. This is true especially for newbie writers. If the review is positive and praises the book, the writer will read it again and again and will feel sheer joy. I have felt it myself. So, in a way, the writer has expectations from you.
  2. The reader, who is also the reviewer, has invested some emotion into the book and that is bound to reflect on the review.

The reason this is a tricky job is because of the number of emotions connected to every book and the subsequent review. But, reviewing is absolutely, completely, and definitely a professional business. You may have reviewed a work written by your friend and given a glowing review of that. But is that the right thing to do? Once you become a well-known reviewer, you should focus on being more professional.

So, let’s get started, shall we? It’ll be short, I promise.

Reviewing means ‘a critical appraisal of a book, play, or other work’ (ref. Concise Oxford Dictionary) which, upon expanding tells us: you read a book and you give honest opinion based on your experience of reading many books previously, and the opinions should be such that it’ll help the writer/artist ‘appraise’ his/her work.

In simpler words, from your review, both the writer and readers must get something of value.

Now, if the book is good, reviewing is a cakewalk and everyone (the reviewer, readers, the author) feels happy. But what happens if the book is not so good?

Basically, you have two options here:

  1. You praise the work anyway and the author gets happy. You intentionally hide the frown factors. But after reading your review when a reader buys a book and gets disappointed, believe me, they are never going to give much attention to another review written by you.
  2. You point out the issues point-blank. That will hurt the author brutally. He/she has spent hours (months) creating the book and getting such a review will hurt the writer’s sentiment. It’s true. No matter how mature one is, negative comments about his/her work are going to hurt. When other writers will read your review, many may get scared of your review and will not prefer to get their books reviewed by you. Because your reviews do affect sales.

But wait, there is another option.

Here is what you should do:

  1. Point out the good things first. And do not forget to justify those with required quotes from the book as they will increase the credibility of your review. But do this without spoiling major plot points; do not spoil a book in your review.
  2. Point out what you think of it in the context of the current society. It will help the reader understand if he really needs to read the book. (For example: when I wrote the review of ‘Voices of the Silent Creek’; I started it like this: The book ‘Voices of the Silent Creek’ tries to bring out raw truth about women hidden behind the curtains of big houses and how knowing their situation, people choose to keep their mouth shut. The hypocrisy of people calling themselves supporters of women empowerment will strike you fiercely in this novel. A very different attempt for a debut novel and definitely deserves a round of applause.  Read the full review.)
  1. While handling critical points, do it honestly but candidlyNever underestimate or insult the ability of the writer. That is the bleakest insult a writer can get. For example: if you see the dialogues are not good, instead of writing “The dialogues are very badly written and don’t interest me at all,” write, “I believe if the dialogues were constructed tautly, the effect of the story would have had more impact.” You have done the same thing but the latter option is more candid.

With that, I am listing few quick points that could be of your help in writing any review:

  1. Do not write a summary and spoil the entire story.
  2. Show proofs of your opinions and justify your points.
  3. More detailed the review, the more spoilery it may become. Try to write a review that does not spoil the story but gives enough glimpses into the story to justify your point.
  4. Personally, I do not like to rate books, but it is not a sin to rate a book either. Everyone assesses everything in this world by some certain scale.
  5. Do not copy-paste the blurb from the book in your review. It makes it look less professional.
  6. Try to learn something from the book because your love for books is the whole point of becoming a reviewer or a writer.
  7. Do not promise to review more books than you can read properly. This is very important. Try to review as much as possible, not more than that.
  8. It is preferable to restrict yourself to your favorite genres. But if you are an avid reader who reads everything that comes in your way, then you might go for more variety.

Lastly, I am listing few of my reviews for samples, which have been considered as well-written reviews by my followers.

  1. Review of an Indian contemporary fiction — Maya’s New Husband
  2. Review of a classic — Ceremony
  3. Review/Analysis of Perks of Being a Wallflower

I convey my sincere thanks to Neil D’Silva for giving me the opportunity to write this guest post for his website.

Anirban Nanda blogs at www.anirbanigp.wordpress.com.
You can reach him via facebook (https://www.facebook.com/anirbanfreethinker.nanda) or twitter (@AnirbanNanda1). You can read his stories at www.readomania.com/viewstories/anirban007 or in his blog.

 

Overthinking

How to Write a Review that Engages Readers

– Jean Spraker

Jean Spraker is an American expat living in Seoul. But, some say her soul is truly Indian. She is currently writing her first novel inspired by her life in India. She blogs at jeanspraker.com.

This guest post from Jean Spraker is a part of the Review Ramblings series.

When Neil approached me to guest blog about writing reviews, I said, “Sure! I’d be happy to do it!” I had recently written a review for Ravi Subramanian’s The Bestseller She Wrote that’s received high praise—even from Subramanian himself. That makes me an expert now, right?

That about sums it up, don’t you think?

About 30 seconds after I agreed to write this post, I thought, “Ah crap! How DO I write a review? What makes my reviews work? Why was the response so positive for this review? What makes it different? What tips can I give potential reviewers? Have I completely lost my mind agreeing to a guest blog two days before #NaNoWriMo? Why do I think so damn much?”

Whew!

Clearly, my head is a dangerous place. Someone should really post a sign.

Overthinking

The truth is that I don’t have a secret sauce for reviews. If I did, I’d bottle it and sell it. A writer has to earn a living somehow. Clearly, royalties aren’t the pot of gold at the end of the writing (or reading) rainbow.

So, what tips can I offer?

Enjoy reading the book

It sounds simple, but it isn’t. Too often, I see readers taking a snobbish approach to the books they review. Judging the author for every typo and plot hole. Look. I’m not saying we shouldn’t judge those things. Typos on every page and plot holes the size of Maharashtra or Minnesota annoy readers. Reviewers should assess those issues. But, do it with respect. I get it. Everyone plays armchair quarterback. “I could have written Half Girlfriend or Fifty Shades. That book sucked,” you say. But, you know what? You didn’t write either book. That book is someone’s baby just like that half-finished manuscript you’ve been working on for the last year and a half is yours. Would you kill someone else’s baby? No. Of course not. So, why are you wasting my time writing the most intensely evil and useless review of a book you hate? I spotted your hater tendencies in the second sentence and moved on. I wrote you off. And so should the readers and the author, quite frankly. I have only written a 1 star review once, for a book that I was given as a review copy. It was bad, and I felt obligated to review it honestly. Otherwise, I would not have made it past page 10. But, truthfully, these bad reviews often serve little purpose to the reader. There’s always someone to disagree.

Balance the good and the bad

On the flip side of the hater review, we have the lover review. The person who has nothing but rainbows and stardust to blow up the writer’s butt. That person who is either related to or connected directly to the writer. Or who just loves every book, no matter how bloody awful. Even the best books have flaws. Take Midnight’s Children. The Booker of Bookers. A book so good that it won a Booker twice! Once by popular vote. Seriously. If you haven’t read it, you should. It will change your life and challenge everything you thought you knew that you didn’t actually know until you knew it.
But, even Midnight’s Children has flaws. Maybe you thought the mango pickle factory setting was cliché. Maybe you didn’t get that whole weird shower story. Maybe you just don’t like how Rushdie punctuated the book. Whatever it is, that criticism should be there, too. Not just the praise. Not just the “You’re so totally awesome!” Always give at least one positive and one negative aspect to the book. My reviews are structured with the good, the bad, and the verdict sections to maintain that balance.

Give the reader a sense of the book, but dont give anything away

If you are reviewing a thriller or mystery, please, for the love of God, don’t tell us who did it or what happens in the end. Yes, I know this might make your review vague, but the readers will thank you for not ruining the book—and so will the writer. Trust me.

Be honest with your bias

I was so heavily involved in the final stages of Ketan Bhagat’s Child/God that I am in the acknowledgements. I am constitutionally incapable of speaking even one negative thing about the book publicly. Which is why when I reviewed the book, I admitted that and instead gave you a straight-up sales pitch. I recently saw the editor for a book review said book on his blog. No mention was made of his role in the book. And, to me, that’s wrong. As long as he’s up front about it, his review holds water. But, the minute you find out he helped shape the book, but didn’t tell you, his opinion holds less value, doesn’t it?

Know thyself

Say you’re a blogger, and someone asks you to review a romance novel. No really. Say it. “I’m a blogger and someone asked me to review a romance novel. Are they nuts! I don’t read romance!” you bellow. That’s a problem. Are you going to do the book or yourself justice? Probably not. This is the best time to refer the person to another blogger in line with their interests.

Provide context

I learned this trick in grad school. As part of my coursework and prep for my prelims, I regularly wrote book reviews. I always had to place the book within its historiographic context. Always. If the writer was a Marxist, that was contextualized within a discussion about class. Sometimes context is simple. Maybe it’s saying that Ravi Subramanian normally writes thrillers. Maybe it’s explaining the marketing mayhem around Half Girlfriend. Relating a book to other books can really help the reader understand if he or she would enjoy the book.

Follow the 3 Es of Ashwin Sanghi

Entertain. Educate. Enlighten.

I learned more about writing for an audience in those three words than I have learned in seven years as a tech editor sitting in branding meetings. Sanghi is absolutely right. Keeping your audience entertained is the key to success. Let’s face it. Attention spans are shrinking, but book inventories are expanding. If you want to capture an audience, you must entertain. Sorry. Your review has to be more entertaining than Candy Crush. Truth hurts. I know.

Incorporate multimedia

When possible, I try to bring in multimedia. As a former Creative Services Manager, I know how important it is to connect to users on multiple levels. Sometimes, that’s as simple as bringing in the Scion of Ikshvaku’s book trailer; sometimes it’s bringing in tweets or completely unrelated YouTube videos.

Multimedia is Awesome! Isn’t it? You get the idea. If you have a blog, you should be able to figure out how to copy and paste the YouTube embed code into your site. WordPress has made this easier with the Add Media button. Just copy and paste the YouTube link, and presto! Video!

Be a fangirl or fanboy

It’s OK. Really. Pay attention to the buzz around the book. Follow the author on Twitter or Facebook. See what he or she says about the upcoming release. Use that in the review to give the reader a better sense for the flavor of the book. It’s OK to go gaga over a book as long as you balance that with real criticism and don’t lose sight of the fact that your review is meant to help a reader decide whether to buy the book. Or not.

Write well

Proof those reviews, people! Run spell check, damn it! A poorly written 5 star review could do more damage than a well written 1 star review. No joke. No matter how insightful your commentary, if your review contains tons of typos, no one will pay attention to it. Not the potential reader and certainly not the author. I recently admitted on Facebook that I don’t read Amazon reviews. Poor writing is the biggest reason why.

Now that you know how to write a great review, you can do the minion dance! Gangnam style! So long from Seoul!

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Keeping It Simple But Powerful – The Use of Language in Fiction

By Prachi Percy Sharma

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A lot has been written on the use of pedestrian language that makes for languid prose and therefore a badly-written book, which leaves a sour taste in the mouth.

In this post, let’s talk about the opposite of pedestrian prose – PURPLE PROSE.

In lay language, purple prose means stringing a litany of BIG words together to form convoluted sentences, thus creating flowery prose (yeah, you can say I have a language fetish. It is the aspect of writing that I’m most concerned about).

Reading a book with flowery prose is different than reading one with pedestrian language. Reading a novel crammed with purple prose is like bumping into someone who has sprayed too much perfume. The pungent aroma smothers the nostrils and makes it difficult to breathe, doesn’t it?

Big words and unnecessarily twisted sentences lessen the overall reading experience. Personally speaking, it puts me off reading the book.

The saddest part is that I’m reading a book with an AWESOME story but written in flowery prose. The presence of too many words to describe too little is hampering my reading experience, despite the fact that I really like the characters, the setting, and the plot.

New writers, in my experience, often tend to forget that it is not using big words in stories that makes a good writer. It is using simple words and lucid language to say a lot that makes a good writer. And, no, literary authors, at least the ones I’ve read, don’t use flowery prose or complicated language (except Cervantes, perhaps).

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, one of the literary giants, uses simple, lucid language in his novels, sometimes peppered with Spanish cusswords. And yet, his prose is lyrically beautiful and enchanting!

Toni Morrison, VS Naipaul, Richard Flanagan, and John Steinbeck use normal, everyday language too, but in a way that tells a touching, poignant story, both through the text and its subtext. And their prose is excellent and of high quality.

A good writer, I believe, can strike a balance between using simple BUT quality words, and incorporate a style and voice that speaks straight and is honest, but still connects and impresses. The language should not become pedestrian instead of simple, and at the same time, it should not become irritatingly complex instead of having quality.

When reading a novel, I expect to read a story — about characters, about their thoughts, actions, and feelings, and about what happens during the story. I do NOT expect to have big words thrown at me. That makes the writer seem condescending, like they think they can awe the reader by their complex word-building, and prove that they ‘know’ so many complicated words.

If a character has to use the loo, it should be ‘I have to pee / use the washroom’, and not ‘I have to evacuate my bladder / perform micturition’. The latter sounds laughable, doesn’t it?

My point is, we writers must cultivate the talent to convey complicated things in simple, lucid language, while still maintaining the quality of the prose. This fine balance can be struck only if we practice our craft properly.

Prachi Percy Sharma is an upcoming name in the world of Indian and global literature. She is known for her strong opinions on feminism, and is quite vocal about the things that blight our contemporary society. All of these shape her writing, which is mostly in the genre of crime fiction. Visit her site at Crimocopaeia and read her short stories at the links below:

Menaka

Femme Fatale

The Murder of Agnel Wilson

Three Tips to Pep up Your Writing

By Summerita Rhayne, author of Against All Rules and other books

Thanks for hosting me on your blog, Neil. Today I’m sharing three ways in which writing can be made to have more impact and vibrancy.

This post was inspired by a question asked in the FWBA (For Writers, By Authors) group on Faebook about how to make the writing more visual. There are innumerable pointers for doing that but I’m going to be brief here and share what I think is important.

It’s common these days to hear advice about taking out adverbs and adjectives and many of the adjuncts to make the writing crisp and direct. I don’t agree with that entirely. That’s because when we read we don’t just want to know Y happened after X and before Z. If all we have is the dialogues and the action, it would seem as though we are reading a film script. A book comprises much more. It allows us to give wings to our imagination and visualize according to our understanding.

At the same time, it is also true that we no longer have the luxury of leisure and even in our reading we want to get to the story as fast as possible.

Here are three pointers which I feel can enhance your writing while keeping it from getting weighty, descriptive or ponderous.

Keep it simple and action oriented.

This is what I’m increasingly doing now in my writing and I’ve found it works great in maintaining reader interest. Instead of using elaborate phrases and descriptions, keep your writing really simple and just describe what is happening. Think of it like a movie scene unfolding before you. I know it sounds contradictory to what I said before but really it isn’t. Let me explain. Those scenes in a movie in which you get close ups – they are the cue for us to write the emotional reaction of the character. Here’s where you can show your writing skills and have the reader tune into your character’s experience real up close. This will serve the purpose of internalization or giving emotional depth to your character and their conflict. Stick to bare description elsewhere. That keeps your focus on your plot. I also find that once I begin to describe simply what is occurring, the words find cadence more naturally.

Use metaphors while looking through the characters’ lens.

Metaphors are a lovely way to enhance your writing. A beautiful way to use metaphors is to filter them through your character’s experience. For example: your character who is a teacher in small school might describe an irritation like the sound of chalk squeaking across the blackboard. Whereas, if your character is a racing driver, it would be more appropriate for them to feel it like the squealing of tires on sudden braking. Think of creative ways in which you can add interesting comparisons.

More dialogue. Less description.

Dialogue gives pace to your writing. We read more quickly and visualize better if the characters are deep in conversation. A tip is to use 40% narration: 60% dialogue. This is what editors are looking for these days from what I hear.

Hope you found this post useful. Do you agree writing should be simple and not too descriptive? Do you agree with other pointers in this post? Do share what you like to do to make your writing more striking.

 

About the author:

Summerita Rhayne is a romance author who has written in historical and contemporary genres. She loves to explore emotional conflicts in her stories.

You can find out her books here, and read more about her on her website. Follow her on Twitter here.

 

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The Reluctant Authorpreneur

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By Laxmi Hariharan (author of The Many Lives of Ruby Iyer)

I have been on twitter since 2007, early enough to get my own mononym (yes that is a word) handle – @laxmi. As you can conclude then, I am somewhat of a tech-geek. The double whammy is that I also write fiction, where my protagonists are almost always teenagers. Naturally, I shun the company of ‘grownups’ – aka serious, well-dressed people who talk about cooking, arts, culture, politics – preferring to hang out with their kids so I can speak snapchat, being emo, and why growing up sucks. So, it came as somewhat of a shock to realize that I am old-fashioned in at least one area of my life. My writing. Or, more precisely, the act of writing.

It hit me a few weeks ago when I was at the London Book Fair. As an Indie writer who believes in the power of independent publishing, my first port of call was the Author HQ where all things Indie were being discussed. Or rather all things related to art of selling books as an Indie were being discussed. The talk passionately dwelt upon mastering the Amazon algorithm, keywords, discoverability, getting reviews, importance of your cover, of writing as many books as possible in as little a time, so you build a body of work, so you could sell more books.

Somehow it didn’t hold my attention. I agreed with everything being said, and acknowledged that all of it was important for selling a book. Yet, I wanted something more. So I walked across to another discussion, where authors were talking about their lives and their books. I heard from the electrifying Carmen Boullousa, a leading Mexican poet, novelist and playwright. She talked about her love for cooking, and how for a long time she denied herself that pleasure, for she associated cooking with female subservience. Coming from a traditional Indian family where my mum spent the better part of my teenage years in the kitchen, whipping up freshly cooked breakfasts, lunches and dinners for her family, I totally got it. And then she delivered this stunning one-liner:

“If I talk about my current project it just gets putrid.”

That was my most basic fear right there.

And yet, I often break my cardinal rule about talking about my current novel in progress, because I know I can use it as ‘content for social media to spark off a conversation’.

So why do I do it?

To sell more books of course.

But then, why did I get into writing in the first place? Was it to sell books or … or to understand myself and to unpick my relationship with the world? That was it, wasn’t it?

I write because I am insecure, because I am haunted by my childhood fears, because my life’s experiences still chase me. Because, I spend all my waking moments thinking about the ifs the buts and the whys of the future, even as a Ferris wheel of memories flashes through my subconscious mind in sleep.

And yet too often, instead of retreating into myself to write, I put myself out there to tell the world about my writing.

As I write my fourth and fifth books, I want to capture more and more that emotion of what I felt when I heard Carmen talk about her experiences. That feeling of being afforded a precious view into the lives of others; of this connect inside of me, when another hidden part of me reveals itself to my conscious mind.

I realized then that when it came to the process of writing, I am very traditional. I want to simply focus on getting better at the art and science of building my characters and revealing plotlines and by doing so understand my own motivations in living life the way I do better.

It’s very closely summarized by Rob Parnell in his book The Writer and the Hero’s Journey. Rob speaks about how all writers are heroes of their own stories, and how the act of writing a novel is actually a quest for a fuller appreciation of the purpose of life in general.

That is it for me.

I also know when I complete a novel, I do need to be out there to take the story and and the characters to the readers. Certainly with Ruby Iyer, I feel a responsibility towards her… that I owe it to her to put her in front of as many of readers as I can reach so they can understand her and what she stands for. It helps to take myself out of it though, for I am better at marketing someone else than myself.

For more about the importance of being an Author Entrepreneur read my blogpost here.

Laxmi Hariharan is the author of The Many Lives of Ruby Iyer which debuted #1 Amazon Asian Lit, and the bestselling Ruby Iyer Diaries. She has been a journalist with the Independent, a global marketer with MTV and NBCU and blogs for the Huffington Post. London is where she creates. Bombay is what fires her imagination. Find her Instagram | FB |  Blog | @laxmi

Download the Ruby Iyer Diaries free on Amazon here.

Read The Many Lives of Ruby Iyer (Ruby Iyer series, #1) here.

Enter the Ruby Iyer giveaway, for a chance to win an iPhone 6 here.

For more on Laxmi’s books and writing, subscribe to her newsletter here.

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How to Create an Epic or High Fantasy Fiction

quill-175980By Varun Prabhu (author of The Mahabharata Simplified)

When you think of fantasy fiction, you might think of novels like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, etc. Have you, as a writer, ever thought how the writers developed these worlds? Have you been inspired by these authors to create a world of your own making? I’m sure many of you have been intrigued and influenced by fantasy authors to create your own universe. Many of them just find it difficult and back away, daunted by the challenging task, but there are some of them who take it head on and manage to create a world that is as intriguing as the books they have read.