Lurkers Support Me In EMAIL!

[flummery]

Somewhere, recently, I had been reading about how a lot of professional authors were getting sort of irate about the Amazon reviews, and the fact that anyone could post, negative or positive, and apparently, these reviews really can have an impact on sales, these days.

I think, at the time, I sort of mulled that over, in a vague way, worrying that it could have impact on a relatively new writer, in detrimental ways, but how was it really different than word of mouth?

But, just yesterday, elynross directed me to what appears to be a rebuttal review by Anne Rice of her latest book, Blood Canticle. I read it, and my jaw hit the table, and I had a whole lot of thoughts... one of which, initially, was that it had to be fake. And this is certainly still possible. But then I came across a link to an actual essay she'd written on her official website that... basically supported and repeated many of the same positions voiced in the rebuttal review. If that wasn't Anne Rice, someone was doing a pretty good job of channeling her.

The review can be found here, about halfway down the page.

The essay on her website can be found here.

She manages to hit upon, in these two essays, one hell of a lot of the very same arguments I see amateur (fan) writers using to justify themselves. Now, I'm not saying that writers should never explain what they were trying to achieve with their work, or stay silent when people are interested in having more information, but I am very much one of those people who go insane when a discussion of a story begins, only to have the author dive into the fray with all the reasons you didn't understand/shouldn't be criticizing her/are just plain mean! Goddamnit. The discussion is not for the author's benefit. It's not there to help the author become a better writer, or to encourage them, or boost their ego. It can do all those things, but that wasn't the point. It's there because people want to discuss what they read, or review what they read for other potential readers, or argue why a story worked, or didn't work for them. Just stay the hell out of it and let people have their discussion, unless they ask you a question directly.

Anne Rice hit every crap-ass argument I've ever seen thrown out on a list. In fact, her essays tell us that her very success has given her the leverage to engage in crappy writing all she wants, unfettered by the likes of cretinous editors, and other demons.

I just can't stop myself from commenting on her comments.


So, various sections, taken from the review, are quoted below, along with my reactions.
~~~~~

First off, let me say that this is addressed only to some of you, who have posted outrageously negative comments here, and not to all. You are interrogating this text from the wrong perspective. Indeed, you aren't even reading it. You are projecting your own limitations on it

We will leap past the "You're only stupid if you disagree with me" part of this text, and go to her statement that if you can't understand what she's saying, you're not reading the story correctly.

Somewhere along the line, I had a very good English/Writing teacher who spelled it out for us like this: "The message sent is the message received."

It doesn't matter what you meant to say. If you leave someone a note to meet you at McDonald's, and they head over to Burger King, you failed. You chose the wrong words. You used the words you chose poorly. No matter what you meant those words to say, or wanted them to say, they said something else, and you'd better suck it up, look at them, and discover what it was you did wrong so next time, you can get the message through. It's not the audience's job to read your mind, or know any other context than what is in front of them, right there, on the page.

Yes, there are sloppy readers, and people who skip over things. And then there are writers who just plain fail to get their point across, and those writers should stop accusing their audience of not paying attention. If your reader walks away from your communication with a message other than what you were trying to convey, more often than not, the fault lies with the writer.

Or, alternatively? Maybe we get it just fine, and still think it sucks. Stop expecting us to have a rapturous revelation if we squint at the words harder.

And this book is most certainly written -- every word of it -- by me. If and when I can't write a book on my own, you'll know about it. And no, I have no intention of allowing any editor ever to distort, cut, or otherwise mutilate sentences that I have edited and re-edited, and organized and polished myself. I fought a great battle to achieve a status where I did not have to put up with editors making demands on me, and I will never relinquish that status. For me, novel writing is a virtuoso performance. It is not a collaborative art.

The idea that your words are so perfect, that allowing an editor to comment, or make suggestions, or change them, would somehow besmirch the purity of your vision... it boggles me. You don't always have to take the advice, but you should consider the possibility that you're not as good as you think you are.

Back to the novel itself: the character who tells the tale is my Lestat. I was with him more closely than I have ever been in this novel; his voice was as powerful for me as I've ever heard it. I experienced break through after break through as I walked with him, moved with him, saw through his eyes. What I ask of Lestat, Lestat unfailingly gives.

Oh my god, it's the muses. The MUSES ARE SPEAKING THROUGH HER. I hate the muses. Who the fuck are these muses anyway? They never speak to *me*. Maybe these people with muses... shouldn't be quite so trusting of the voices they hear in their heads, you know?

Every word is in perfect place.

Bwahahahahahaha! Dude, there aren't even any *paragraph returns* in this damn review.

Now, if it doesn't appeal to you, fine. You don't enjoy it? Read somebody else. But your stupid arrogant assumptions about me and what I am doing are slander. And you have used this site as if it were a public urinal to publish falsehood and lies. I'll never challenge your democratic freedom to do so, and yes, I'm answering you, but for what it's worth, be assured of the utter contempt I feel for you, especially those of you who post anonymously (and perhaps repeatedly?) and how glad I am that this book is the last one in a series that has invited your hateful and ugly responses.

You won't have ME to pick on any more! I'm leaving, and taking my toys with me!

There are readers out there and plenty of them who cherish the individuality of each of the chronicles which you so flippantly condemn. They can and do talk circles around you. And I am warmed by their response. Their letters, the papers they write in school, our face to face exchanges on the road -- these things sustain me when I read the utter trash that you post.

Lurkers Support Me In Email.

I just about died when I saw this. How many times have I seen this stated to bolster an argument? It doesn't matter what you all say, I *know* I'm right, because of the untold support I have that none of you are privy to! There's no way you could be right, when other people disagree with you! And also, they outnumber you! (And you're STUPID!)

Good Grief.

(Tomorrow: Mercedes Lackey single handedly changes to term to: Myste Sue)

Comments

[mikou.livejournal.com]

I came here through metablog.

The only thing I will say in Anne Rice's favor is that some of the Amazon reviews were speculating about the state of her emotions and her personal life. In that, she has every right to be irate.

Of course, she has the right to free speech, just like the rest of us, but her rant made me quite sad. I used to enjoy her books, but with time, I did so less and less. When I discovered that she stopped using an editor, I felt that was probably a big contributor.

Yes, she's a professional and yes, she has a great deal of experience, but when you start acting like you have NOTHING to learn from the opinions of others, you stop growing. I work in health care and I once worked for a weeks for an elderly surgeon. He always wore a hip length white coat, which is usually reserved for students. Usually, the long white coats are reserved for those who are still in school. This surgeon said that he wore the short jacket to remind himself that he always had something to learn. I loved that about him. The fact that Anne seems to take the opposite tact really puts me off her.

I won't go so far as to say that I won't ever read anything by her, but certainly won't be buying anything by her that I've never read. Truthfully, I'm not in any rush to read stories by someone who is so enamored of her own writing that she can't tolerate criticism.

[tangleofthorns.livejournal.com]

She's a BAD WRITER. Who can't stand ANY criticism. And obviously doesn't have the class to just bitch about the bad reviews in private and display serenity.

Preserve us all from hackery.

I did also like Interview, though.

Oh, and hi.

[ladytabitha.livejournal.com]

*falls over and dies of high-larity*

[emrinalexander.livejournal.com]

You know, I love what you've written about this. I also just realized - the poor woman can't use commas either!

[elgato-gamgins.livejournal.com]

There are readers out there and plenty of them who cherish the individuality of each of the chronicles which you so flippantly condemn. They can and do talk circles around you. And I am warmed by their response. Their letters, the papers they write in school, our face to face exchanges on the road -- these things sustain me when I read the utter trash that you post.

I remember a person at FF.net who wrote something similar to that. Except it had no punctuation marks, and numbers substituted letters.

[dargie.livejournal.com]

Here via elynross and loving the rant. I gave up on Rice long ago, when it was clear that she'd fired her editors, and really had only one idea, which was veering perilously close to a rocks-off fantasy most of the time. That she thought it was a good idea to get down and dirty with the peons makes me laugh because nothing makes any creative person (and lordy, I do use that word loosely in her case) look more foolish than engaging in fights over whether her/his work is good or not.

[klia.livejournal.com]

*wipes eyes*

Oh. My. God. The pretentiousness. The arrogance. And yes, her comments sound *exactly* like a lot of bad fan writers.

Hey, if you haven't already heard about it or read it, you should check out "A Reader's Manifesto: An Attack on the Growing Pretentiousness in American Literary Prose," by B. R. Myers, which skewers some of the bloated, overblown, *crapastic* writing that passes for "literature" these days, and is absolutely hilarious.

[ladyiapetus]

Came here via deleterius, and I must say very well done. Never read Anne Rice before, never planned to either and now I'm very glad that I made that decision.

The woman reminds me of the trolls that like to invade deleterius every so often, whining and bitching that we don't like their story or their oh-so wonderful Mary Sue character and if we don't like it than we shouldn't read it.

Except the trolls are a tad more entertaining.

*snerk*

[lissa-quon.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, it's the muses. The MUSES ARE SPEAKING THROUGH HER.

Its worse then that, a long time ago I heard the muse (Lestat) was talking to her. Some rot about him leaving pissed off messages on her answering machine due to him not agreeing with one of her books.

[revenantrose.livejournal.com]

Wandered over from natlyn's lj.

Who the fuck are these muses anyway? They never speak to *me*.

Thank God it's not just me. I was starting to think I was crazy for not having voices in my head telling me what to write.

[sabriel.livejournal.com]

poor anne rice. *shakes head*

[quizzicalsphinx.livejournal.com]

There is no writer on this planet that cannot be significantly improved with an editor, if only to take that step away from the self necessary to view the prose clearly. When writing, everything gets filtered through one's own perceptions; one's imagination makes up for lack of clarity in the prose, and only a second party can really find any gaps that occur. Despite what you hear, writers are not, nor should they be, writing for themselves. Writing for yourself is what you do in a journal--and not even an online journal, but an honest paper journal shoved to the back of the sock drawer, something that nobody will ever see but yourself. When you're writing with the intent of publication, you cannot afford to be self-absorbed. The story is--or should be--much bigger than its author.

[tvillingar.livejournal.com]

I haven't laughed this much for a while. Thank you!

[rycca-wolfbane.livejournal.com]

I used to be an avid Anne Rice reader - I agree with an earlier comment that her stories began going downhill (although I really liked Pandora).

The one thing that has been made clear to me - through people who know her personally - is that Anne Rice's cheese has slipped her cracker. She displays bipolar tendancies, and blows up at people for the most trivial things - unless they're lauding her shamelessly, that is.

No doubt a few of her works are fantastic, but I wouldn't go so far as to say they're as great as she thinks they are. She's long-winded, and she uses her characters as religious mouthpieces, getting across her views of Diety.

No doubt her sales will take a nosedive after that little rant.

The one thing I was always told is that we are our own worst critics. Well, she's not criticizing herself at all, and that's a foreseeable problem in any future novels.

...She WALKS with Lestat? Oh, dear.

And here I thought the whole muses thing was one big joke shared between fanfic writers.

[cspinks.livejournal.com]

I think a writer should either express something with indisputable clarity, or leave it to the interpretations of the readers (with perhaps a careful nudge in the right direction).

A few readers are always going to be confused, but the few becomes as many as this, that's when you should consider that it might not be everybody else's fault. Perhaps you should have included a few more nudges, or should just leave it to the interpretations of the fan, however negative, without trying to lord it over the reviews. Part of leaving something to interpretation is the leaving bit.

If this whole thing was just a hoax, it was a cruel and damaging one. I love a good hoax, but I wouldn't be able to applaud this, however realistic it might be.

Incidentally, I've never read anything by Anne Rice. Vampires don't appeal to me. Werewolves, yes, but vampires are just glorified mosquitoes. They've never seemed to me to have the symbolic complexity and psychoanalytical leeway of other monsters. It's all sex, sex, sex. Give me a Wolfman, on the other hand, and I could do a lot with it.

I wish I hadn't said that last sentence.

[barbayat.livejournal.com]

I wonder why she even got mad about the review. I mean, vampires have been invented in 1920 - and she goes mad? That this was obviously a troll is beyond the shadow of a doubt.

I read Interview long before the movie came out and continued later with the next three, but it became more boring and boring. Memnoch did it for me. Hundred pages of nothing but sheer boredom. But I suppose it is because I am so limited that I did not saw the great exitement behind *giggles*

Anyway, very interesting article(s) glad you shared them and that it was x-posted ;)

[sal-thedeceiver.livejournal.com]

Adding to the "Amen"s.

This whole thing comes close to home for me because I have a schoolmate who is absolutely convinced she is the daughter of one of the characters from the books (Marius, I think) even though she's an adopted Korean girl. Nutty authors and nutty fans. XD

Friending you because this blog rocks.

Good essay

[normanrafferty.livejournal.com]

When A&E did a Biography on Anne Rice, all the interviewed experts said the same thing: her books were better when she had editors.

[silverthoughts.livejournal.com]

The e-mail works, by the way. A couple members of my mailing list emailed her a couple of weeks ago when we found this. She replied back with the general same thing in the Amazon review.

[tygermoonfoxx.livejournal.com]

Found my way here from a friend's link. Ann Rice ended up being part of required reading for a science fiction class whose topic was vampirism. Her book ended up being the only one that I, an avid bibliophile, have ever shredded, burnt, and thrown away.

Years later someone encouraged me to try again with LeStat. I didn't get through an entire chapter without laughing maniacally. The first half of it reads as though it were written by a twelve year old, complete with vampire-disguised-as-rock-star-but-shh-no-one-knows-that.

I'll admit that some of her nonvampiric works are competently written (Ramese the Damned, for instance) but this chronicle should have died several books ago. I don't tend to waste my money on authors who 1) don't apparently understand that their readers as a whole are the reason they sell book and 2) can't be bothered to use an editor and put out readable materials.

She's not alone; I quit reading Piers Anthony for the same reasons, about the time he started putting extensive pissy notes at the ends of his Xanth novels about how useless the fandom was and please don't bother him, he's too busy for you but go ahead and buy the next book.

[kaiz.livejournal.com]

Everyone else has said what I'd say to the Anne Rice part of your post, but let me give you a heartfelt "AMEN" for this one: Tomorrow: Mercedes Lackey single handedly changes to term to: Myste Sue)

I simply can *NOT* believe that she wrote herself so *obviously* (Herald-Chronicler Myste? puh-leeze!) right down to physical attributes, into her latest books about Alberich. I mean, jeez woman!

[skuf.livejournal.com]

(Here via cathexys)

Excellently written rant, *applauds* :o) !!

[moonykins.livejournal.com]

oO

...wow.

Ok, only book I've read by her so far is "Blackwood Farm", and I must admit I adored it. I really want to read the rest of the chronicles.

Now, this post made me falter a bit. I honestly had no idea she's such a... brat! Jeez. She sounds like a 13 year old Mary Sue fanfic author for christ's sake.

Am gonna try reading her other books though. We'll see how far I get :P

Please tell me this is true!

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

(Tomorrow: Mercedes Lackey single handedly changes to term to: Myste Sue)!
I want to read it!

[randomblade.livejournal.com]

And you have used this site as if it were a public urinal to publish falsehood and lies.

When was she last in a boys bathroom? Now I really really want to see the school toilet walls which have reviews of Anne Rice scrawled on them in permanent marker.

Sorry about the smell, Amazon. We're out of urinal cakes on the Anne-Rice page.