To Forge an Ironmaiden...

[TopNotch]

Yes I know. And no I don't.


And you know what? Fun side note. Romance wasn't always just a love story anyhow. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_(prose_fiction)

Indeed. I am 'guilty' (as it were) of reading 'romances'.
This from the inside of one of my Sabatini books (written in 1928, but Sabatini floruit 1900-1950):

The Tavern Knight was actually the first one I got, but who doesn't love Captain Blood? And The Sea-Hawk almost made me pine for the briney! Now, of course, these books would just be listed up "Fiction" or "Novels", but made-up stories were all 'romances'.

 

[Nevetharine]

Indeed. I am 'guilty' (as it were) of reading 'romances'.
This from the inside of one of my Sabatini books (written in 1928, but Sabatini floruit 1900-1950):
View attachment 5207
The Tavern Knight was actually the first one I got, but who doesn't love Captain Blood? And The Sea-Hawk almost made me pine for the briney! Now, of course, these books would just be listed up "Fiction" or "Novels", but made-up stories were all 'romances'.

Ohh! I still have Scaramouche on my to-read list. The other book I read of him was The Suitors of Yvonne. Which is more of a love-ish story. At least, a bunch of high up political men fighting over Yvonne.

And then I read another classic, put as a romance, but was really a viking story, The Thrall of Leif the Lucky. This wasn't by Sabitini. Just saying. There's little romance in that book, or the author is very modest with it.

 

[TopNotch]

Ohh! I still have Scaramouche on my to-read list. The other book I read of him was The Suitors of Yvonne. Which is more of a love-ish story. At least, a bunch of high up political men fighting over Yvonne.

And then I read another classic, put as a romance, but was really a viking story, The Thrall of Leif the Lucky. This wasn't by Sabitini. Just saying. There's little romance in that book, or the author is very modest with it.

I haven't got them all. Suitors I've not read, nor The Nuptials, but I love all that sword fighting and the pirates and political intrigue - kind of like The Princess Bride but without the comedy!

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

And you know what? Fun side note. Romance wasn't always just a love story anyhow. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_(prose_fiction)

The meaning of the word has changed. (Though a literary scholar might still be inclined to use the historical meaning.)

Genres are marketing categories. They are set by publishers for the purpose of attracting the largest number of readers likely to be interested in a particular story.

 

[Nevetharine]

Physical Activity:

TEN day 10
EotD
5 Minutes Meditation (Got distracted by the phone)
10 Burpees to catch 20 turkeys

Writing/Editing:
None so far.

Reading:

The Oversight: 13%
The Great Alone: 11%

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

I DO NOT write romance where the main interests dig their heels into the ground.

Don't shoot! You're the one who said you dislike the entire genre:

It's a little more than that. It's a whole effing genre that sucks.

I can only go by what you tell me!

And it could be that I've fallen into an algorithm thingy outside of it. I just have no idea how to seek out what I want besides acquiring a bunch of stuff and deleting most of them to sift out the good ones.

See my suggestions above.

 

[Nevetharine]

Don't shoot! You're the one who said you dislike the entire genre:

I can only go by what you tell me!


See my suggestions above.

I'm not shooting. I was just answering your question. Alright so maybe me saying it was the whole genre was hyperbole. But it sure is a lot of it. I feel "like it's everything!", from all the stuff I've had to delete.

So many stop and go's. Get to chapter 3, nope I can see it sucks. Delete. Start another. Repeat. I'm off it for a while now. Maybe I'd rather go for straight-up contemporary fiction.

And thanks for the reminder of that group. I posted there too now. =)


Side side note: does anyone else think Goodreads reviews are mean? I mean some of the best books I've read, that have been translated into multiple languages over the world, have received 1-star reviews where people slam, spam, and blow them apart.

And these reviews may only be 3% of the whole, but a lot of them appear at the top and then there are a bunch of people who comment on them slamming the author further. Nobody seems to comment on the good reviews.

I fell into the rabbit hole this morning of searching for all my favorite books there, only to read how flat the characters were, how unbelievable the story. Sheesh.

I had three ideas about that. One, I felt for a moment that if a word I've written ever crosses the Goodreads threshold, my heart and soul will get ripped apart, stomped on, and eaten by vultures.

Two, after that I figured, well hell, if the great authors get slammed like that, I might as well throw my stuff out there too and hope I live passed three stars.

And three, maybe Goodreads is just mean. There was one comment of an author, who said he'd worked on and researched his work for fifteen years. He'd meticulously edited out every spelling error, and worked through numerous drafts. Then he posted it and had a good following. Until one faceless username came on Goodreads and threw his work to the wolves with a review, after which he lost his readership.

I felt so sorry for the person. All that time, all that work. Sure he can build it up again, but still.

I don't think I can ever give someone a one or even a two star review. Everyone puts a lot of hours and work into their books. A three-star is okay. It wasn't great, and wasn't too bad. At least it rewards the effort put in.

 

[NancyTree]

I am always honest about how I experienced a book. That someone put in 15 years, doesn't necessarily mean it's a good read. I will not give someone 3 stars just for the effort. I try to stay respectful to the person though, if I'm writing a text review.
A lot of (or maybe amost all) 'best sellers' are made 'best sellers' by the publishers, by stating that on a book (even if no-one bought it yet) and doing good advertising. It doesn't say anything about quality.
But a lot of reviewers are disrespectful and a lot of reviewers are not critical at all and just follow the public opinion. Positive or negative. So I will always make up my own mind.

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

I don't review books unless I can give them 5 stars*.

For one thing, I hardly ever read books I cannot give 5 stars to. I don't have enough time to read all the books I know I will love. So why waste my time on something I'm not enjoying? My only exceptions to this rule are:

1. If a friend wrote the book, I will read it through to the end, even if I think it's only worth 4 stars. But I don't write public reviews for such books. I would tell my friend privately what I liked about their story. I would give them constructive criticism if they asked for it. But that is it. I would not comment on their story publicly if I didn't love it.
2. Occasionally I encounter stories that I like--right up until the ending. Which I HATE. If you screw the pooch on your ending, I'm going to end up hating your entire book. Even worse: the magnitude of my hatred will be directly proportional to how much I was enjoying it up until the point where you messed up the ending.

If I read a less-than-5-star book for the first reason, I'm not going to say so publicly because anything less than a 5-star rating hurts the book's sales. And I obviously don't want to hurt my friend's sales! They wrote a good book. Do I absolutely love it? No. But so what? It's still a good book. I want other people to read it and decide for themselves how much they like it.

If I read a less-than-5-star book for the second reason, I probably would tell my friends about the experience--because they know me and would understand why I ended up hating the book. But would it be fair of me to give a 1-star review to such a book? (I'd actually want to give it zero stars.) If I was enjoying the story enough to read it through to the end, and even enjoying it enough that the author's failure to stick the landing made me angry, this is an indication that the author actually has some serious writing chops, but either: a.) they and I simply disagree on what makes a good ending, or b.) the author wrote a good ending--and their money-grubbing publisher forced them to change it to a shitty ending because they want a sequel. These stories tend to be extremely popular ones. So I'm not so much worried about my 1-star review hurting the book's sales. But it could diminish the value of any reviews I write about stories I truly loved. (The, "Laura hated The Hunger Games? Pfft! What does she know about a good story? Obviously all of her reviews are trash!" effect.) Plus, since the reason I hated the book was it's ending, and no one wants the ending of a book spoiled in its reviews, my review wouldn't be very useful to anyone. So I don't do it.

Also: most of the time I don't even write reviews for stories I did absolutely love. I just don't have time to.

As for Goodreads: I don't read a lot of reviews on there (or anywhere, really). So I could not say what percentage of them are mean. But yes, there are definitely some shitposters on GR, just as on most other social media platforms. It's sad. But I guess some people get their kicks that way.

@Nevetharine just don't read your reviews. If you want to spend your time on the ego boost of reading 5-star reviews, that's probably fine. But definitely don't read any bad ones. (And definitely don't ever, ever respond to them!) The personal opinions of random Internet strangers are not going to make you a better writer.

* I used to. A long time ago. Since there are websites out there that dedicate themselves to backing up old Web content, I cannot say for certain that you'll never come across a negative review written by me. But on newer platforms like Goodreads I've only ever given 5-star reviews.

 

[Nevetharine]

Physical Activity:

TEN day 11 (day 1 of shark week)
EotD
5 Minutes Meditation
30 Burpees to catch 60 turkeys

Writing/Editing:
Edited 1.5 chapters

Reading:

The Oversight: 15%
The Edge of Nowhere: 4%

 

[Nevetharine]

Physical Activity:


TEN day 11, not comfortable moving so much yet.
20 minutes of cycling to replace TEN.
EotD
5 Minutes Meditation
1.7km walking


Also, when I listen to a song with lyrics, it must be epic.

Writing/Editing:


Edited Chapter 13. It was a long one. Added on about ~500 words.


This is supposed to be a novella. Now with the revising, it's grown by about 5000 words so far. There was nothing wrong with the original. But it's been a few years since I wrote it, and my writing has improved in the meantime. I suppose it's more of a full rewrite, not changing the story so much as just updating the style.


Reading:


The Oversight: 15%
The Edge of Nowhere: 11%

 

[TopNotch]

I fell into the rabbit hole this morning of searching for all my favorite books there, only to read how flat the characters were, how unbelievable the story. Sheesh.

Did you write a review refuting this other person's opinion?

 

[Nevetharine]

Did you write a review refuting this other person's opinion?

I did not. It's not just one person. There are many other positives reviews of course, but the negatives are *very* negative. And at the top.

I'm not actually registered on Goodreads myself. I went there to search for a link to the books I'm reading, for posting on the What Are You Reading group on Darebee. Something that'll tell them something about what the book is about.

I think, so far, that what I'm reading is pretty good. That's why the one star review surprised me. Then I searched for some books recommended by Bees, to see if they were the same. Then for others I've enjoyed. Hence me falling into the rabbit hole.

All books have bad reviews, even those by famous authors. It's just odd there because a great number of them seems to be at the top, even if they only make up like 3-5% of total reviews.

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

It's just odd there because a great number of them seems to be at the top, even if they only make up like 3-5% of total reviews.

I don't know the specifics of how GR orders reviews. But on other social media platforms (FB, for instance), if your post gets a lot of reactions and comments, it gets promoted more. These platforms want to keep you on their platform. So they push content at you that their algorithms deem "interesting". This could be why you're seeing the extremely negative reviews at the top.

 

[Nevetharine]

I don't know the specifics of how GR orders reviews. But on other social media platforms (FB, for instance), if your post gets a lot of reactions and comments, it gets promoted more. These platforms want to keep you on their platform. So they push content at you that their algorithms deem "interesting". This could be why you're seeing the extremely negative reviews at the top.

They do have more comments, at least from the ten or so books I've searched. The negative reviews have like 5-15 comments beneath them of people agreeing to it, while the positives don't have any comments. Not even a one.

 

[Nevetharine]

Physical Activity:

TEN day 11 and day 12
EotD
5 Minutes Meditation
2.5km walking

Might do some cycling later. Might.

Writing/Editing:

None so far. But I did do some worldbuilding for The Leap. That whole story is changing as well. Another major rewrite waiting. But that's next year. Maybe around March, if I'm counting all my ducks correctly.

Reading:

The Oversight: 18%
The Edge of Nowhere: 24%

 

[Nevetharine]

Oh, that reminds me. If anyone is up for asking me twenty questions to help me figure out if my near-dystopian sci-fi's plot is relatively solid without holes all the way to China, let me know. This involves LOTS of spoilers. And a few essay-length summaries from my side.

 

[Nevetharine]

Physical Activity:

TEN day 11 and day 13
EotD
5 Minutes Meditation (but went for a walking meditation)
1km walking


Writing/Editing:

1.5 chapters. Final stretch! Have the same amount left.

Reading:

The Oversight: 21%
The Edge of Nowhere: 36% (the Western is a bit more fun than The Oversight. They shoot first and check if they've got the right guy second. )

 

[Nevetharine]

So, in an attempt to get back the four-hour time sink I spend gaming every afternoon, because honestly, that's time I can use for writing, I moved the offending game from my computer to my external hard drive there in the dark pits of my closet.

I'm going to attempt to keep up with TEN through December. I make no promises.

Physical Activity:

TEN Day 14
EotD
Fit December Day 1
5 Minutes Meditation
1km walking

Writing/Editing:

1 chapter, re-do.

Reading:

The Oversight: 23%
The Edge of Nowhere: 59%

 

[Nevetharine]

Not online much for the next few days. I'm saving some data, in case you're all wondering why I'm not reacting to your posts. I'll catch up.

Physical Activity:

TEN Day 15 (editing took priority, I'll try to do two days tomorrow)
EotD (10 stacked push-ups nearly killed me)
Fit December Day 2
5 Minutes Meditation

Writing/Editing:

Finished editing book one! Now it's on to Book two

Reading:

The Oversight: 25%
The Edge of Nowhere: 80%

 

[Nevetharine]

Sleep is a problem here. We paid two thousand bucks for a memory foam mattress and when it arrived here, it's barely 10 centimeters thick. So now it's just that stingy little thing on the base. We are hard - haha - sleepers now.

Since I'm rekindling my love of Westerns, I might imagine we're cowboys now. They'll bunk anywhere.

Physical Activity:

EotD
Fit December Day 3 (Throwing TEN out)
5 Minutes Meditation (managed three, hehe)

Writing/Editing:

Managed chapter 1/17.

Reading:

Exchanged The Oversight for The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet: 6%

The Edge of Nowhere: 100%

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

Since I'm rekindling my love of Westerns, I might imagine we're cowboys now. They'll bunk anywhere.

Exchanged The Oversight for The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet: 6%

I enjoyed that one! I hope you will too!

 

[Nevetharine]

I enjoyed that one! I hope you will too!

I'm still in the beginning, but so far it's nice! I'm still meeting everyone. I like splitting my reading time between the contemporary and the outlandish. My favorite character so far is Dr. Chef, purely because of his looks. An otter crossed with a gecko crossed with a six-legged caterpillar