To Be Or Not To Be Honest

How to Criticize Constructively

There comes a time in every writer’s life when a fellow writer approaches and asks:

“Will you write a review for my book for my website or back cover?”

“Will you write a review for my book on Amazon or Barnes and Noble?”

“Would you “like” my book on Amazon or Barnes and Noble?”

“Would you “like” my book on Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, et al?”

What do you do? On a number of online discussions, I’ve seen many requests for “likes” and many responses in both negative and positive. Here’s what I do.

First, I decide if I want to read the book or not. Except for rare cases (see below) I won’t write a review unless I’ve read the book . If I agree to read, it’s with the caveat that I will try to get to it as soon as I can, particularly if I’m reading another book and have a top ten list of books in line. If I don’t want to read it, however, I’ll be honest and say that I’m not the right person to write a review since I usually don’t read . . . name your genre: horror, sci fi, non-fiction, etc.

For those books I do wind up reading and don’t like, I think about the positives and begin with those:

“Great atmosphere”

“Spunky characters”

“Vivid setting”

“Provocative premise for the book.”

Every book has good qualities. Really. Find them. Give that writer positive, encouraging feedback.

If the writer asks you to post a review on Amazon and you seriously don’t like it, I would be honest and say I can only give it two stars because:

“The writing is inconsistent”

“The characters are rather wooden”

“The setting is hard to visualize”

This might open the door for more conversation about how to improve the book– in your opinion, of course, which could be a good thing for both parties. And, like in critique groups, both writers come away with something valuable.

 

 

To Be Or Not To Be Honest

How to Criticize Constructively

There comes a time in every writer’s life when a fellow writer approaches and asks:

“Will you write a review for my book for my website or back cover?”

“Will you write a review for my book on Amazon or Barnes and Noble?”

“Would you “like” my book on Amazon or Barnes and Noble?”

“Would you “like” my book on Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, et al?”

What do you do? On a number of online discussions, I’ve seen many requests for “likes” and many responses in both negative and positive. Here’s what I do.

First, I decide if I want to read the book or not. Except for rare cases (see below) I won’t write a review unless I’ve read the book . If I agree to read, it’s with the caveat that I will try to get to it as soon as I can, particularly if I’m reading another book and have a top ten list of books in line. If I don’t want to read it, however, I’ll be honest and say that I’m not the right person to write a review since I usually don’t read . . . name your genre: horror, sci fi, non-fiction, etc.

For those books I do wind up reading and don’t like, I think about the positives and begin with those:

“Great atmosphere”

“Spunky characters”

“Vivid setting”

“Provocative premise for the book.”

Every book has good qualities. Really. Find them. Give that writer positive, encouraging feedback.

If the writer asks you to post a review on Amazon and you seriously don’t like it, I would be honest and say I can only give it two stars because:

“The writing is inconsistent”

“The characters are rather wooden”

“The setting is hard to visualize”

This might open the door for more conversation about how to improve the book– in your opinion, of course, which could be a good thing for both parties. And, like in critique groups, both writers come away with something valuable.

 

 

Creating Fiction Out of Fact

Current Events as Themes for Novels

A brief story appeared on a local news station. It went something like this:

“Giant 11-ton wind turbine blade sheared off and flew hundreds of feet to land (luckily on no living creature) in the desert of Ocotillo, California.”

The actual incident is under investigation, revealing a dark history of serious safety hazards including the wind company’s — Siemens — guilty pleas to corruption on a global scale including accusations of bribery and other serious charges in at least 20 countries.

IMG_8896 (2)A press conference was called and the following facts emerged:

1. Wind turbines kill more than 573,000 birds (and bats) every year. Many are endangered birds like eagles and condors. http://landing.newsinc.com/shared/video.html?freewheel=90121&sitesection=ap&VID=24819212

2. Wind turbines are not efficient sources of energy. They can only operate within a very narrow window of wind speed (not too much, not too little) and when they are outside this window they must shut down. However, when they are down they still need electricity to power them, thus “peaker” plants run by electric companies actually generate the power. Very inefficient as an energy source.

3. The wind turbines themselves are making life difficult for those living nearby. The noise is creating health concerns for people and animals. Chickens are not laying eggs, dogs are cowering in the corners, children are developing headaches.

4. The company (that purchased and installed the turbines) cares nothing for the environment. In the case of Ocotillo, they have bulldozed the desert and not replaced the plants, including Ocotillos, a rare and protected desert cactus.

5. This same company has shown complete disrespect for Indian culture. They have desecrated ancient Indian sacred sites with barely an apology.

So what the heck am I going on about? Think about the possibilities for your next mystery or thriller. Small, desert town (with, would you believe, a Lazy Lizard Saloon) is besieged by corporate giant. Lives ruined, litigation ensues, people are murdered to keep the corporate secrets. And what about the environmental effects? Animal rights? Indian sacred site desecration? Local people going mad from the noise and vibration? Not to mention the danger of a blade shearing off and cutting them in half (like it did to some poor fellow in Oregon. It’s true. Hell of a story.)

Now if that’s not enough, here’s the clincher. The company in question here, Siemens, a German company, has a lurid past. The BBC reported that they have past collaborations with Nazis. They used slave labor from concentration camps including Ravensbruck and Auschwitz. These slaves reportedly built electric switches for the Siemens-manufactured V-2 rockets used to bomb the allies during WWII. More recently Siemens sought to register the trademark “Zyklon,” the poison gas insecticide used in Nazi gas chambers.

Is this a thriller or what?

 

Sorry Sorry Night

Vincent Van Gogh – Suicide, Homicide or Misadventure?

The research for my book, Deadly Provenance, took me places I never expected to go. To the dark recesses of the brain, its power over the body, and all that could possibly go wrong with that relationship. How did I get there?

For my premise, I needed a painting that was plundered by the Nazis during World War II and never recovered. There were myriad. I chose Vincent Van Gogh’s “Still Life: Vase With Oleanders” because he’s one of my favorite artists and one whose life touched my heart as much as his art.

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERAI’ve had one of those giant coffee-table books of his artwork for years. I read Stone’s Lust for Life and saw the movie with Kirk Douglas as Vincent. I wanted to know more and the most comprehensive, well-written and beautifully poignant account I highly recommend is a book by two Pulitzer prize-winning authors: Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, called Van Gogh The Life:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0375758976/ref=asc_df_03757589762502415?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&tag=dealt529148-20&linkCode=asn&creative=395093&creativeASIN=0375758976

The book is astonishing in its breadth of research from Vincent’s history, family ties, relationships, such as they were. But their conclusions about how Vincent died simply blew me away. Only this is certain. On July 27, 1890, Vincent sustained a gunshot wound to the abdomen. He stumbled back from his painting foray to the Ravoux Inn, his residence, in a town twenty miles north of Paris – Auvers, France. Thirty hours later he was dead.

No forensics was available, no gun was ever found. The bullet was never removed from his body. His painting supplies were never recovered. The location of the shooting was never verified. There were, supposedly, no eye-witnesses. When Vincent was asked by the police if he wanted to commit suicide, his answer was a vague. “Yes, I believe so.” When they reminded him suicide was a crime, he said, “Do not accuse anyone. It is I who wanted to kill myself.”

Why do the authors make a case against suicide? They believe Vincent wanted to die and actually welcomed death. Here are the points they make:

The bullet trajectory was oblique and from further away than Vincent’s arm could reach.

If he were indeed painting in the wheat field, as suggested, it would have been too far and difficult to return to the Inn with a bullet to his gut.

The gun and art equipment were never located.

He left no suicide note and he was a prolific writer.

Rather than go into details here, and there are many convincing ones, I urge you to read the book, at the very least the Appendix, where the authors make their case against suicide.

So who might have shot Vincent, either accidentally or on purpose? There were, apparently, in this little town two or more teenagers who enjoyed tormenting the artist, who, unlike, the fiery and handsome Kirk Douglas, was a rail-thin, emaciated and dirty wretch with a bad temper.

A bit more is known now about Vincent’s personality “disorder” and it is suspected that, with family history and symptoms that prompted bizarre, dramatic behavior, the diagnosis of temporal lobe epilepsy is a viable possibility.

An interesting side note: As I was writing this (rather long, sorry) blog I realized there were stunning similarities between Vincent’s symptoms and a young woman in a book I’m reading now entitled Brain on Fire – My Month of Madness: www.susannahcahalan.com/

Yipes. It’s enough to scare the s— out of you.