Monsters from Beyond the Veil

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Dark Secrets

by Rachel Caine

Giveaway ends October 31, 2015.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Last week saw the release of DARK SECRETS: A PARANORMAL NOIR ANTHOLOGY. What - you didn't know "paranormal noir" was a thing?

IT IS NOW!

I finally got a chance to read the stories by my sister contributors and it's really a cool collection of stories. We really had only those two elements in common - something paranormal and noir shading - but the overall feel is remarkably consistent. At any rate, there's a Goodreads giveaway going on for it, if you'd like to win a copy. But it's only .99 cents, so quite the bargain if you choose to buy.

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Last week, we played a fun game in the Bordello, where I started a story and each author added onto it. It spiraled pretty wildly out of control - and wound its way through several genres and multiple sub-genres. It's worth reading the whole thread, just to see how each author spun the voice and action.

One thing I found interesting was that I started with two characters - one male, one female - and by the end there was a much larger cast, but still only one named female. Inherent bias? Or is it characters taking off on their own?

That's the topic for this week: Characters with a mind of their own.

I remember the first time I heard about this phenomenon. My mom told me about an interview she read with Madeleine L'Engle about writing The Arm of the Starfish. The story hinges around a chance meeting and L'Engle said that this character turned up and surprised her. She had no idea that this person would be in the story, but the character walked onto the page and took over.

I don't know why she told me that, if she was making some point, but it startled me - and frankly creeped me out a bit. I was probably around ten and the idea that a character could introduce themselves to an author's story was like being told that ghosts and monsters are real. It implied that intelligences not our own can cross over some barrier and infiltrate our minds.

Knowing that changed the way I viewed the world.

I'm more at peace with the notion as an adult. Not that I became more practical and realize my youthful idea was wrong Quite the opposite. This absolutely happens to me all the time as a writer. The characters tell me who they are. They come from somewhere outside myself. I've learned not to fight it, as that only leads to misery.

Sometimes I think that, just once, I'd love to write the book I thought I was going to write, but I'd also like to be 5'10" and 120 pounds - and that ain't gonna happen either.

A Question About Questions

Hello, all! I’m Jane, your part-time Whore, here to fill in for Allison while she rests up. And how convenient for me that my first post gets to be me asking you questions, because I don’t have to worry about whether this post will totally suck. ;)

Or maybe I do. Yeah, I think I will anyway.

At any rate, my question for readers is tangential to Jeffe’s question on Sunday about authors interfering in reviews. It’s really a question about questions. We live in a remarkable age when we have immediate access to the people who write the books we read. But it seems as though the more opportunities for communication there are, the less communicating is actually happening.

One of my favorite authors, Lynn Flewelling, hosted a writing workshop at sea a few years ago. A chance to meet one of my favorite authors, talk about writing, and go on a cruise to the Caribbean? It was a total no-brainer. And one of the best vacations I’ve ever had.

Since then, those of us who cruised together have followed and friended one another across the social media-sphere, and Lynn has been absolutely lovely, chatting and engaging with those of us who attended, and sharing her daily life in 140-word bits, even seeking us out and hanging with us when we happen to attend the same conferences. It feels like we’re friends.

And there are other authors I’ve spoken to on Twitter whom I’ve never met, but who’ve answered me back, which is always a treat. When I was a kid, I dreamed about being able to talk to writers, even fantasized about attending and hosting writer salons. (I know. I’m a dork.)

But something has changed recently in this still-somewhat-new world where readers have immediate access to authors. As with the recent Goodreads brouhaha, there are readers who don’t want to hear from authors at all. Any kind of response by an author (even “thanks for the review”) is met with hostility and mistrust. I’ve heard some bloggers say that if an author comments on a blog post, it shuts down communication because people know the author is reading.

(Wait…don’t leave! I really do have a question!)

Why should the act of communicating shut down communication? (That’s not my question. I’m getting to it.)

Writers are always admonished for getting upset about rejections and bad reviews. “You have to have a thick skin if you’re going to put your words out there in the world for others to read.” Yes. Yes, we do. And readers’ words posted publicly are words, too. An author definitely shouldn’t abuse a reviewer or reader for their opinion or hound them with all the reasons they’re “wrong.” But wouldn’t it be great if you could, I don’t know, just ask an author a question about a book and get an answer without bringing about the Zombie Apocalypse?

Yes, that was my question. I know, I buried the lead. (Or is it lede?) No! Or Yes. Dammit. I hate those kind of answers.

When I come across comments in reviews or on blog posts where readers have questions about my books, I wish I could just pop in and say, “Yes, that character will show up in another book,” or “No, that isn’t the end of that series.” But I know I can’t answer even the most innocuous of questions because of the perception of author intrusion. And that makes me sad, because I love being able to talk to my favorite authors about their characters—and frankly, I love to talk about my characters—and I hate to see this medium that allows us to connect in a way that was never possible before devolving into a battleground where words are only used for spite.

I had a dilemma today about a reader question. Someone tweeted about a bad first impression she’d gotten from one of my books. I debated whether I should respond or not. I didn’t want to be That Author, and I’m not going to argue with readers about how they feel about my books. Every reader is entitled to her opinion and reaction.

But in the end, I decided to reply since I’d been specifically mentioned in the tweet. She may ultimately hate the book and decide her first impression was right, and I can’t do anything about that. But I can do something about the next book. And I want to know how people feel about my writing. I want to have those conversations. Not to rebut every word of a review, but to be accessible to readers. When I was growing up, if I wondered why the writer of a book I’d read went a particular direction, I was pretty much stuck just wondering. (I’m still wondering what happened at the end of most of Phyllis A. Whitney’s books.) But I also don’t want to intrude on the reader’s experience.

So in case you’ve forgotten what the heck I was talking about, like I’m about to, my question is this: Do you want to have conversations with the writers of the books you read? And if so, what kind? If you @ them on Twitter or tag them on Facebook, do you want a response or are you just letting other readers know what you think?

Ask the Readers: How Do You Feel About Interference with Reviews?

Here's the cover for the sixth and final episode of my Master of the Opera e-Serial. The first one comes out January 2 and the series finishes with this one, on March 20. What's cool to me about this cover is the opal ring. It's EXACTLY how I described it in the story, which is just way cool to see. You can see about all of them here.

So, this is Ask the Readers week in the bordello - where we ask you all those questions we *really* wonder about. Imagine yourselves up on the panel at the front of the room and we're sitting in those crowded-too-close conference chairs.

This is my long-winded question:

For me, what's on my mind is the ongoing kerfuffle on reviews and review sites. It seems to be heating up and becoming more complex as the retailers get more involved. The growing force of self-published authors is also having an effect, because they bring an entrepreneurial fervor to the mix, with an "anything goes" attitude that's markedly different from the more old-fashioned literary world.

For example, this article about John Locke buying reviews was posted a year ago, but bubbled up in my feed again this morning, due to the recent Goodreads changes. For those not in the know, Goodreads has been a great site for listing books, reviewing them, posting progress in reading a book and having conversations about them. Goodreads has come under fire because some readers have targeted authors they feel treat readers or other people badly. By that I mean, they use the "bookshelf" function to list authors they will never support. Recently, Amazon bought Goodreads. And, at the end of last week, all of the "anti-author" shelves and reviews were summarily deleted.

Has, a reviewer from The Bookpushers book review blog, has an excellent summary here.

Even more interesting, while Goodreads has decided to take sweeping control of what reviewers post, they've added this bit to the author pages:

Hey, you have some reviews! That’s great news. Goodreads reviews help readers decide to read your book. Read more about reviews.

Looking to get more reviews? Try a free giveaway.
For more suggestions of great ways to use Goodreads, please see our author guidelines.
For more about how our reviews work, please see our review guidelines.

If you see a review you feel violates our guidelines, please flag it to bring it to our attention. You’ll see a flag icon when you mouse over the bottom right-hand side of a review.

Which, is not only insulting to me, as a professional author. *Ahem, I know what a review is* - it's also a red flag for the days to come.We've already been through Facebook's ever-increasing attempts to get authors to pay to promote, to reach the readers already following us. Seems to me like Goodreads isn't far behind. Just guessing here.

After all, tons of authors are willing to pay. That's the point of that article on John Locke. He wrote a book called How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months, though he left out the "secret" that he did it mainly by 1) paying people to buy his books and 2) paying for reviews. Some choice tidbits:

Potential reviewers were told that if they felt they could not give a book a five-star review, they should say so and would still be paid half their fee…As you might guess, this hardly ever happened.

That’s the New York Times’ David Streitfeld quoting Todd Jason Rutherford, who, Streitfeld reports, commissioned 4,531 glowing and completely bogus book reviews at the now-inactive GettingBookReviews.com.

and

If you’re a self-published author who is still struggling to get noticed, now might be the time to swallow the rest of your pride, jettison your code of ethics, and start buying reviews. (Hey, everyone is doing it.)

and

He also asked that the reviewers make their book purchases directly from Amazon, which would then show up as an “Amazon verified purchase” and increase the review’s credibility.

and

The “democratizing” of content on the Internet, as it’s touted by some, suddenly looks less attractive when users realize they’re the victims of ruthless, orchestrated, profiteering liars.

and

Amazon has a dilemma. So far the system has been working, but what happens when players out themselves? Even last year, detractors were calling it Spamazon. Could there be a tipping point of credibility?

So, that's my question for you readers - where is the tipping point of credibility? How do YOU feel about all of this??