The terrible intimacy of @.

I always feel a bit awkward submitting a negative review of a novel. A film, fine. It's the work of dozens, if not hundreds of people. It's harder to take it personally, and if I'm particularly angry, it's hard to get personal when any particular aspect is affected by a dozen or more people. If I hate Actor in a movie, I can always say "I wonder what Director told them here" and it still comes down to "I don't like this collaboration." But to me, when I write a review it's more to the author than it is to the readers. That's not to say that I feel authors should live and die by my word or that I in any way discount the people who are wondering whether or not to buy the book, but my moments of joy as a reviewer come from the "thank you so much for telling me what you thought of my book, and for showing me what you struggled with as a reader." Ask any of my friends, those moments when an author (or agent, editor, etc.) makes me feel like my review did something to influence the artistic direction of the world are the ones that put me in a good mood all day and I just can't shut up about them. At the same time, I've been in the position where "I liked this book, but I don't think it's for everyone" resulted in authors and their fans making snide (or outright aggressive) comments toward me and left me in the position where I have to find a way to respond (because looking like I left the room in a tiff because of their comment when I respond to every other comment on the blog would be almost as bad as being nasty myself) without being in the same position as them: someone acting nasty because someone didn't like their work. And, unlike a film, for an author it is their work.

That said, I feel dishonest if I don't address the author and I know how. If I can tell you to your face that I love Book A, I'm not going to go behind your back and tell our mutual "friends" (substitute friends with followers, readers, casual passers-by, what have you) that Book B was terrible. It's a huge load off my conscience to say, "hey, I didn't like Book B, and if you care to say why, here's the link". Of course, if I find I have nothing nice to say to somebody at all, I simply won't speak to them, because that's putting us both in an awkward position. There are some authors I hope never to meet if and when I become published, because of how I feel about what they write. Still, given the opportunity I would still tell that person's editor or agent "these are the problems I had with this work" in the hopes that the feedback will be translated into something that makes a difference.

I can definitely understand how being put in this place is problematic, but I've also been in situations where somebody talked about me on Twitter without tagging me, assuming that because of a piece of work I did I was a drunk driver and deserved to die in a fire. It would have bothered me much less if they had opened a dialogue with me, in which I could have explained "yes that was dumb, no I didn't drive drunk, and you won't see anything like this in the future". Similarly, I am reviewing a piece right now where the author's portrayal of the aftermath of sexual abuse is rather upsetting to me (anybody here who knows me don't look for it any time soon, it's for a blog that is not open yet and is being added to the backlog once it is), and I would feel much more comfortable about the book and my review of it if I got a comment from the author saying "wow, I didn't look at it this way, I wish I had done some research on this type of abuse as I have no personal experience in it". It wouldn't make me like the book, but it would make me respect the author and buy the next thing he wrote.

Just my (slightly rambling) two thoughts, and hopefully the viewpoint here will make it a bit less uncomfortable next time you are linked to such a review.

While I'm commenting here, I've been working on a NaNoWriMo project that your posts on here indicate you might have some interest in, but I imagine you're entirely too busy for people to say "can you comment on my book that's not even written yet?" to you all day. If I'm wrong and you would like to discuss it, I'd be glad any time to stop what I'm doing and send you an outline.

"While I'm commenting here, I've been working on a NaNoWriMo project that your posts on here indicate you might have some interest in, but I imagine you're entirely too busy for people to say "can you comment on my book that's not even written yet?" to you all day. If I'm wrong and you would like to discuss it, I'd be glad any time to stop what I'm doing and send you an outline."

If I may add to what Seanan has already said, it is actually considered poor form to ask an author to comment on an outline or book. You may not be aware of it but there was a case in the 90s where a fanfic author threatened lawsuit against the author, Marion Zimmer Bradley, because Marion liked some of what she came up with and wanted to use it. Since then, lawyers recommend authors NOT to read books by unpublished authors (and especially fanfiction), because it could open themselves up for lawsuit if there is any similarity. I don't believe that there has ever been an actual test case that has gone to court, but publishers usually don't want to deal with that -- that's what happened with Marion's book; the publisher refused to publish it in case of lawsuit.

So a request like this is really a big can of worms. I'm not trying to jump on you or anything but since the MZB case was so long ago, newer people to the SFF community don't know about it, and I figured I would let you know why you won't get anybody to agree to look at it. (Your best bet for getting the outline looked at would be a critique group, where the dynamic is completely different.)

Oh believe me, in most situations this would be the case. However, this would be a safe thing - this is asking a blogger what she thinks about social issues present in a story, nothing to do with plot or anything like that. I get your point, though, although there's really no way to get around it: I am pretty certain that NaNoWriMo is published for anyone to view for free online, so if there were any scam involved, all that the victim of the scam would need to do is say that they visited the NaNo site any time after December for there to be just as much of a "case". I'm not sure if a critique group of bloggers about LGBT fiction exists, but if there is...I actually might seek them out, because I am EXTREMELY nervous writing about real life social situations.

Ah! If you're looking for social issues, I would actually recommend heading over to Absolute Write. They have forums dedicated to POC and LGBT discussion, and if your question doesn't fall into either of those, you can put it under the more general parts of the board. I really sympathise with the wanting to make sure you're doing it right; I really would suggest AW because folks there tend to be pretty nice to people who are trying to learn.

Nanowrimo finished novels aren't posted online. There are plenty of people who go on to publish their Nanos, which wouldn't be possible if they were posted. All Nano does is ask for your file to do a word count check for your winning rewards.

Oh okay, that I didn't realize. I will certainly look in to what you suggest. If I am to publish this, I have a feeling it will be split into several smaller books, but then again the YA market has changed a lot since I was reading in it (I blame Goblet of Fire) so that might not be the case after all.

There are still small books out there, especially in middle grade. If it's YA, though, the range I see is 150-300 pages.