Reply To: Time Frame on next book
@Madfox
I do it with comparison to another set. That is it is more helpful than the one writen for the author’s benefit. Of course it should be followed by details. The plain speak is something many readers can understand so “the characters are stupid” and its variation is far more helpful to readers than jargon filled “constructive criticism” most writers wanted. For most cases, potential readers actually is looking for opinions of the book. If it is a negative review then the reviewer saying that he hate certain character is enough. Further details is good if it is writen in entertaining way. Since constructive critism is rarely entertaining, writing such review would result into a TL;DR reaction from them. I know because it keep happening to me.
So a “the characters are stupid” will actually gain more weight to the readers than a bullet list of reason as to why the characters are stupid because it is more direct, colorful and emotional. The long constructive one is TL;DR, in most cases.
For that purpose, my examples is good enough.
Of course there are reviewers who are able to list down the faults or complaints without being a bore, reducing the TL;DR beaviour from other readers, but that require a great amount of writing skill and you can’t really expect readers to be that adept.
Also trying to illustrate that would make my post too long. It is too long already. I don’t want to post several paragraphs worth of someone’s review to make the point that is not what I’m essentially talking about.
And… Oh come one Madfox! Please read what I’m writing carefully.
I give the EA games as an example of fanatics outrage. That the worst form of hatred could come from the fans. Want bashing? Spiteful comments? Very, very unconstructive critism? Even death threats. Enrage the fans.
I don’t put it there to talk about the authors or the company. I was talking about the fans. I made it clear in the end of the pharagraph:
“Hatred from the fans might actually be more scathing than from the casual readers.”
And stating that the authors has nothing to do with the complaints is disingenuous. They are the one who write the story which is an essential part of an RPG and many of the complaints is about the story.
And the story of ME3? Horrible! Characters acting out of character. Plot holes to sink the Titanic. Extremely horrid use of Deus Ex Machina and a terrible ending. Way to end a trilogy. I actually think they had killed the franchise because of that ending.
Also is that what authors in the game industry really is like? Nasty.
@The Author Guy
Well, to tell the truth, I kinda agree about their reviews though I think to put way to little stars.
About Rupert. While I like his relationship with Tom, one thing I don’t like about him is that he is so exasperating. While I kinda like him when first introduced, he slowly show very annoying traits like his disrespect towards Jenn and his rather, unappealing dialogue. And such behaviour as when he run off from Tom’s cave and when he fly in the night into enemy’s teritory. He not actually irritating enough for me to hate him but I sort of symphatetic to their dislike of him.
About Rupert dragging down Tom. Most of the time it was Rupert who move the story along. Jenn’s rescue, attack on the ship, fight with Talarius. It is Rupert who make things go. He is essentially a Plot Device.
You are also a bit heavy handed on the drama in the ship with Tom and Rupert. I actually skip most of that part everytime I reread the book.
I also quite agree about Tom being passive. It was Rupert who make the plan to save Jenn. He is also just following other members (Jenn and Gastrope) around. He innitially did nothing in the ship when they are attacked. And he is essentially just loitering in Freehold. The reviewers seem to pin it down to Rupert.
And I also do find Talarius constant moaning about Melissance a tad annoying. While I can see that he was pained, I just can’t sympathize. We really know nothing about Melissance and we also doesn’t know Talarius very much. We don’t know their relationship and don’t know why it would pain him that much. As such, everytime Talarius mentions Melissance I just get annoyed. I only find him as an annoying whiner, crying for no apparent reason.
This though isn’t really a big enough problem for me to give such low scores.
As for longer constructive reviews, this is not really what would happen. Very few people could actually write a long detailed review successfully. I point out some reasons:
>Such things requires a lot of time and very few has that time to spare. A very detailed review could easily take an hour or more to write. When readers just wants to say their displeasure and doesn’t want to spend too much time, direct, short “the characters are stupid” kind of reviews is what they could come up with.
>It also requires lots of patience and dedications. To do such reveiws you actually hand to refer to the orinal literature a lot. Finding appropriate passages, recalling things you don’t like, pointing out plot holes, studying the structure, etc. That is not something many casual readers would do. This is especially difficult when you use mobile devices. As such reviewers would just give “the characters are stupid” review without backing it up because it is to tedious to do so.
>And the most important one, it requires a great deal of writing skill. Even if they have time, patience and dedication, its is very rare that they would actually be able to write it properly. For a review to be useful to other readers they must be able to read it. More often that not, people who write long reviews writes reviews that are: confusing, garbled, TL;DR, boring, awkward, unclear or hard to read. Those reviews are actually even less helpful.
And now my hand hurts for writing all of these. Hope your satisfied.
Did any TL;DRed?
@Anskier
Yes, this sort of thing is a problem. It is very difficult to be specific and detailed about your complaints becuase you had to put a spoiler in your review and I also hate spoilers. As such I rather avoid reviews that has the SPOILER warning on it.