Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
Welcome back to Tuesday! We are finally having some spring weather, so I hope it sticks around now. Preparing this week for Easter brunch, which I am excitedly and unexpectedly hosting, this weekend. Working on the menu, and the hosting supplies have arrived, along with a few new items from Pampered Chef.
This week is an interesting topic. Sharing unpopular bookish opinions almost seems like sharing pet peeves. I used to do that when I was younger, but not so much these days. Let me see what I can uncover.
Top Ten Unpopular Bookish Opinions
Authors who take constructive reviews personally or try to defend their books.
I figure I best get what are likely the two most controversial opinions out of the way at the start. Reading is subjective. It is not a one-size-fits-all kind of business. What resonates with me, might not resonate with another reader. Authors who get upset about constructively written reviews might not be in the best line of business. Totally understand it's like calling someone's child ugly, but you're putting your work on display for the general public. Not everyone will like it, and no amount of explaining what you meant or why they should like it will change that.
Sending unsolicited books.
Thankfully, a good disclaimer on your blog lets people know you won't be reviewing the books they send your way without asking, but I have lost count of how many introductory emails I've received with a copy of the book attached just in case I want to read it. Not only do I refuse to open attachments from people I don't know, but an author presuming that's the way to attract me to their work usually has the opposite effect.
Fanfiction getting a bad rap.
So many people frown upon fanfiction. I've never understood that logic. Let people practice writing with fully developed characters so they can focus on honing other writing skills. I do, however, feel that even in newly explored storylines, the characters should remain true to the way they were created.
Shallow point of view characters.
This is why I don't enjoy the third-person omniscient point of view as much as the first-person. I want to crawl inside the characters' heads, exploring the story through their eyes. Not that third-person omni can't be a deep point of view, but it often isn't. If I can't experience the characters' emotions as I read, the story will fall flat for me.
He said she said tags.
I love it when an author manages to limit these as much as possible. Seeing action around dialogue makes the characters more alive. Jerry Jenkins once rewrote one of his previous novels to eliminate as many of these tags as possible.
In conjunction with the above, creative tags that are meant to replace he said and she said.
If you are overusing he said and she said tags, you might feel the need to change the word said to something like whispered, shouted, or answered. If you use proper action around the dialogue, many of these can go, too.
Stock self-publishing covers that have nothing to do with the genre, the characters, or the setting.
Considering that the cover is the potential book buyer's first impression, this is something you can't skimp on. Now, I won't go on my side rant about how we need to make author services more affordable, but the reality is that if you don't have a good cover, it's highly probable that copies of your book are going to sit in a box in the garage, in the trunk of your car, or on virtual bookshelves without gaining much traction. It's going to make it harder to sell.
Too many gory details in horror novels.
This is why I stopped reading horror. So much of it became blood and guts. Give me a good psychological horror novel any old day. I don't even mind being scared. I just don't want characters chopped up and bludgeoned to death.
Overly graphic sex scenes in any genre.
I love sweet romance and even enjoy a sensual, sexy scene between two characters from time to time. Intimacy is a meaningful and physical expression of two people's feelings toward one another. What I've never been completely comfortable with is nasty names for body parts and the focus being on the sex itself.
The importance of branding sometimes limits authors to writing similar stories.
Long-term success in publishing requires careful branding. If I pick up a book by Charlotte Hubbard, I know I'm getting Amish fiction told from a refreshingly feminist perspective. If I pick up a book from Karen White, I know I'll be reading a story set in the historical South that often has family secrets, romance, and/or the paranormal involved. So, if I fall in love with one of their books, it's likely I will want to read more. Publishers count on that, and it works. Could you imagine Stephen King writing an inspirational romance? Would you buy that if it were on the shelf? Maybe, but can publishers afford to take those chances these days?
Looking forward to visiting you today and reading about your unpopular bookish opinions. Do we share any of the same?
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