Thanks to my friend, horror author Tim Miller, who shares the most interesting stuff, I read the most entertaining and epic author meltdown over a bad Goodreads review ever! Check it out here: http://archive.is/rFgtE#selection-917.0-917.15.
Unlike Tim, who is super professional and is an expert at engaging his readers, this author took a bad review way too seriously and personally, and accused the reader who posted the review of trying to “hurt him financially and ruin his business.” This lead to a whole thread on this topic, with other authors and readers joining in. The consensus seems to be that this particular author is crazy (I won’t post his name here but if you go to the link and read the thread you’ll see everything) and from reacting to one bad review, he’s received many more (see it here). I understand how frustrating it must be to receive a bad review that you feel is undeserved (as an actress I have been quite frustrated by certain reviews), but what is the right way to address it (or should it simply be ignored?)?
What do you all think? Is it ever a good idea for an author to respond to a bad review?
martiniproductionsnyc 
HAHAHAHA!!! EPIC!!!!
“And all of you who are taking Cait S’s side, what you’re doing in the bigger picture is waging war on the consciousness of humanity. “
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hahah I know, right?! It’s so entertaining!
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What a tool! I get negative feedback on my site occasionally but it’s usually entertaining looking at people call me a dummy : )
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haha exactly! Yeah whoever would take the time to write negative feedback on someone’s blog (unless it’s a post about them or something) is a tool as well!
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The sad part is the author isn’t seeing some of the commentary on his work as being constructive. I had a professor in college tell me the same thing (“your writing is wordy and pretentious”) and, by Cthulhu, he was right.
In addition to thick skin and a strong backbone, an author needs to develop an acute sense of where he or she is in their development as a writer. The craft of writing should be continually refined. There shouldn’t ever come a point where an author says, “okay, well, I know everything about writing now.”
But it takes a highetened level of maturity to recognize one’s faults (especially buried in the criticism of others) and then even more to work to overcome them. That dude has a lot of work to do.
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Yes, I totally agree. Well said!
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Hi Jessica! This was a wonderful find… and it reminded me on how I entered onto the path of learning what it means to become a more grounded, and less constrained actor. And that path was opened to me by a bad review.
I was in a play and it got one single review. The play, and every other actor got rave reviews… yet the last few sentences were left for me saying that though I was a commanding presence, I was the weakest link in the chain and bought the play to a halt with each scene I was in. Of course it hurt, but here’s the thing… he was right. I intuitively knew that I wasn’t where I wanted to be as an actor. I was still inexperienced, and I really should consider deepening my studies instead of performing before a live (paying) audience. So that’s what I did… I took time off, and worked at getting a greater understanding of how I could be freer as an actor, and less self-conscious. If I ever came across the man who wrote that review all the years later, I would thank him.
Unfortunately, I’m sure no matter how well one performs at their art form, they will never be able to please everyone. This author not only shot himself in the foot, but in the ass, face, and every other place. After a while, when I saw he was going to actually keep replying, I began to feel really bad for him because he was proving his desire to be a writer was more a cry for attention than anything else. I hope he turns his thinking around, and picks himself up, and dusts himself off from this mess he’s created. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem likely, as least for the foreseeable future.
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Hey! Thanks for sharing your story! I’m so glad you were able to turn that around into a positive and learned from it and used it to improve your craft! I agree with you about the assessment of this author…it was insane to me how he kept on replying. I think it’s sad he can only accept the praise but not the criticism and that he doesn’t seem to want to learn or improve.
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