Hello, this is Cortney Hamilton. 

 

Fellow writers, failing to keep up on my weekly podcast schedule has taught me a lot about myself and personal goals. Mainly, that recording a podcast weekly is a particular personal goal I don’t like. 

 

But I’m not giving up. I know you’re itching for more. And I like to scratch. So I’m putting out shorter segments, bon mots if you will, which is really not the right term, but it sounds like it is. Think of these bon mots as fast food morsels to your erratically scheduled Write Wrong meal. They’re not only quicker to produce, but they also make consumable all the parts you normally wouldn’t consume. And like fast food, they’ll satisfy your cravings while leaving you compulsively hungering for more.  

 

So, today, I’m starting a new segment called: Leave a Review. We all love reviews. They provide guidance, insight, and the opportunity to judge others anonymously while riding the high of ignoring our own failures in life. So, in that vein, Leave A Review will allow me to review things and people in the context of me getting published, of me being read by readers, and judging those who stand in my way, and hopefully, by reviewing these things, I can help you too. 

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A quick note that Leave A Review’s views and opinions do not reflect the official policy or opinion of The Write Wrong Podcast, its creator, or its subsidiaries. Views expressed by Leave A Review are solely for the purposes of biding time until the next full episode of Write Wrong.  

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Today’s topic to review on Leave a review: Negative reviews.  

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I’m not one to not judge a book by its cover. This is why covers exist. If I’m not supposed to judge a book by them, then every cover would look like my tenth-grade math book, jacketed in a folded up grocery bag and tagged with crude doodles of penises and juvenile limericks that are really just dirty words in rhyme crying out for help. But I don’t just judge a book by its cover; I open it up and judge its insides too.  

 

Now, you’ve heard the old adage ‘if you can’t say something nice about a thing, then don’t say anything at all’ but let’s face it, if people only said nice things, how are others going to know how witty and trenchant we are on Twitter? 

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But, as an author with feelings and emotions who, despite killing multiple spiders in my life, cried like a baby at the end of Charlotte’s Web, I tend to take negative reviews a bit more personal than positive ones. 

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But what really sucks is I don’t want to do that. I’d rather disregard the naysayers with a flick of my hand, a hearty chortle, and a half-gallon of ice cream because I really know they’re only saying nay for nay’s sake. But it’s like I can’t help myself. So I read and reread the negative reviews shouting at them that they’re wrong, they’re stupid. They’re nitpicking bullies and trolls, giving me one-star “because of a few typos? You’re completely overlooking how twisty my ending is or how I foreshadowed the death of my supporting character, Ricky, with the sickle of the moon hanging low in the sky right over the open sash of his bedroom right at midnight as fog crept in and blanketed his sleeping body. It’s symbolism!” And my work may have one, two, even three good reviews from friends and family, but still, I end up laser-focused on that fourth reviewer who gave me one-star and doesn’t know me at all. 

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So why do I do that? 

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Well, I’m here to tell you, I don’t know. 

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But neuropsychologist Rick Hanson does, and he says it’s because I’m a neanderthal. More accurately, he says, evolutionarily, I am hardwired to give more credence to rejection than to praise. And, unfortunately, I’m not the only one that’s crude and primitive. You are too. 

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Fellow writers, back in a time before Instacart and plug-in hybrid cars, when we were rejected, we were kicked out of the tribe and would have to fend for ourselves. This made us more sensitive to judgment, to kicking, and more vulnerable to becoming tiger lunch. And if you’ve ever been attacked by a pride of tigers, you know, it’s no picnic. 

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And even though since then we’ve grown a large pre-frontal cortex that allows us to mitigate our base natures and maneuver a Costco aisle during a pandemic, the lurking threat of a tiger still comes through in that negative review. 

 

So I’m here to remind you that when you get a one-star review, step back. Take a breath. Wait, before you shun the negative Neds, the badmouthing Barrys, the carping Carries, the impugning…Imogenes? 

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Now, I could get all Pollyanna and tell you how I’ve used my negative reviews as an opportunity. A chance to grow. A chance to thicken my skin, take criticism and learn, but I’d be lying. Instead, I want to tell you about Billy Bottoms, who gave the Great Wall of China—one of the most staggering achievements in human history—one star because it’s “run down and old.” I want to tell you about Kate Bishop, who called Shakespeare a genius if “genius is code word for boring.” Or Gina M., whose cogent and cutting review of the Grand Canyon ended with this: “Grand canyon? More like Grand Blandyon.” These one-star reviews show us that negative reviewers can be fun, audacious, and myopically immature, and misguided. Sure, everyone’s entitled to their opinion. But that doesn’t mean we have to let their opinions become entitled. 

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So I suggest we reorient our thinking about one-star reviews. 

 

Because what are they really? They’re just a subjective interpretation, a fleeting, emotional photograph of how one feels at that particular moment, at that particular age, and at that particular level of conceited superiority. Why, thanks to my psychiatrist and lots of shouting into a pillow, I see that the one-star reviews I’ve written are mostly misdirected anger toward my father, who consistently gave me bad reviews for talking back, quitting pop warner football because the coach wouldn’t play me, and crying at the end of Charlotte’s Web.   

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Now, as authors, I know this doesn’t help when it comes to maintaining a five-star average on Amazon, which is the golden calf of approval for those of us who worship baby cows. But when we get a one-star review, let us console ourselves. If The Great Wall of China, the Grand Canyon, and even Shakespeare completely suck for a handful of people, then what does that say if our novel doesn’t completely suck? Why, I think it would say Shakespeare is better than us. But if he’s so great, why is he so dead? So one-star reviews, I’m giving you three and a half stars out of five because you have more to give if we just look at you with the right perspective. But I am dropping one and a half stars because most of the time, you can be kind of a dick. 

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So remember my friends, the next time you get a one-star review, think of it as some jerkoff’s backhanded way of really saying that you’re as good as Shakespeare. 

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Well, that’s today’s Leave A Review. If you liked this segment, I ask that you leave a review on iTunes. If you didn’t like it at all, leave one anyway, because I know what that really means. Until next time. Keep writing, my friends.