Criticism

I have asked people who have read my book to tell me how they have liked it or not and no one so far has said that they haven’t and 90% of readers said they couldn’t put the book down.

One of the consequences of offering and seeking feedback is that in some instances parts of the book have criticised  or people have given me a complete review as if they were paid book reviewers and I am now doubting whether I should have done this. It would be good to know what other authors think.

One recent piece of feedback was the criticism of my use of the world “girlie” in reference to how DI Grays boss called her and that this was out of date and no one would use it these days. I wrote back to say actually they do and the point of this was to show that despite all the policies an organisations can introduce, if it isn’t followed my actual practice change and in particular by management, then it was useless.

Did this  reader fail to see that he only called her that in private..never in front of anyone else …and while the reader may have interpreted this as condescendingly rude..is it?  I left some ambiguity in this as the sequel explores this relationship a little deeper.  There are some common themes across this novel ..Mac as an aboriginal man is treated badly when we believe we have addressed racism and as for Robbie being mocked for being a kiwi..again same things..or even the dead man..being disrespectully referred to as a headbanger.

I do appreciate and value feedback…but this wasn’t about my writing style, or plot or pace or character. It was about values and gender bias, an area which I have worked in for years and understand well and to which the criticism was directed.  I guess the bottom line is that I felt this was a critique on my intelligence and it stung.