Charlene Mattson's Blog - Posts Tagged "readers"
My Dad Read My Book
For many writers, having the parental units read their work is a good ego-boost. After all, most parents are going to be 'nice' about what their offspring have written. They'll be complimentary, go easy on the criticism and generally be nice. It's a (near) guaranteed ego boost.
When The Curious Case came out, I almost didn't want to tell my folks. And I would have been quite happy if my dad never read it.
'Writer be like: Don't touch my book!' lol
Don't get me wrong at ALL! My dad is AMAZING. He's a brilliant story teller, a fantastic writer and he's been reading fantasy and sci-fi all his life. He KNOWS a good book and he's not afraid to say when he's read a good one and when he's read a poor one (and why). Ditto for movies. Many a happy memory is of my father torpedoing a movie-not just criticizing it, but detailing how and why the writers went wrong.
But you can see why I was intimidated. My father is amazing and my writer's ego is not what it could be. So when my book came out, I obviously had to tell my parents and they just as obviously wanted to read it. I was less happy at the prospect. My mom is less... vocal... about critique, but arguably more picky when it comes to what she likes, so I had my worries!
My mom read it the day it came out (download baby!) and she really liked it. She had some questions, but they were great questions and helped me fill out more stuff for later books. She even came up with another story idea! I got a real kick out of someone coming up with fanfiction as soon as the book came out, ha ha.
My dad just finished reading the hard copy today. I'm glad no one told me he was reading it or I wouldn't have been able to focus on teaching! But he called tonight to say that the hard copies arrived (they ordered a pile for family) and he read it.
And he liked it. A lot. Phew! So now he's jumping on board with subsequent books to help myself and my editor weed out the typos (after spending months on filling plot holes and fixing inconsistencies, I miss things like missed words and misspellings, lol).
Now, where am I going with this? Well, at first, I'm twitchy about my folks reading my stuff. After all, they know what they like-and what they don't like-and they're quite vocal in their critiques. They are always thoughtful critiques and very helpful ones, but by this point, it's a wee bit too late for it! On the other hand, the fact that my dad had nothing bad to say and no problems means I did a good job of at least making sure the story had no plot holes, no strange characters issues and no stand-out problems (other than typos, le sigh). so there's that which arguably makes my mom and dad more useful as thoughtful readers than if they simply said they liked it because it was written by their daughter.
So I shouldn't be nervous about them reading it. But I'll probably continue to be, lol.
(as a side-note, both mom and dad are laughing at me for my nerves and dad was even a little bit laughingly offended that I was all worried, ha ha. I just love my folks so much, even when they do intimidate me with their vastly superior abilities!)
***
Editing: Five chapters down, formatted and cleaned. About 9 more to go, phew!
On the shelf:
Dead Man's Boots by Mike Carey
When The Curious Case came out, I almost didn't want to tell my folks. And I would have been quite happy if my dad never read it.
'Writer be like: Don't touch my book!' lol
Don't get me wrong at ALL! My dad is AMAZING. He's a brilliant story teller, a fantastic writer and he's been reading fantasy and sci-fi all his life. He KNOWS a good book and he's not afraid to say when he's read a good one and when he's read a poor one (and why). Ditto for movies. Many a happy memory is of my father torpedoing a movie-not just criticizing it, but detailing how and why the writers went wrong.
But you can see why I was intimidated. My father is amazing and my writer's ego is not what it could be. So when my book came out, I obviously had to tell my parents and they just as obviously wanted to read it. I was less happy at the prospect. My mom is less... vocal... about critique, but arguably more picky when it comes to what she likes, so I had my worries!
My mom read it the day it came out (download baby!) and she really liked it. She had some questions, but they were great questions and helped me fill out more stuff for later books. She even came up with another story idea! I got a real kick out of someone coming up with fanfiction as soon as the book came out, ha ha.
My dad just finished reading the hard copy today. I'm glad no one told me he was reading it or I wouldn't have been able to focus on teaching! But he called tonight to say that the hard copies arrived (they ordered a pile for family) and he read it.
And he liked it. A lot. Phew! So now he's jumping on board with subsequent books to help myself and my editor weed out the typos (after spending months on filling plot holes and fixing inconsistencies, I miss things like missed words and misspellings, lol).
Now, where am I going with this? Well, at first, I'm twitchy about my folks reading my stuff. After all, they know what they like-and what they don't like-and they're quite vocal in their critiques. They are always thoughtful critiques and very helpful ones, but by this point, it's a wee bit too late for it! On the other hand, the fact that my dad had nothing bad to say and no problems means I did a good job of at least making sure the story had no plot holes, no strange characters issues and no stand-out problems (other than typos, le sigh). so there's that which arguably makes my mom and dad more useful as thoughtful readers than if they simply said they liked it because it was written by their daughter.
So I shouldn't be nervous about them reading it. But I'll probably continue to be, lol.
(as a side-note, both mom and dad are laughing at me for my nerves and dad was even a little bit laughingly offended that I was all worried, ha ha. I just love my folks so much, even when they do intimidate me with their vastly superior abilities!)
***
Editing: Five chapters down, formatted and cleaned. About 9 more to go, phew!
On the shelf:
Dead Man's Boots by Mike Carey
