Amazon bans authors reviewing other authors on its site

In the past couple of years there have been several instances of authors posting glowing reviews of their own books on Amazon under fake names to promote themselves. This has been dubbed "sock puppeting" and after several complaints from other authors and the public Amazon has decided to crack down on it by banning authors from reviewing other authors who write the same genre as they do. Authors can still review books as long as they are not in the same genre they write in and - this is what really makes me mad - are positive and fit Amazon's guidelines.

So even if you hate a book if you want to review it you will have to put more stars then you think it deserves. How is this fair and honest? How is this a good thing? Amazon is treating all the authors of the world like they are children. "Now now," said Amazon. "Can we play nice, please, children? Anyone who says something nasty will have to go to their room!"

It seems that the humble review has become a bit of a weapon. Now anything below five stars is viewed as "trolling" and the reviewer can be targeted to an online hate campaign for attacking an author and trying to damage their career all with a simple honest review. Amazon thinks if an author reviews another author who writes in their genre that should be considered a "conflict of interest" and that they cannot be impartial about their views.

Oh please. Can NO ONE handle honest criticism anymore? Do we all have to hold hands as authors and constantly pat each other on the back and say "Good job!" and pretend to be friends? Is it so wrong to be honest and to point out each others flaws? Do we really want to live in a world where negative reviews are not allowed? Whatever happened to freedom of speech? Shouldn't we be able to say "I didn't like that book and here are the reasons why..." without being thrown off a site or bullied on facebook and youtube?

On the other side of the coin is authors who really are using reviews as weapons. I'm talking about people who have not read a book but target other authors because they might see them as competition or they might have posted a negative review of their ow work and want revenge. This is childish behavior and should be stopped. But forcing all authors to post "only positive" reviews is not that answer. Do not stifle the free speech of everyone because a couple of big babies don't know how to act like mature adults on the internet.

Death of Capitals

As a writer I am a bit of a grammar Nazi. My spelling and grammar is not always perfect. I make mistakes like anyone else. But if there is one I always do it is start my frigging sentences with capitals, people! I've been noticing a trend of people forgetting or choosing not to use capitals and it really, really bugs me.

It's not just people forgetting to use capitals. When people write in textspeak (which I've ranted about in the past) and combine it with bad grammar they might as well be speaking in another language because I cannot understand them. It's like young/stupid people have their own version of the English now. Is this what getting old feels like? Eventually I'll probably need someone to translate young people speak for me.

When I see people write without capitals I really do want to start waving my arms around and ranting and raving. It's just so lazy. I especially hate it when celebrities do it because I think it sets a horrible example. It also makes the person come off in my opinion as dumb and uneducated. In reality I know they are just lazy.

Is it so hard to write you instead of u or to press the caps key when you start a sentence? If I wasn't a writer this probably would not bother me so much...

In other news it has been a real slow year for me writing wise. I suffered from a lot of writers block and a lot of real life drama got in the way and my muse packed her bags and went on vacation. I'm experimenting with short stories at the moment and taking it easy and waiting for inspiration to strike for my next big project. I do have one short story being subbed around so fingers crossed I find a happy home for it!

Big babies on the internet: Why can't authors handle bad critiques anymore?

There sees to be an increasing numbers of authors chuckling tantrums on the internet over bad critiques. No one can handle honest criticism anymore. I read one story about a fellow author who reviewed another book. She gave it two and a half stars and kindly listed its bad and good points. An honest, good review.

The author of the book she reviewed complained to Amazon, got her review pulled down, and did a "revenge" review of her book in an attempt to tarnish her sales.

How fucking childish is that? I've heard of authors complaining to reviewers that they did not "read their book right" after receiving a less than stellar review. What the hell? How can you read a book wrong? If they misunderstand anything then it's your fault Mr-knickers-in-a-twist. Why don't you stop whinging and listen to what they have to say? You might learn something and improve as a writer.

I've struggled to accept bad reviews in the past. I've had some harsh ones. It is natural to want to defend your book. I've done it in the past. I'm not proud of it. I've never done it to a reviewer though. I've done it to people who have been kind enough to critique me. But I've learned from those lessons. I've been childish in the past. Easily hurt. Offended. I try to be more mature now. Now when people critique me on line I address all their points, good and bad, and attempt to see things through their eyes. And you know what? By swallowing my pride and listening to others I really feel like I have improved a lot as a writer.

Every writer must learn how to accept criticism. A bad review is not an attack on you or your writing. Do yourself a favor and stop reading reviews of your books all together if the temptation to respond to them is too strong for you. Be professional.

Should teenagers read "adult" romances?

God, I really hate Fifty Shades of Grey. Morning chat shows waffle on about it as if it invented the erotica genre. They talk about the author and her rise to success and how "You TOO could achieve her success!" by doing these ten simple steps. This morning they spoke about a book being labelled "Fifty Shades of Grey for teenagers" and asked the question...gasp...should our precious children be reading that sort of filth?

What annoys me is they seem to think that every romance book out there at the moment is identical to Fifty Shades of Grey and contains nothing but sex, sex, sex. Wrong. Yes, there are a lot of FSOFG clones out at the moment, but do not think for one second that every romance author out there right now is desperate to jump onto the erotica band wagon.

The book they mentioned was about a 16 year old girl who has to chose between two young boys who are both battling to win her affections. They made no mention whatsoever that it contained sex scenes similar to those featured in Fifty Shades of Grey. The title Irresistible, the front cover of a man unbuttoning his shirt, and the premise of a 16 year old girl having sex was apparently enough to throw this book into the "porn" category for them.

The reason, apparently, why the book is being marketed as an age appropriate alternative to Fifty Shades of Grey is because some bunch of old, disconnected adults somewhere think the teenagers would relate to the book better because the characters are teenagers like them. They then went on to say how it would better for them to read books like Irresistible, erotica novels tailored for their age group, than adult novels.

Um...why? I started reading romance novels (bodice rippers) when I was 14. My mother gave them to me. I did not want to read about teenagers and their boring, stupid lives. I wanted to read about cowboys, Indians, sexy space men, sexy vampires! I wanted to read fantasies! The books I read could not have been more adult. They had big strapping men on the front hugging women to their chest while on the deck of a boat. I still remember trying to hide the front cover with my hands while I tried to read one of my bodice rippers on the bus.

Listening to some stupid old man this morning on the tv say "Do we really want children as young as ten reading fifty shades of grey?" really made me mad because he is comparing all romance books to one badly written, fucked up trilogy that showcases sexual violence.

I really hate how we live in a society that wants to shield young children, and even teenagers, from sex as if it is some shameful, terrible secret. It makes me mad. I would not recommend Fifty Shades of Grey to my future children, because I think it's crap, but if they want to read it I will not stop them. I would let them make their own decision. Once their done I would recommend a dozen betters books though.

Good or bad writing? Discussing the Paranormal Activity Films

I am a big fan of the Paranormal Activity films. I know a lot of people think they are boring and they hate waiting for something to happen. Not me. The long periods where nothing happens are some of the most frightening parts of the film for me because you sit there all tense. When something does happen and it is usually something simple like a door slamming shut it really startles me!

One of the things I love most about these films is how simple they are. They do not have big expensive sets or waste a lot of money on make up. They rely on things like music, lighting, sound, good acting and a clever script to build up tension.

I hate horror films that are nothing but blood baths or ones that use too much computer animation or bad rubber masks. One of the things I found the most scary about the first paranormal activity film was their clever use of thumping footsteps coming up and down the stairs. So simple, so effective...so bloody scary!

There's been four paranormal activity films now. I still enjoy them...despite their flaws. They've written themselves into a hole and they know it. Every film is the same as the last one: some weird stuff starts happening in a house, the occupants freak out and start filming it, the activity gets worse...eventually resulting in the death of one or more of the people in the house.

The people behind these films sure do know how to keep people coming back for more. They are experts at dragging out the plot. It's very frustrating. Each film always reveals something new...and leaves more questions begging to be answered. These films are a lot like the tv show "LOST" : lots of good ideas get thrown around, crash into each other, fall over...and nothing really gets answered.

And yet I still like them. I know the writing is not the best (and at the same time is still clever), but I don't care. These films are like popcorn. Good, silly fun. I hope they stay good and don't turn dumb like the Scream films did.

Does writing with an outline kill the creative process?

I spend a lot of time planning a project before I begin the writing process. It starts with me going online to find inspiration. Once I have the seeds of an idea I will write a paragraph or two of raw thoughts. From there I'll write a list of characters. Next step is a detailed page long biography for each character. I sometimes skip that step. One thing I don't skip though is writing the outline.

The outline acts as the skeleton of the book. It is the path I will take. A lot of the time I will stray from that path because as I write the book the characters come alive and might go in a different direction or the plot might evolve and go in an exciting (or sometimes wrong) place than I intended.

An outline can be both a good thing to have and something that can kill the creative process in me. I've written without outlines in the past and have gone galloping off in random, strange directions and ended up with an end project over 1,000 pages long.

And I've written with incredibly detailed outlines colour coded for each different plot line and character.

I don't think plotting is one of my strengths. Even with an outline I still hit plot troubles with Deep Embrace. Every writer needs to do some planning (or world building as it is also called) before starting a project to a certain degree. You need to know what direction you want to go in. But sometimes I overdo it. I become so obsessed with replicating what I see in my head into words that I quite often will spend hours or even days slaving over the same sentence or paragraph.

And it drives me nuts and sucks the fun out of writing. Knowing what you want to write...seeing it in your head...is one thing. Getting it down onto paper in actual words that make sense in sentences is another.

I did something unusual for me today. I started writing without an outline. I came up with an idea "A story from Hera's point of view!" and I left Hera appear in the location that she wanted and from there a whole story appeared before me. It didn't take me hours of planning. I just put my fingers to the keyboard and let Hera appear and start talking.

And god it was like someone took a massive weight off me. Since I didn't know what I wanted to write the words flowed from my fingertips and onto the screen because there was nothing standing in their way shouting "No! No! This is not the way I pictured this scene!"

Sometimes you just have to write. Forget about being perfect. Forget about getting that scene just right. Just let it happen. Let the story unfold like a beautiful flower and take shape on its own. You don't have to be in control of everything. Take a deep breath. Let go. And write. You might be surprised what you create.

My new short story is called When I Look Into Your Eyes.

Show Don't Tell! You should know this rule JK Rowling!

I tried to start JK Rowling's new book the other day. I'm up to chapter three and I honestly do not know if I will be able to read much more. The first chapter was terrible. The opening line was boring and did not hook me at all. And that is unacceptable, JK Rowling. You're the author of the frigging Harry Potter books! You should know how to write a good opening hook! Telling me that "So and so did not want to go out to dinner" is not good enough.

The entire first chapter was written in past tense and in what is called "Telling". One of the biggest rules of writing is to SHOW DON'T TELL which means do not tell me that Barry does not want to go out to dinner, Ms Rowling. Paint me a picture with words of him slouched in a chair, holding his keys, and looking reluctant to get up and leave with his wife. He has a headache? Don't TELL me. Show me wiping sweat off his brow. Show me him groaning. Show me him rubbing his forehead. Make me feel like I am there.

The first chapter was boring and so badly written I almost found it hard to believe that JK Rowling, my idol for over ten years, wrote it. What happened? Where did that spark go? If I posted that first chapter for critique on the internet I would be told to rewrite the whole thing from scratch. It irritated me so much I almost felt like rewriting it myself simply because I wanted to read a better version of it!

Why is it so bad? Obviously, it's not my cuppa tea. But I'm wondering if it's JK Rowling's, either. I think she's writing out of her genre. Her talent lies in fantasy and I think she needs to go back to what she does best. Why not write an adult fantasy novel? I can understand her desire to do something so radically different after being hand cuffed to HP for so many stressful long years. I really can. But this book is bad. There was nothing to hook me in the first opening 50 pages. It's boring and I quickly lost track of who the characters were.

Go back to writing fantasy, JK Rowling. Let your imagination sour. And write a better opening hook next time!