I’m not a fan.

To be fair, I’ve never seen my own reviews. Well, not the bad ones, anyway. I know how cruel the world can be, especially the online version, and more especially towards marginalized people, and so I had an idea: set up a team of what I semi-jokingly call my scouts. I entrusted three loved ones to look at things on my behalf, namely Amazon, Goodreads, and Google Alerts. If something nice comes in about my book, they tell me about it. If I’m, say, curious about how many people have added my book to their To-Read lists, I ask my Goodreads Scout to look that up when they have the time. Stuff like that.

So in my happy little world, my book (The Lilac People) is the most beloved book of all time. Five stars, 10s across the board, no notes. Not only is this scout approach great for your blood pressure, but it also keeps you in check with some common unhealthy author behaviors, such as late-night review spirals or knee-jerk needs of either assurance or flagellation. I highly recommend assembling your own scout team.

Even if the world was a kind and fair place, I’d likely still take this approach for one simple fact: Book reviews aren’t for authors. Book reviews are for readers.

Reviews are for readers to share their thoughts with each other, to air their grievances, express their love, or to otherwise feel heard. But for authors, reviews do little.

A bad* review largely falls into one of two categories: 1) the reader didn’t get what the author was going for and/or this reader isn’t the intended audience for this book, or 2) the author already knows the faults the reader is pointing out (…and yeah, okay, we kind of hoped you wouldn’t notice because we had no clue how to fix it).

There’s little chance the author will glean anything new, helpful, or life-altering for their future books from said reviews, and exactly zero chance they can somehow rewrite the given book already printed and distributed. I’m a big believer in discomfort encouraging growth, but these particular hurts provide no nutrients.

(*I …

For my debut trilogy, I spent a decade crafting a cast of characters that exhibits a marvelous array of shades of gray, if I do say. I can attest to the trickiness of the task. In spite of their many personal flaws and shortcomings, I sought to make them as human as possible. I did it in the hopes of providing authenticity. Along with layers of conflict below the surface-level plot. Layers that help to propel and add intrigue to the story.

But lately I’ve been asking myself: Does being morally gray necessarily make characters more interesting? More intriguing? When it comes to storytelling, I tend to avoid claiming there’s a definitive of any sort. But I’m starting to feel like the correlation between morally gray and intriguing is anything but automatic. After all, I often find I’m incredibly bored with the morally gray behavior I see day in and day out in the news.

In addition to that ongoing query, lately I’ve noticed something in some of the most popular stories out there. A couple of standout examples spring to mind. In the hit show Ted Lasso and the bestselling book Theo of Golden, the protagonists exhibit almost no grayness. Indeed, these two cases (Ted and Theo) are not only strikingly sincere, almost to the point of coming across as saccharine. They are exemplars of extraordinary kindness. Their wild popularity makes me feel like we, as a society, are sort of starving for it.

I think my two examples demonstrate that we don’t necessarily need shades-of-gray morality to create intrigue. Which has led me to challenge myself in my own work. If you’ll indulge me, I’ll attempt to explain.

Punchable? Seeking New Adjectives

A reviewer and fellow fantasy author recently made one of those IG reels that shows a popular traditionally-published book, and suggests that …

We are so delighted to bring you an interview with WU contributor Tessa Barbosa. Tessa’s latest, ISLE OF TEETH, will be released just in time for spooky season, on October 27th. The book is already garnering loads of pre-release buzz, including this:

“This dark, succulent tale balances horror with smart commentary that’s relevant to real human history… A gruesome, penetrating exploration of colonialism, resilience, and humanity.”— Kirkus Reviews

Are you as ready as we were to hear more? Here’s Tessa!

Q1: What’s the premise of your new book?

TB: ISLE OF TEETH is a what if Dr. Frankenstein’s son is tasked with capturing the monster (because his father failed), but the monster he finds is not monstrous at all.

Q2: What would you like people to know about the story itself?

TB: It’s a dark second world fantasy that draws heavily from America’s imperial aspirations in the early 1900s. History provides the horror, and the book examines the thin line between what makes you human, and what makes you a monster.

Q3: What do your characters have to overcome in this story? What challenge do you set before them?

TB: Matiu Frankel is wanted for murders he didn’t commit. To save his life he’s on the hunt for the real culprit: a monster of his father’s creation.

Calyx is a revenant. She’s spent her life trapped on the Isle of Teeth; left to rot behind when the scientists that created her abandoned their experiments. When Matiu accidentally provides her a way off the Isle, she takes the chance to escape. She needs to track down her makers so that she can find a cure to save her ailing siblings.

Lost and overwhelmed by the city of Martinel, Calyx turns to Matiu for help and begins to believe that perhaps not all humans are her enemy. And Matiu finds his growing feelings complicating things. But to win his freedom, Matiu needs to deliver what both sides of a growing revolution want most: Calyx.

Q4: What unique challenges did this book pose for you, if any?

TB: It was the hardest thing I’ve ever written. It took me years, working backwards, trying to figure out what the book was about. I rewrote it completely several times, but wasn’t happy until it all clicked together one day like magic: the missing piece was history. I spent the next few months researching the …

I attended my first high school reunion recently, and it was lovely to see classmates I hadn’t kept in contact with since graduation. I recognized almost everyone, although with a handful of faces, there was a pause, as if my brain was searching for the right filter to make sense of what I was seeing, and then, suddenly, the shock of recognition as that filter clicked into place. I could see them almost exactly as they had looked in our high school year book, frozen in time.

But of course, they weren’t. They had lived decades since then. Some had gotten married, gotten divorced, had children, moved to other countries, left jobs and started new ones. They’d had full lives, just as they had before I met them all those years ago when I left my small Catholic school and joined the public school system. During high school, I’d been privileged to share a brief window of time with them – a freeze-frame, if you will – with their separate lives flowing out before and after when we intersected.

For your characters to seem real, they should be like my former classmates: people with lives that existed before your readers turned that first page; capable of adventures that will continue even after the book is closed.

How to create this feeling? Here are a few ways:

Create the impression of a rich, full past by starting your story in the middle of the action. In The Crane Husband, for example, author Kelly Barnhill’s first two sentences are:

“The crane came in through the front door like he owned the place. My mother walked slightly behind, her hand buried past her wrist in his feathers.”

As a reader, I am immediately swept up in what is happening, dying to catch up on the history those words imply. There’s a relationship there already, between the narrator and the mother, that clearly goes back to a time before this book began.There’s tension, too, in the description of the way the crane enters, “as if he owned the place,” which implies that he clearly doesn’t. The narrator, on the other hand, feels possessive of the house, and perhaps of the mother. That sense of wanting to know what I have missed is what drives me to turn the page.

Allude to what happens off the page. In The Chosen and The Beautiful, …

Earlier this summer, I got a text from a friend saying she had just finished a popular new book and had a “major need to process.” Another wrote to say she felt “offended and justified and angry and sad and all the things” after reading it. Another responded that her “head is spinning!!”

Soon thereafter, I came across a review of the book with this assessment written in the comments: “I hated it, could not finish reading it. It’s a terrible book about horrible people. The characters are caricatures, not real people. This could have been a thoughtful look at some fundamental issues. Instead, it’s shallow sensationalism.”

The book currently has over 121,000 reviews on Amazon, 79% of which gave it four or five stars.

Why is there such a divide? And why did I, and my friends who come from a similar background as mine, hate it so much? Regular readers of this column will recall that I’ve spent the past two months trying to answer these questions.

In July, I asked why we laugh at satire, and then considered when that laughter is (merely) hurtful instead of helpful, using the example of The Book of Mormon musical. In August, I looked at your generous and insightful comments through the lens of two books, one that is clearly meant as a satire (The Ending Writes Itself) and another (The Lonely Polygamist) that seems like it might be a satire, but on closer examination turns out to be absurdist but lacking in the bite or the explicit message that generally accompany satire.

I came to the conclusion, with your help, that the most successful satires and other forms of humorous writing that exaggerate or caricature a group of people will have several if not all of the following characteristics:

• They’re created by people who know their subject well.
• They display real psychological depth.
• They address real issues rather than mocking individuals or punching down at classes of people who are already disadvantaged in some way.
• They’re well written.

With all of that in mind, I give you, finally, Exhibit D.

Yesteryear, by Caro Claire Burke, starts from a fantastically intriguing premise: an influencer who has parlayed her tradwife life into a successful media empire wakes up one morning having apparently time traveled back to 1855, where she must live the brutal reality of …

I turned sixty last week (still shocked by that number). Like many milestones, this one has me thinking honestly about how I want to spend the years ahead. I’m also about a third of the way into a new manuscript I’ve been clawing my way through, which raises a related question: is this how I want to spend most of my time in a year, or in five?

It’s not a simple question with an easy answer. It requires understanding whether I am tired of this book, tired of the publishing business, or tired of writing itself. Each has a different solution, so I came up with a few tests to sort them out. I’m sharing them here in case you’re facing your own crossroads, or are reaching a point where your doubts are growing louder.

First, test the book. Mine is a speculative story featuring a fatalistic protagonist who can glimpse the next significant turning point in someone’s life through touch. I started working on this last spring, and have steadily lost confidence in my premise. A review of my older notes revealed how much I’ve watered down the darker version I initially came up with (one that portrays the indifferent universe we live in). Why? People I trust suggested a more hopeful arc. Also, readers and editors seem to prefer warm, escapist books right now. Writing to the market’s taste is a rational business decision, but that’s not the same as the best creative choice. I decided to outline the original version: its arc, turning points, climax, and resolution. I grew more excited about telling that story than the safer one. If you’re losing enthusiasm for your story, try this exercise. If your new outline still leaves you with the blahs, you’ve still learned something different and equally useful.

Second, test the business. Imagine it’s 1980, before AI existed. Before the internet let everyone see the rankings, reviews, and follower counts on every title. Before phones were in everyone’s hands, constantly competing for a reader’s limited attention. Imagine no one is asking what you’re working on next. Would you still write? Would you write something different? My first reaction to that dreamworld was a mixture of relief and envy. I also knew right away I’d write the darker book. If your answer changes when the market pressure and stressors disappear, some of your exhaustion probably comes from the …

HELP my new book will be a out in a week, and I’ve been posting away on social media lately. I know it doesn’t make the biggest difference, but I also believe that if we’re not our books’ biggest fans, why would anyone else want to read them?

I used to hate it, because I don’t like speaking on camera. The good news is, you don’t have to. You don’t even have to show your face unless you want to. That’s made posting a lot less stressful for me.

Here are 40 ideas for social media posts that don’t require you showing yourself on camera (you could if you want though), and can work either as a photo or video. 40 posts is 10 weeks at 4 posts a week or 13 at 3, and if you repeat some with variations, then you’ve got months of posts leading up to book release!

About your book:

1. A list of book tropes pointing at your book
2. A bookish recipe: Book 1 + Book 2 = Your book
3. “For fans of  X Movies & Y Books” “I wrote this book for you.” Show off your book!
4. A quote from your book
5. The first line of your book
6. Introduce the main characters. 1 post for each character, with the most interesting things about them, or what the reader needs to know
7. “If you like this vibe… (show images or videos)” “This book is for you” Post your book cover
8. 5 fun facts about your book
9. 1 thing you learned while writing the book
10. “Have you ever wanted to read about X (the book hook. e.g. a haunted house, but you’re the one haunting it)” – “I wrote this book for you”

About the writer:

1. A tour of your writing space
2. The book you’ve read the most times (face down). Flip it over on camera
3. The book you’re currently reading (face down). Flip over on camera
4. 5 fun facts about the you
5. Introduce your pet(s)
6. My bookish red flags (e.g. Likes to kill off the main character)
7. If you’ve written multiple books: “3 things you’ll find in all my books!”
8. Show your TBR pile in person or on your e-reader
9. “I can’t believe this book exists!” Hold up your book, and describe why it’s special to you
10. The books/writers that shaped your writing the most

About writing:

1. 1 piece of weird writing advice that

The first job I got out of college, in 1982, was running a mass spectrometer at Columbia University’s geology lab.  This sounds impressive, but it was work you could train a relatively intelligent dog to do.

After a little more than a year at the lab, I moved into an apartment in a ramshackle house overlooking the Hudson River, owned by Jean Reynolds Browne.

Renni had been a book editor since the sixties.  A few years before I got there, in 1980, she had founded The Editorial Department, the first company of editors hired directly by writers.  At the time, I was writing science fiction short stories and was also a fairly handy guy.  She began editing my stories in return for repairs that made the house a little less ramshackle.

Then Renni, who didn’t read science fiction herself, asked me to read an SF manuscript she’d gotten in, just to see if it was worth working on.  I wrote three pages, single spaced, on how the author could make their plot more plausible.  That’s when she began to apprentice me as an editor.  (Apprenticeship is still the only way into the profession, by the way.)  After another year, I left the geology lab and began to edit full time.

By then, Renni and Judith Searle, another Editorial Department employee, were giving a workshop on the stylistic problems they found most often in manuscripts they worked on.  Those problems were boiled down to twelve points on a single-page handout.  That handout was the genesis of Self-Editing for Fiction Writers.

Renni sold the proposal for the book to HarperCollins in 1990, and over the course of the next year, Renni and I turned that one-page handout into a full-length book.  At the same time, another Editorial Department editor, Jane Rafal, attended a talk George Booth gave at the Museum of Comic Art in Westchester County – across the Hudson from Renni’s house – and persuaded him to illustrate the book.  Meeting him to go over the first drafts of the cartoons was an experience I’ll never forget.

It was Renni’s idea to include exercises at the end of each chapter.  And once the book was published in 1991, to send advance copies to English professors at various major colleges.  This led to Self-Editing being adopted as a textbook, which has kept it comfortably on the backlist for the last three and …

We are thrilled to bring you an interview with longtime WU contributor and community member, Lisa Janice Cohen! Her newest book, EVERY SKY A STRANGER, Book 2 of the Entangled Realities Series, will release on September 29th–a week from Tuesday. We’re so excited for her, and it’s receiving kudos from a familiar–and trusted–source: our own Editorial Director Therese Walsh!

“A vivid, extraordinary novel.” — T.W.

Ready to hear more? Here’s LJ!

Q1: What’s the premise of your new book?

LJC: Traveling through the multiverse is dangerous and unpredictable, especially when you end up in a world just slightly offset from your own. How do you cope when memory can’t be trusted and reality itself is being manipulated for political gain? Every Sky a Stranger is the 2nd book of a trilogy where our inadvertent multiverse travelers find themselves exactly where they don’t want to be and powerless to help their lost companion.

Q2: What would you like people to know about the story itself?

LJC: That despite the dangers the characters face, despite the setting – one of which is a homeless encampment in modern day Boston, and despite the antagonists who seek to control all the words across the multiverse, this is ultimately a story of hope. Of finding strength in connection. Of discovering power and agency in the midst of what feels utterly helpless. And of course, that the loyalty of a very special dog can overcome the barriers of time and space. And while it is a science fiction/speculative novel, I also think it is a story of the time in which we find ourselves.

Q3: What do your characters have to overcome in this story? What challenge do you set before them?

LJC: One of the most difficult challenges is that of the unreliability of memory across the multiverse. If we are the sum of our memories and experiences, what does it mean if we remember conflicting lives? I leaned heavily into ‘Mandela effect’ territory here, especially with Melissa Klein and Stirling Hughes. They each land in an ever-so-slightly-alternate-Boston where they contend with memories of what their other selves have done. Because Stirling has a history of PTSD, this threatens to destabilize his mental health. Of course it’s far worse for him as he had no idea what has happened. At least Melissa knows that she has traveled through the world walls into a different Boston.…

Your story is sacred.

It springs from your very essence: your subconscious mind, which has recorded everything you’ve ever experienced and questioned, dreamed about and grieved for. The resulting perspective can’t help but infuse your story with personal meaning.

So why then does writing a novel that will impact the reader—at any stage of your career—feel so hard?

Because your subconscious mind is much better at retrieving and expressing memories than it is at organizing them into a well-built story.

I’m Kathryn Craft, author of Crafting Story Movement, and I’ve been analyzing manuscripts professionally for 20 years. If you join my small-group mentorship in 2027, I’ll ensure that your story’s personal nature will be well supported by the big-picture structures needed to transfer its import to your reader.

Every aspect of Your Novel Year is designed to further your specific project’s development. Discussions built into our nineteen live, online workshops will help you step back from your multiplying words and images so that you can see what is and isn’t working—and why.

One-on-one mentoring, social accountability, and page review deadlines will inspire you to keep putting your best foot forward. My coaching will keep you on track.

“Kathryn has an uncanny knack of finding the things every writer needs to improve upon while praising your strengths and always championing your efforts. The community forged with the other YNY participants was a welcome relief from the necessarily solitary task of writing.” —Riina C.

Applications are now open for a January 2027 start

For more info and testimonials, check out my brochure here. Want to set up a call to see if the program is right for you, or if financial aid is available? Contact me here.

10^th anniversary bonus: If your application is a good fit and you mention WU, I’ll give you $75 off the program fee!

Join us! I’d love to help you make 2027 Your Novel Year.

Kathryn…