I really like the way you brought up this topic in your fiction this week.
Because oh my goodness do we have to keep talking about this – it can be so hard to process reviews.

And before I started putting my writing out there – my experience was as an artist and involved dealing with student artists.
I learned early on how subjective reviews — and how the timing of a review matters for the person doing the review and other factors.

Like one study found that when judges were scoring athletes – if someone “bombed” – they tended to over-score (with higher liking) for the next athlete – and even an average athlete would be viewed as better after a flop – hahah — and the researchers argued that the mental priming from the flop impacted the mindset of the judgers.

Then, I knew an artist who tried to have a painting hung at four different art shows – was rejected each time – not viewed as good enough to merely be hung.
A few years later he entered the piece in another show and not only did he squeak into the show (was accepted to be hung) – the piece sold for asking price.
ahhhh –
and sometimes people who do a review are responding from their current mood or maybe from expectations – and definitely from “preference”
and not sure who said that about your writing – but when i see words like “clunky” used to describe work – it usually screams of preference and how that person might just prefer a different style./

—
I recently had this happen with a comment on one of my Friday Fiction posts. A lady (who is well respected in this community and who is brilliant and kind) she said she did not get my rhyming and thought it was not needed for the message.
Of course I responded about delivery and how if it was just the message I was trying to convey, I would have not written 100 word fiction and spent time crafting it.
Author process matters -as does the delivery I want. And mine was clunky to her – or maybe sophomoric and maybe even annoying with the kinder rhymes. But the thing is that it is “me” – and every day of the week i will go for being me – which can be viewed as clunky, dull, too simple, not needed rhyme scheme, or too energized –
and for those folks – that want different – the very good news is that they can find plethora of authors that meet their needs; so many authors for so many tastes –
and we will never please everyone – not even if we were a taco.

🙂

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