How to Write a Review

Reading readers' review of your prose can send you into the heights of ecstasy or plunge you into the drowning pool of despair. If you want to write you have to be willing to pay the price. Often, readers don't give an objective review of your work.

I get emails from time to time asking me how to get started writing. I've been lucky and have been able to make money from the stuff I put out. Sometimes it's hardly enough for a fancy dinner at a nice restaurant and sometimes it's enough to pay the rent. But overall, someone would have to be lucky to strike it big and began making big advances and royalties.

Something that I haven't been telling people who send those emails is that writing can be costly. It can cost you many a sleepless night and myriads of worries. Sometimes it can cost you your peace of mind. This is something I don't read a lot about. Perhaps more authors should write about it.

Whenever you write, whenever you decide to put yourself "out there" in the public eye by putting your name on a piece of prose or fiction, you invite the public to take shots at you. Not only will they take shots at you but some will also try to mow you down. Some feel they have "the right" to say the most vile and contemptuous things to you when you publish something. Some will even threaten you.

When my wife and I moved to Mexico and became fluent enough in Spanish to really get to know the culture and the people, I began noticing something significant. I noticed there were things, a lot of things, in this culture that none of the expatriation guidebooks on the market bothered to mention. When I went back and reread these books, I noticed not one bothered to mention anything negative about the Mexican culture.

So, I began writing what the other authors of books and articles did not think significant to talk about in their prose. My reasoning was personal and commercial. It was personal in that I wished someone had told me about what I might experience before coming to Mexico so I would have been better prepared. It was commercial in that no one else was doing it. I thought I would "cash in," so to speak, on an untapped market.

In the process, my readership went south, and did so fast. I began to get some really vile emails from readers. Some were good; most have been troubling. Most who bother to write or who leave "readers' comments" are very critical that I would dare mention something negative about Mexico. Their view is "If you don't like it, then you should leave." One lady even suggested my wife and I move to Iraq. Lovely, huh?

I do get the reality if you don't stroke the egos of a lot of people, tell them that life is a bowl of cherries, all the good guys wear white hats and the bad guys black, everyone always tells the truth, and the good guys always win, you invite the crazies to attack you.

Attack you they will and with a vengeance. As I said, some will even threaten you.

It appears the people, and they are mainly Americans, who write me have not a clue how to offer a review, an examination of premises, or a well-constructed evaluation of the arguments I present in my prose. They just don't. Maybe those who read my work haven't taken Logic 101. I don't know.

Of the trillion or so things, multiplied to the power of infinity and beyond, that confuse me so, one is just what goes through someone's head when they allow themselves such latitude to write and threaten me solely because I wrote something with which they disagree. Whatever happened to civilized, social discourse? Whatever happened to rational debate? Whatever happened to constructive criticism? Whatever happened to well-thought-out, well-reasoned arguments?

If you want to write, and want to write in an opinion and editorial style, then be prepared for attacks. Attacks will come unless you write only the sugar and spice and everything nice kind of stuff. The readers will love that. However, they will come after you if you dare write about the realities of the world.

Here is what I long for in readers' reviews:

· That my readers would meticulously read what I write and then read it again numerous times until they come to a rational understanding of my position. This will afford the reader an understanding of my thesis and my rationale.

· That the readers would ask themselves just what my primary thesis is.

· That the readers discover my intent.

· That the readers decide if my thesis is correct. If so, how does this influence the readers' understanding of my subject?

· What arguments or examples have I used to support my premises?

· Do my arguments or examples support my thesis?

· Once the premises of my argument are understood, does the reader think my position is the correct one?

· Does the reader agree or disagree with me? Why? Have my arguments led the reader to agree or disagree with my conclusions? Why?

· Are my arguments valid? Am I misinterpreting something or putting too much spin on it?

· That the reader would offer a well-constructed counter argument.

This is how one reviews articles and columns. At least, this is how one should do it.

Why people want to curse you soundly and even offer to find you and cause you physical harm, I cannot explain. I could offer a lot of spin as to what I think is the reason but that would invite a host of people to write me with all sorts of scary accusations and threats. I've had enough of those lately, thanks very much.

If you want to write, and if you criticize or you dare suggest something that is not aligned with the majority view, the politically correct in your prose, then be prepared for the onslaught.

Is it worth it?

Yes.