I don’t read my reviews. It’s a matter of policy, the policy being this; reviews aren’t for the creators, they’re for the punters. As a creator – if it’s one of my works of art or lit that’s being crit – the review is going to be of very little use to me. It is, after all, far too late to act upon any criticisms. And, well, I don’t know about other writers, but there isn’t a single flaw in my work that I am not already painfully aware of. I am inordinately alert to all the shortcomings of everything I’ve ever written. “Well, why didn’t you do something about them then?”, you may ask. “You should have seen it before,” I might reply. Or, “I tried, but it made things worse” or “There wasn’t room”. Or even “That was part of the brief, so I was stuck with it!”
So, yes, reviews, too late in the day and they don’t tell me anything I don’t already know. The only reviews that are any use are the ones that come from script editors, directors, producers and so on during the writing process. And I’ve long since adopted a policy of acting on every note – not necessarily in the way suggested, but trying to solve the problem. Because people pointing out flaws is good, you want to know what marred someone’s enjoyment – and what didn’t, what you have managed to get away with. Because no story, no work of fiction is perfect. There will always be plot holes or coincidences or bits where it was more important for the exposition to be clear than it was for it to be subtle.
But I love to review stuff. On the bluesky, I post reviews
all the time, of albums, films, books, plays. I like to bring a bit of original
Morris content to the table, and for that content to be generally positive,
most of the time. Share the joy. But these reviews are meant for my
fellow punters, they are not meant for the creators. Which is why I never tag
them, even if they’re people I know and the review is gushingly positive. If
they want to see reviews of their work, they can search for them, it should be their active choice. And if I started ‘tagging’ people in reviews, other
people might look at that and think they should start tagging me in reviews of my
stuff, and I’d have no grounds to protest. Because it does happen sometimes; someone thinks
it would be kind to let me know they’ve reviewed something I’ve written, and
sometimes that’s because they’ve enjoyed it and want me to know, which is lovely,
but sometimes it’s just because they’ve given it 3/10 and they blithely think that news
might brighten my day (if they have given it any thought at all).
It’s a form of etiquette; if reviews are for punters not
creators it means they can be honest, written without fear or favour of what
the creator might think, and if the creator wants to seek out their reviews,
that is their prerogative. And if they want to respond, well, that’s up to them too.
It’s happened to me on occasion; I reviewed a series about twenty years ago
called The Lost Room and, although I enjoyed it, as is my wont I also
took the piss, and then one of the creators replied saying that maybe I would
like to considering going forth and multiplying. I hadn’t tagged them in the
review, of course. I certainly hadn’t mentioned their name. They’d been
‘ego-surfing’ for reviews. And do you know what? After they’d told me to fuck
off, I went back and rewatched that series and realised that actually it was
much better than I first thought and I had been wrong to take the piss. No.
That didn’t happen. Why would I do that? I didn’t do that.
So, yes, anyway. I don’t read my reviews, and I don’t want
them brought to my attention, and I work on the basis that everyone else feels
the same way. If they don’t, that’s fine, but for god’s sake, if you’re a
creator who wants to seek out and read your bad reviews, rule one, for god’s
sake never ever reply.
