Plot Monkeys

Well, I did it! I just finished up judging the six books sent to me as part of the RITA contest. And now more than ever, I’m convinced…the contest simply doesn’t matter.

(For those of you who don’t know…the RITA award is an award given to authors by Romance Writers of America. It is peer-judged. Each book entered is judged by five preliminary judges and if they make the finals, by five final round judges. FYI.)

Look, I’m not dissing anyone who has won. Or been nominated. Hell, I’ve been nominated, would love to be nominated again. Winning would seriously kick ass. But after reading this year’s entries, I’m no longer going to allow the slightest disappointment if I’m not nominated.

You know why? Because the contest simply isn’t an accurate reflection of a book’s success or potential success.

It’s not even an accurate reflection of whether or not a book is good.

Let me tell you why…and I’ll do it discreetly, so no one will know what books I’m talking about.

I had six books to judge.

First book…a paranormal. A cute, funny one.

Guess what? I’m not much for paranormals that are cute and funny. I much prefer the darker ones. I’m not saying I can’t read and enjoy cute, funny paranormals–but they are not my preference, so here comes a book I’m pretty much ready not to like so much.

The writing was good…but frankly, the plotting just wasn’t my cuppa. But I knew there wasn’t anything WRONG with the plotting…it just wasn’t enjoyable to me as a reader. Too silly. So here’s a book that is technically well written that got a lower score (not low by any means–above average, for sure) from me simply because no matter how I tried, this book simply didn’t call for me to read it. I had to force myself. And that’s not fun.

But the entire time, I could definitely see how OTHER people could like the book a lot. Only the thing is, OTHER people aren’t judging the contest. I am. So my personal preferences rule. Sorry, but they do.

It’s impossible to “be objective.” This contest isn’t just about the technical side of writing. It’s also about the intangibles…reader interest, character, theme, tension. One person’s masterpiece is another person’s “meh.”

And so it goes…

Second book…short contemporary. Predictible, predictible, predictible. If I can figure out a plot in ten pages, this is not good. Now, a reader who hadn’t read a lot of short contemporary romances probably would have been surprised by the plot twists, but I’ve been reading short contemporary books for over 15 years. Takes a lot to surprise me. See? Writing was fine…but the storyline just didn’t fit with ME. I feel badly for this writer. She drew the short end of the stick getting me as her reader. Average score.

Third book…another short contemporary. This one I read all the way through quickly and liked the story fairly well. Lacked a plot really, but hey, short contemporary sometimes does and I’m okay with that. Above average score.

Fourth book…another paranormal. This one I like. Has a few elements that stretch credulity with me at the end (not the right place to put them…I’d rather have hints sprinkled through that these really weirdo things might happen later so it doesn’t seem like the writer is just writing herself out of a corner) but the writing was good and I went back to the story each time with enthusiasm. Oh, and it had vampires. This is not a good thing for me–I’m not a big vampire fan. BUT this writer had a cool world created. So in this case, my personal preferences didn’t get in my way. Cool. Above average score.

Fifth book…another paranormal. By a very popular author. I’ve read previous books by this author and enjoyed them. Read this one voraciously…then hated the ending. Hated, hated, hated. As a reader. As a writer. HUGE disappointment. Only gets a slightly above average score despite the fact that I’d read it as if I were eating pasta. Note to self: make sure you don’t rush the ending or gyp your reader. Oh, and it had vampires–which again, I didn’t mind. Maybe I don’t hate vampires as much as I think I do.

Sixth book…another pararnormal…with vampires. Really liked this one a lot. Awesome voice. Read with enthusiasm. Some parts didn’t make sense…still, I gave it a pretty high score. The highest of all the books except maybe book four (see, I’ve already forgotten!) Solid writing, great characters. Very interesting and unique world building. Maybe it’s old hat to people who read a lot of vampire books, but to me…I thought it was cool. Until this exercise, the only vampires I’d read were Anne Rice and Bram Stoker. You know, the classics. Now, I’m much more widely read…though if these books were series books, I’m not sure I’d read another one. You know, all those vampires.

So you can pretty much see how random I felt my scores were.

I read book reviews, but I have never NOT bought a book because of a review. I have bought books because of reviews, but never the opposite. A book has to pretty much get panned in several trusted places before I decide I don’t want to read it–and even then, if a book came to my attention enough for me to read the reviews in more than one place, chances are I’m going to find out for myself whether or not I think the book is good and not trust some reviews. Nothing makes me cringe more than seeing someone post on a message board the following: “X, thanks for the review! I’m so glad I didn’t buy the book since you hated it.”

HUH?

I mean, unless this is your bestest friend with whom you share EXACT reading tastes, does this make sense? Not to me. I’ve read lots of books that I’ve loved and my friends have not…and vice-versa.

This exercise, first and foremost, made me appreciate my 2005 RITA nomination even more. But it also reminded me that it’s all about luck and very little about talent simply because so many writers are talented! I’d say that five out of the six books I read were flawlessly written. The characterization was strong, the voices interesting. One stood out above the rest. The other didn’t quite measure up because of plot problems.

And let’s talk about plot problems. Some readers don’t give a good damn if a book is “predictible.” They don’t care in the least. This is simply a pet peeve of mine–ask the Plotmonkeys who is always saying, “Oh, that’s been done a million times.” Me. I admit it. Sometimes, predictible works for me, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes I’m so unfamiliar with a genre or subgenre that I don’t know what is predictible and what isn’t.

So…what the point of this blog. Just flushing the whole judging thing out of my system. I really don’t enjoy judging other people’s work. In fact, I sort of hate it. But RWA needs judges, so I do it. But over the many years I’ve been doing this, I’ve learned it is essential for an entrant to to draw precisely the right judges for their work…and there’s no way to do that. No work, in my opinion, is universal. Good writing will out–as the saying goes–it still subjective. I might think a book is utterly fantabulous that someone else enjoyed, but wasn’t overly enthusiastic about–or downright hated.

My moods change. A book that I loved at the time might be a chore for me to read another day. And what if that mood never changes? I remember reading a book once that I started and stopped about five times before the mood finally hit me and I loved the book so much it ended up one of my top ten favorite books for the year…why did it take me so long to warm up? Can’t say. It wasn’t one I had to judge, so I don’t have to!

So, I guess the point of my blog is to assure my fellow writers that while I wish you all the best of luck in getting nominated for a RITA or any other contest and hope you wish the same for me, keep in mind that the whole act is subjective and you cannot measure your worth as an author or measure the worth of your books by one contest or another. You got published. You probably have emails from readers telling you how much they loved a book.

THAT is what counts.

And to readers–whether or not a book gets good reviews doesn’t mean you won’t possibly enjoy it. Right? You should decide for yourself if it’s a book that otherwise caught your interest. That’s why I love book discussions, but abhor book lynchings. There’s a difference.

I just realized that it looks like I give terminally average scores in the RITAs. Actually, four books I judged in preliminary rounds in years past have not only made it to the finals, they’ve won. It’s all luck of the draw.