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To Win, Simply Play, my novella, has received a positive and a negative critique this week. Some friend of mine in my hometown told another friend who told their sister that I had written something like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” story, and she decided to read it. While visiting my hometown last week, I ran into my new reader, who said, “I dunno, it just didn’t really follow that the stuff that follows, followed – do you follow?” and I do. I agree, actually, I do. I’ve learned, though, that it is difficult, if not impossible to agree with a reader who intends to be critical. Its as if a writer and a reader aren’t somehow allowed to share the same negative criticism. I said “I agree” and my reader seemed to say “yeah, right.”
Then, I got a different review. This one comes to me from J. Nathan Matias, who writes in his Notebook of Sand:
When you read the novella, don’t just think about what he does structurally. Think about the kinds of things he can and can’t talk about. For example, chronology isn’t a big part of the novella. Why not? Because he can’t give the chronology direction, and anchoring stories to time would just force the reader to keep track.
I guess that this marks the beginning of some real discussion of the novella, which hopefully will lead to a better version, someday.
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