Meanwhile With Trevor
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How to Get a Good Review of Your Book
September 15, 2023

One of the things I do to generate some small amount of income is reading books for review. It doesn’t help much, but it passes the time and has its own rewards. Since we’re all friends here, I’ll let you in on a little secret: I only need to read half a book to review it. In my summary, I’m not going to give away the ending, and by the midpoint I’ve got a pretty good idea of the author’s skill and if the characters are interesting. 

There are risks, of course.

I once filed a review with a Christian website that cares about any and all potentially objectionable content. A few days later I went back and finished the book, only to find out that a key part of the plot hinges on a homosexual tryst. It didn’t change how I felt about the story, which I thought was very good. But I still had to scramble to revise my piece with that unexpected addition. 

Since then, if I’m enjoying the book I always try to finish it. 

Even if it’s not very good, I try to at least give the author the courtesy of reading it through.

I’m not reading for enjoyment. This is a job and I do my best to treat it as such.

And yes, sometimes I encounter absolute dreck. Thankfully, it’s not very often and the last time it happened it was a title I picked out for myself. Indie publishing means that many of the gatekeepers and editors can be avoided, which is both a blessing and a danger. Too many first-time authors rush the process and put out half-baked novels that should have been set aside as practice.

Not inflicted on people like me.

But every so often I get handed something that’s absolutely outstanding. Recently an author looking to generate some attention for his series sent me book one of four. I won’t go into detail here and now, but suffice to say, I’m hooked. About halfway through I wrote my review, and while I don’t expect any eyebrow raising content I’m still reading. It’s a very long book. I have a stack of books I need to get to. So finishing it probably isn’t very professional of me.

Oh well.

So beyond personal preference, what makes a book that good? Or put another way, what can an author do to ensure a professional reader gives a good review beyond the obvious? A reviewer or critic (there is a difference) approaches a book differently than the average reader. It’s our job to notice things, good and bad, and shine a light on them so that everyone who picks up the book goes in informed. An author should write for himself and his wider audience, but professional readers have to read everything, so don’t give us a reason to write a bad review if it’s not necessarily written for us.

Ultimately, these are just best practices.

First, and most obvious, there shouldn’t be any typos. Poor punctuation and grammar will jump out to other writers, including reviewers. I won’t necessarily mention errors in my review, but it’s a sign that the author doesn’t have a firm grasp on his craft and I’ll expect the other elements of the story will be wanting. That immediate prejudice could color my review. Something else that bothers me (and I admittedly need to work on in my own writing) is word variety. If the same descriptors and phrases are used over and over again, readers will get bored. 

Don’t repeat yourself on the same page, or even the same chapter.

Speaking of chapters, there’s nothing wrong with a long chapter. That said, breaking things up makes the reading go faster. In our age of short attention spans and ultra-short videos, it’s to your advantage to give readers breaks. Chapters of consistent length create a nice rhythm for the reader as well, though I wouldn’t stress about it. The main thing is…

…That the reader remain engaged.

Everyone can tell when a story is dragging. This doesn’t mean that it has to have nonstop action, of course. We read to learn. So every line should build the world or the characters, flesh out the story, or show us something we’ve never seen before. We also read to experience a sense of wonder, and it’s important that wonderful things never be taken for granted, whether they are awe inspiring or horrific. 

If you do all those things in your book, there’s just one thing left to do when you want a review.

Ask for it. Then send a copy (I prefer epub).

Again, I have no shortage of material. Good books don’t come with expiration dates. But you, as an author, want a return on your investment as soon as possible. I get that. When your book is ready for publishing start reaching out to professional readers. Just getting your friends to leave nice Amazon reviews isn’t enough. But if you can get a mention on Upstream Reviews or through someone like me, a book YouTuber, or elsewhere, more people will be aware of your book to give it an Amazon review.

Just ask. If you’re friendly and polite, if the book sounds promising, it’ll probably get bumped to the top of the list. 

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Update!

I cover it in the the video, but I've got some new professional writing opportunities coming up and I'm trying to finish my next novel, all while navigating a change in schedule. So look for more pictures and videos, and new articles here on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

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He Who Rides on the Clouds - Conclusion

Leo and Britt come face to face with a prehistoric god a new cult on Saturn. Can they save the children doomed to sacrifice and escape?

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He Who Rides on the Clouds - Part 2

Leo and Brittany have arrived on Saturn, but not in the way they'd hoped. Captured by a pagan cult, they don't have time to stop the unthinkable from happening. But they'll try anyway.

Content warning: language and sexual situations.

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He Who Rides on the Clouds - Part 1

Star Wars is dead and the more apathy you show the faster it will be allowed to rest in peace.

Instead of griping about what Disney has done, why don't you listen to my space adventure story? He Who Rides on the Clouds is supernatural noir that spans space and time. When children on Mars go missing, Alexis Leonard and his ex-wife Brittany go looking. Their search leads them to a pagan temple and an ancient religion.

If you'd like to buy the story and read ahead, it's available in the Fall 2020 issue of Cirsova, available here: https://amzn.to/3yRRywY

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No Posts This Week

Hey everyone, with BasedCon coming up this weekend I'm busy catching up on things and getting ready to go. But I'll be back next week with lots of new thoughts!

Big Changes Ahead

Hey Friends, I've got some big life changes on the horizon and should be able to create more content. What would you like to see? More fiction? More fitness? Maybe you'd like more video or audio content. Let me know in the comments.

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Is Ladyballers Doomed from the Start?

The most honest analysis I've seen.

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F1 is Modern Western

As a nation, the United States is unique. We don’t share a genetic heritage, but a creed. Americans and our ideas come from all over the world. But we’re at our best when take those outside ideas and make them our own. Everything we have came from another culture, but there was a time when we could take things and collectively make them better.

Democracy? Check. Rock’n’roll? Check. Heck! Chinese food? Yes, we did.

Don’t hate. You know I’m right.

One of the greatest art forms we’ve given the world is the western genre. While rooted in courtly romances of King Arthur, we took the idea of the man on horseback who makes things right on his quest for something spiritual and made it distinctly American. Most of the time, these stories aren’t historically accurate, but that’s not the point. They’re soaked in the American ethos. For better or for worse, the western has become the American myth, even more so than 1776.

And the cool thing about myths is that you can take them and tell other stories. 

Star Trek (and later Firefly) took the western to space. 

A few weeks ago I was able to see F1: The Movie on IMAX, and I had high hopes. Director Joseph Krasinski had proved himself with Top Gun: Maverick, which is about as American as a modern movie can get. But mostly, I just wanted to see if he could do with racecars what he’d done with fighter jets. In that regard, I was everything I’d hoped it would be. The idea of Americanism didn’t even cross my mind, since F1 is primarily a European sport.

Boy, was I surprised.

Brad Pitt plays Sonny Hayes with all the careless cool of Paul Newman in his prime and a Steve McQueen swagger. While Pitt has never played a cowboy and isn’t a racecar driver in real life, Newman and McQueen played both, and did both. Hayes has been keeping himself busy with no-name races since an F1 crash nearly killed him some 30 years before. But when Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), an old friend and rival, needs some wins to save the team, he tracks down Sonny.

And the old dog knows a few tricks.

Naturally, his tactics put him at odds with his teammate, Joshua Pierce (Damson Idris), and his cocky attitude is a big red flag to the team’s engineer, Kate McKenna (Kerry Conden). So the movie all the tropes of a sports film, and I don’t think I need to summarize further. But it’s not a sports film. Or rather, it’s not just a sports a film. Surprise, surprise, it’s the western myth transposed into a racing a story.

It’s spelled out in the trailer, but it didn’t strike me until the very end.

Kate calls Sonny Hayes an “old school rough and tumble cowboy” in a line used in the marketing. When he arrives in the garage, only Ruben knows him. Sonny is the stranger in town. Like James Garner in Support Your Local Sheriff, his method of restoring order and winning is unorthodox and effective. Like Shane, in that Alan Ladd classic, he’s guarded about his past. And like John Wayne in The Searchers and so many other westerns, Sonny Hayes is the outsider who must leave civilization once he’s made it civilized for those who belong there.

But he doesn’t.


Perhaps the hardboiled crime story, another uniquely American genre, is also an outgrowth of the western. Philip Marlow is the man who must walk down mean streets, who is not himself mean. As Raymond Chandler said, “He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him.” Basically, the man he’s describing is dangerous, but not cruel. Dispassionate in taking revenge, and restrained by a code of honor.

But destined to be lonely, nonetheless.

Why we’ve made that an essential part of the American is a topic for another time. But there it is. And it’s the story of Sonny Hayes. At the end of the movie [SPOILER], he rides off into the sunset as the credits roll. The western isn’t dead. It’s still there, in essence, speaking to our hearts in different ways.

Nothing more American than that. 

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Girl-Power Isn't the Problem: Stop Treating Movies Like TV Pilots

Last weekend I was able to sneak off the theater for a screening of From the World of John Wick: Ballerina. Did I feel silly, telling the high school girl at the ticket counter, “One for Ballerina, and a small drink”? Well, not in the moment. 

I probably drank a liter of cherry vanilla Coke Zero, and that didn’t feel so great.

Plenty of box office analysts and Hollywood types are wracking their brains, trying to figure out why movies like Furiosa and Ballerina aren’t drawing huge crowds. Mad Max and John Wick are popular franchises, but apparently telling the stories of the women in those worlds isn’t working. Even if the movies are pretty good.

I’ve seen both, and they’re pretty good.

Some are arguing that no one will go near a movie that looks like it’s feminist girl-bossing. Others counter that movies like Alien and Kill Bill are female-led action films that were successful. Now, I’m not going to say that Ballerina is on par with those modern day classics. But I will say that, as a man watching the movie, it didn’t offend me. The movie never challenged me to confront any internalized misogyny. The small girl doesn’t take down John Wick in hand-to-hand combat.

Honestly, if you like franchise, whether you’re male or female, you should watch Ballerina.

In short, from a purely cinematic experience perspective, neither Furiosa nor Ballerina would be any better or worse with a male lead. Maybe that’s a hot take. But that’s mine, for whatever it’s worth. Well, okay, I wouldn’t watch a movie called Ballerina if it stared a dude. Nevertheless, I think you get my point. Petite women warriors aside, the plots and action are exactly as expected.

So what’s the deal?

Well, what no one seems to have noticed is that Ripley and The Bride weren’t replacing anyone. As we were watching their movies for the first time, we weren’t thinking about other characters for whom we already had a preference. Movies are more like TV than TV right now, and replacement characters have always been a hard sell, regardless of gender. We all remember Sam and Diane. Who still talks about Sam and Rebecca (even though Kirstie Alley won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for the part)? I had to look up her name. 

No, they aren’t technically replacing them. It’s a spin-off, set in the same world.

Spin-offs tend to succeed when the characters are already well established (eg: Frasier). Furiosa and Ballerina are more like backdoor pilots, where new characters are dropped in for a single episode to sell us on the idea of a new show. This technique is very hit and miss on TV, and I can’t think of a single example of this working in a movie franchise. Film and television are very different mediums, and should be treated as such.

Still, if it doesn’t work on TV, it’s probably not gonna work at the movies. Not where new characters and spin-offs are concerned. 

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Going Back to 1995

Maybe I’m just getting old, but it doesn’t feel like we had the thriving and distinct pop culture of past generations. Has there been a look or stye, or feeling, that defines this moment? Everything seems to have stagnated for the last twenty years. And it’s not as if I don’t pay attention. 

It’s making me nostalgic. 

Consequently, for the rest of the year, I’m prioritizing movies from 1995, the year I was twelve. At that time, my family didn’t really go to the theater, and when we did rent VHS tapes, more often than it is was older Disney movies or entirely forgettable Christian titles. Now that I’ve grown tired of trying to keep up with new releases, not there’s much worth watching anyway, it feels like a good time to catch up on those 30 year old movies that have become ingrained in what’s left of our pop culture.

So over on Criticless, I made a list.

Some of these are movies I’ve seen before, but not in a long time. Others will be first time watches for me. There’s really no rhyme or reason to what I put on my list. It’s just movies that either interest me, or are currently in my collection, sadly unwatched. As things become available on streaming, I may add to the list. And if I don’t get to everything before the end of the year, no big deal.

Hopefully, they aren’t going anywhere. 

I’ll be posting some reviews and analysis as I go, so be sure to follow me here. 

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