I don't like novels that end happily. They depress me so much
I think if a book has the power to move a reader, it also has the power to offend a reader. And you want your books to have power, so you just have to take what comes with that.
Something will be offensive to someone in every book, so you've got to fight it.
I don't read reviews.
I'm noticing a lot of the big bloggers who've posted about politics are experiencing an ugly backlash. Readers are angry because they went to the bloggers' sites for a laugh, not a lecture. Again, it's a question of being appropriate for the audience.
I don't usually read reviews.
Sometimes reactions can be quite surprising: readers like things that you, the author, feel you've barely gotten away with; or they dislike one of the parts you secretly think is one of your little gems.
I don't want to walk in the middle. I want people to read what I write and feel strongly about it. If, at some point, whatever I am doing is failing to elicit a response, whether it's very positive or very negative, then I am going to stop doing it.
'City of Fallen Angels' ended on a cliffhanger. That was equally loved and hated by my readership.
As an author, you think you know where the good parts and the bad parts are. And then you read to a group of children, and you learn when you're boring them, and you hurry through those sections to get to the parts where they're interested again. You start to get a sense of your story's rhythm and flow.
