Today’s earlier post showed the cover from my first Justice
Security novel, “Mama Told Me Not To Come”.
Looking at it, I thought I’d talk about reviews. One of the things that I stress almost to the
point of begging is that readers of my material please go to Amazon and give an honest review! With “Mama Told Me Not To Come”, of all the
things I’ve published, this novel has only 3.4 stars out of 5 on Amazon. Many were great reviews, but there were a
couple of bad ones.
Consider the review from “hemmedin”, relevant portions
shown: “This is an average
thriller-action movie script. …the
"King Louis" character was so full of ebonics and lousy dialect
("dat" instead of "that" every time he spoke) I was
nauseated. If you like blood, explosions and simplistic "super"
characters, this is your book. I really do expect to see it as a movie, though,
and I will save my money at that time.”
Exactly. That’s the way I write! I see stories as movies, or whatever you want
to call it, happening in my head, and I describe all of it as a story! Unfortunately, the reader has no way of
knowing that, so it maybe does read like a script. And, no, the Justice Security characters are
not “simplistic ‘super’ characters”, as this reviewer describes. They are honed, with muscles, training, and
good reflexes. They have distinct
personalities that are only hinted at in this introductory novel. They get injured, and possibly die, as has
been demonstrated in following stories.
No one, and I emphasize, no one, is safe in the imaginary
city that these characters call home.
“King Louie”
and his ebonics were intentional. Louie
himself explains the sad/sorry reason that he slips into that dialect from time
to time, in this exchange with Donna, his dinner date, from “Wake Me Up Before
You Go-Go”:
Donna put down her fork and said,
“Louie, may I ask you something?”
Louie put
down his own fork, and replied, “Sho’ can, ma’am.”
She
smiled at his small joke. “I’ve known
you for about a month now…”
“A month
and three days,” finished Louie. “But
who’s counting, right?”
Donna
smiled at Louie again. “A month and
three days, then. In that time, I’ve
seen several sides of you. I’ve seen the
athlete. I’ve seen the man of depth and
feeling. I’ve seen the man of research
and education, and I’ve seen the man of violence…but only when it’s necessary,
or when it’s warranted.”
“And your
point? Or your question?”
“Out of
all the men I’ve seen you become, the one I dislike is this one-dimensional,
ebonics-spewing, black idiot. Why do you do it, Louie?”
Louie
stared at her with his mouth slightly open.
After a moment, he threw his head back and started laughing. He laughed so hard that other patrons turned
to stare at him, and he had tears in the corners of his eyes.
“Oh,
baby, thank you,” he said after he had calmed down a little.
The lady
had been laughing as well…Louie’s laugh was a bit contagious. “Why are you thanking me, sweetie?” she
asked.
Louie
took her hand. “You are the first person that’s been brave enough to ever ask!” he
responded. “The answer is simple,
especially for someone that grew up in Alabama.
There were still parts of that godforsaken state that looked at black
people as vermin…or worse. You learned
quickly to speak with that ‘eee-bonic crapspeak’ to keep from drawing attention
to yourself when you spoke to ‘white folk’.
Sure, it’s demeaning, and it’s one-dimensional…but, for there, and then, it was survival.
Now? Sometimes, when I’m
comfortable and not paying attention to how I speak, I slip back into it…and I
don’t know it.” He leaned closer to her,
and said, “My mama, Betty, has been after me for years to stop it. Now
you. I will make a concerted effort to
drop dat habit from mah speechifyin’.
How dat, baby?”
Donna
smacked Louie’s hand, and smiled. “Thank
you, sir.”
Excerpt
Copyright 2013 by T. M. Bilderback.
As I said, each character has depth, and feeling. I just didn’t unload everything in the first
novel.
So, as I said, even bad reviews are good, if they help you improve…or, as in this case, if you don’t reveal all of the eggs in your basket!
Keep reading!
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