Monique L. Miller's Notebook

Oct 25, 2013 at 9:41am

I've waited for Allegiant by Veronica Roth to come out for over a year now, but everyone is saying DON'T READ IT!! RUN AWAY FROM THE THIRD BOOK AS FAST AS YOU CAN!! Hundreds of people are saying that it's a terrible book and it broke their hearts. I think I'm still going to read it since I know what to expect, but I'm not going into it ready to give it a 1 star review just because other people say so. I'll give her work the benefit of the doubt.

On another note, a couple of her fans said she was rude to them. I wouldn't put it past her. When you go from writing what I think was an "experimental" type book and it sells millions, and you end up making millions, that can make you feel a bit untouchable. She was probably bored with the story and just wanted it over. She probably figured she'd proven herself as a writer and no matter what she did with the third book her fans would gobble it up with no problem and just love it. I think all the bad reviews are probably a shock to her, her agent, and her publisher. I think that's called EGO. Again, I'm speculating, but it's a theory that makes perfect sense to me.

That should teach all of us writers a lesson: Don't ever think we're invincible if we actually ever make it. Be loyal to your fans by putting your heart into your work or don't do it at all. Be loyal to them and they'll be loyal to your work.

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Monique L. Miller

Oct 3, 2013 at 9:59am

First turn off of the day (morning)? I come onto writing.com and see this title for someone's story:

The Hunter of The Negroes

Really? Could you have thought of a more bigoted and unattractive title???? -__-

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Monique L. Miller

Sep 17, 2013 at 1:32pm

I don't care who calls me slow; even with directions, I can't seem to figure out how to do some of the most seemingly simple things on here.

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Monique L. Miller

Sep 17, 2013 at 1:30pm

I think this site has one of the most confusing setups I've ever seen lol. But it's all good, I'm having fun learning

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Monique L. Miller

Sep 16, 2013 at 12:33pm

On another note, one reviewer on Amazon was pissed that the preview (first chapter) for my novel Bed of Thorns was included (present at the end of the story) and said they felt "gypped" because it was just as long as the Karma. I'll admit that the person who wrote the review actually pissed me off because that was the entire point of making Karma free in the first place--promotion for my actual full length novel. I guess at such an early stage in the game I shouldn't call people stupid, but...(and yes, the fact that Karma is 20,000 words long is in its description on Amazon; I was never trying to mislead anyone).

I've seen people sell novellas with less word count than Karma on Amazon and never got any complaints about the length. I know there were going to be setbacks but it's just annoying when readers don't get it.

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Monique L. Miller

Sep 16, 2013 at 12:32pm

I knew I was running a huge risk when I decided to write an African American urban drama/fantasy novella, but I really loved the story I came up with. The problem I faced was the audience I was writing for. I'd already seen the comments under a lot of other AA Urban novellas where the majority of the readers aren't accustomed to novella type/size stories and most of the comments I got on Amazon were that the story "ended too soon" or "there was no ending at all" when clearly there was; the readers simply didn't understand the story. It wasn't a Zane novel or anything like that and a lot of AA books are laced heavily with sex, but that wasn't what my novella, Karma, was about. They didn't understand that the story was about a girl that felt trapped in a hopeless situation and wanted to find a way out and that the ending was about hope. I feel awful having to explain the story itself when it's so self-explanatory. And I'm not tooting my own horn either. It's a very simple story, 20,000 words long, and the funny thing was, it wasn't meant to be that long, nor was I going to charge for it. It was free and it was supposed to remain that way, but because of the 1 and 2 star reviews it went to $0.99 again because that's how Amazon works. The sad part is that no one said the story was bad or poorly written, and it was obvious to me that the main ones who did happen to comment on it really didn't understand what they were reading. I guess I also made the mistake of blending realism and surrealism in "hood/ghetto" story. Personally, I like stories like that. I'm a huge Alice Hoffman fan and that's where the inspiration of doing it actually came from.

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