So, an interesting thing happened over on Tumblr last week, after I posted chapters 5 and 6 of Star-crossed. One reader decided that she was going to bow out of the story because she didn’t believe that one of the characters was behaving as they should have. While it kind of surprised me that she would take to the comments section and announce that she was “quitting” the story, I thanked her for sticking with the series thus far and wished her well. End of story, right?
Nope.
Other readers voiced their opinion of her opinion and things got a little heated. It was the weekend, so I didn’t see the back and forth right away. But it got to the point where I felt kind of uncomfortable. While I appreciated the fact that so many were coming to my defense, so to speak, I still felt compelled to ask for a little calm.
Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and it died down quickly. I’m glad because I never want anyone to feel like they can’t voice their opinion, even if it isn’t a popular one. I’ve always invited criticism, as long as it is constructive. The fact that people feel so strongly about the story and the characters, enough to “battle it out” online, gives me a sense of pride. I want people to feel as passionately about Sam and Val as I do, I just hope that any future disagreements can be handled with civility. Even if some of the comments made me laugh out loud. 😉
I spoke to a friend and fellow writer about it, and she said that I should have just let it run its course. She agreed that it was flattering to have people arguing about something that I’d written. Have you ever dealt with anything like this? What did you do? And if not, how would you have handled it?