Your Book Is Bad — and You Should Be Happy That Someone Tells You So
The hidden value in negative book reviews from a writer’s perspective.
I started writing in 2020 without any knowledge of what it meant to be a writer. I had studied and worked as a software engineer, and I had never taken a writing course beyond what was required at school when I was a teenager.
The language didn’t help me either.
I started writing on English platforms as a native Spanish speaker who had just finished an English program. What I knew about English was what life and academies had taught me, but I didn’t have specific knowledge of how to structure a text. I didn’t know when to use a semicolon or period, what a title case was, or that a comma came before an “and” if I was making a list (we don’t use any of those rules in my native language).
So, how did I learn everything I know so far? Through negative comments.
Because I was rejected by professionals, I learned all the grammar rules, the correct way to write, how to express my ideas and the best way to make people understand my articles. I wanted my articles to be good enough to be published in exclusive places, so I tried to write as well as I could so I wouldn’t get rejected next time.
