How do you all handle upset readers?

[Guest]

I released two chapters for my fantasy novel this week and it's caused some ire among readers.

Up until the newest releases, the main character has been benelovent, but, they have been mentioned several times previously as having done horrible things in the past by other characters.

These newest chapters dictate this character doing something awful and the fallout from it, after being backed into a figurative corner.

Reactions have been mixed, and a vocal majority are quite upset and I'm wondering how I should best proceed from here regarding their feelings.

I don't want to upset anyone further or alienate current or future readers from other projects.

[Ty LaRocque]

Are they upset because of the actions of MC or that it seemed out of left field because the foreshadowing wasn't strong enough?

[Lisa]

You don’t. Sounds like you’re posting episodically on a free platform. You get notifications when people leave comments with the option to respond, correct? In that case, you just say “thank you for your feedback” or you can choose to not respond at all.

Not everyone is going to like your story and the story you want to tell may not be the story that some others want to read. There is no way you will please everyone. You have to come to terms with that and accept that as the reality.

That said, having a character seem like they had a personality transplant after you mostly built him up to be benevolent (despite what he may have done in his past) can be jarring. It may feel inauthentic, unnatural and contrived to the reader - - their actions feeling unjustified, nonsensical, put there for the just sake of the plot you have in mind . It may render the character unlikable at that point. All things which may cause a reader to give up on a story.

So this is something you may want to consider, and maybe make it more clear that this character’s horrible actions are not so in the past in the first chapters. Maybe make it evident by getting into his head space earlier on that he isn’t all that benevolent in thought or make his current actions feel more justified or tone down his actions to be more like the punishment fits the crime, so to speak- depending on how you want readers to view the character.

Don't miss: How do you all get over writers anxiety?

[A.M.Standish]

How do you handle upset readers? You don’t, they are possibly not your readers. Stay the course and write your story.

[Adele]

They can get glad in the same pants they got mad in. Unless you’ve written something that is offensive to a specific group, it’s your story and you’re the one who gets to decide what the plot is.

Can you imagine if every author changed their plot based on the whims of other people? Nothing would get written.

Explore these too: Do you give your beta readers a due date?

[Michele]

I think you should write YOUR story how YOU what it to be.

[Julio]

Tell your story, not theirs.