Have you ever been so backed up on reviews because you can’t seem to get your thoughts together about what you want to write? This happens to me fairly often. I get in these slumps where I will sit and look at that blank white area thinking about a book I just finished reading and cannot think of anything remotely review-ish that I want to say about it. In the past, this kind of review writing slump would just overwhelm me and I would simply stop writing for a while but I did finally manage to find a few tools to pull myself through it and I thought I’d share those with you.
1. Talk about the book with a friend – Call up a friend and discuss it. This usually helps me start thinking about the book instead of the review. I remember the first time I did this, a friend messaged me on Facebook and asked me what I thought of a certain book. I messaged her back a few of my thoughts and she asked me a couple more questions. By the end of the conversation, I basically had my review.
2. Take a voice recorder somewhere relaxing and talk to yourself. – This may sound a bit crazy, but it works. I swear. The first time I did this, I was writing a review for Unwind and I had SO many opinions about it that I couldn’t put them together coherently. The place I relax is in my bathtub, so I took a nice hot bubble bath and discussed Unwind with myself for the better part of an hour. Afterward, I listened to what I said and wrote down what I wanted to use.
3. Find a review template online that asks questions – I found this out because I had printed a few of these templates off for my son who is just learning to write book reviews and book reports. Apparently they don’t even do this in school anymore!! It’s all AR tests! But that’s a whole different topic. Anyway, I grabbed one of his templates and started just answering some of the questions and I found that once I started writing about the book, the rest of my review was a lot easier to write.
This is the template I have my 11 year old use for writing reviews of the books he reads. http://abettermedaybyday.com/2012/10/03/free-simple-book-review-outline-form/
4. Walk away from it for a while. – Sometimes forcing it just isn’t going to happen and anyone can get a bit burnt out. So take a break. Rate the books that you’re reading and jot down a few notes. In a few days, try it again. I found that if I let the slump last longer than a few days though, the book just doesn’t get reviewed at all.
5. Visit some blogs and comment on reviews. – Reading other people’s reviews and discussing books with them can inspire me to start writing. OR they can make things worse because I’ll start thinking that they are so much more eloquently written than any drivel I could come up with. But again, that’s a whole different topic!
What do you do when you find yourself in a review writing slump? If you have some other tips, please share them! Also, check out Fiction Conniption's Let's Discuss for some other awesome bookish discussions & link up your own.
