Thriller writer Robyn Harding's latest weighs the pitfalls of responding to one-star reviews
The Vancouver-based author spoke to Antonio Michael Downing on The Next Chapter about her new novel The Haters
After writing 13 novels, Robyn Harding knows what it feels like to get every kind of review from one to five stars. In her latest thriller, The Haters, a bad review turns into a horrifying case as an author becomes the target of a disgruntled reader set on ruining her reputation.
Harding is a crime and thriller writer based in Vancouver. She has published 13 novels including The Perfect Family, The Drowning Woman and The Party, which was a finalist for the Arthur Ellis Award.
The Haters follows writer and teacher Camryn Lane as she publishes her first novel after years of effort. When suddenly she receives an unnerving anonymous message, her dream turns into a nightmare. Camryn is bombarded with bad and accusatory reviews online. As the harassment begins to seep into her personal life, Camryn is determined to find the culprit. In this psychological thriller about the dark corners of the Internet, Camryn falls further into a path of deadly consequences.
On The Next Chapter with Antonio Michael Downing Harding spoke about writing this nightmare into fiction as well as the challenges she has faced after over 20 years as a writer.
How close to your own worst nightmare was publishing this book for you?
This was literally my worst nightmare as a writer. I felt so vulnerable putting this book out. This is my 13th novel and I thought, "I've got the hang of this. I know what to expect."
Then writing about something so personal, so disturbing and so scary — I had a stressful [publishing] month, I would say. When it first came out in the world I thought, "Am I just giving people a blueprint on how to destroy me if they don't like my book?" It was terrifying.
Looking back to 2004, when you published your debut novel, The Journal of Mortifying Moments, how did your first novel experience compared to Camryn Lane's?
Well, this was before the Internet, before social media, before Amazon, before Goodreads, so I was fully unprepared as a writer for what that would feel like. I was publishing into a vacuum and I didn't know how people liked my book, no one was able to tell me.
Then a few books later, suddenly you're bombarded with feedback and it took me a long time to thicken my skin and understand that I don't have to take everything personally, to realize that people are very comfortable in today's world spewing negativity and criticism.
It's just the world we live in now.
People are very comfortable in today's world spewing negativity and criticism. It's just the world we live in now.- Robyn Harding
Sally Rooney, I recently heard, doesn't read any criticism or reviews at all and then some people want to feel all the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. So where are you on that spectrum?
I'm somewhere in the middle, I guess. So when a book first comes out I check religiously because I'm just getting the lay of the land. I'm just making sure there's not something that is really triggering people or they really hate; then it hits critical mass and I stop so I don't look.
Once a book is out in the world, I feel like there's really no value to me reading what people like and don't like. Other people consider it constructive but by the time a book gets to readers, it's been through your agent and your editor and your beta readers and it's done.
That work is done. I feel like all it does is really hurt my feelings if I read reviews. And they're not for me, right? They're for other readers.
You've actually woven chapters of Camryn's novel into your own. What did the chapters of Camryn's Burnt Orchid bring to The Haters?
That was a really fun challenge for me. I usually write multiple points of view and so this was just Camryn's story and it felt important to me that it was just her perspective on what is happening to her. But I felt like it needed more depth and I also wanted readers to be able to decide for themselves if what Camryn is being accused of, if there's any veracity to that.
So by putting the chapters of Burnt Orchid in there, I thought that readers could make that decision for themselves because it is a story about teenagers on the streets in dire straits and doing terrible things. But it was such an interesting challenge because I was trying to write in such a different voice.
The Haters is written by Robyn Harding, but Burnt Orchid is written by Camryn Lane so I was putting on a completely different mindset and a different hat when I was writing that and trying to shift into a whole different voice.
How enjoyable was it to write about your hometown, Vancouver?
I had been asking for years to set a book here and my former editor that I'm no longer with would not allow it. My book deal is in New York, and she was like, "American readers won't be able to relate to it." And I was like, "Oh my God, give them some credit!"
Vancouver is such a perfect metaphor for this story.- Robyn Harding
So I asked my new editor and she had no problem with it and some books do benefit from perhaps a bigger city, sometimes Vancouver isn't the right setting. But for this book, it was so perfect because the story is so universal it could happen anywhere. I also thought Vancouver is such a perfect metaphor for this story because The Haters is about a woman whose dream has come true and all she sees is the beautiful, shiny side of being a published author and how glamourous and wonderful it will be to have her dream come true and then there's this really dark, terrible underbelly to that experience. I thought, 'That's kind of like my city!'
It's stunning, the sky is blue and the mountains are gorgeous — the trees and the greenery. And then we have a lot of problems in the city with addiction, mental health, affordability and so on. I felt like it actually mirrored Camryn's experience really well.
Normally, I would ask what do you want readers to take away from your book but considering the subject, what do you hope reviewers can take away from your story?
I would never ask reviewers to change their behaviour and everyone has a right to their opinion and I think I'm very clear in the book that I'm not saying, "Don't say anything mean in a review," because everyone's entitled to their feelings. And I don't think this is very common anymore but don't reach out to someone: a writer, a journalist, a business owner to say something horrible. If you don't like something, go ahead, leave a review. But I think it's that personal [line of] trying to contact someone to make them feel horrible, it's too much.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
