When I started out in writing I just wanted to tell a great story about a biblical event. I thought it would simply be so cool to just tell what I thought was a fascinating story from the Bible. Enter the troller
One of the things that I’ve tried to do was build alliances with others. Find others in my field and pick their brains, learn from them, and maybe even give back something useful to them. I had hoped I had found such a person in this woman whom I met on LinkedIn. A creative writing major who loved writing and was a professed Christian; I dialogued with her for several weeks. We even had one phone call. I gave her an unedited draft of about 2 maybe 3 chapters of my novel. She gave me some good feedback. Later she engaged in some Facebook behavior that was simply problematic for me. Behavior which I asked her to discontinue and talked with her at length about before I discontinued communication. It was after this (I think I honestly knew before) that I had stumbled upon a very opinionated, person who by her own admission enjoyed arguing with people
Eventually she made a remark, about a friend of mine that I really did not care for, and I decided… that was it, the relationship needed to end. I blocked them on Facebook, discontinued email communication and explained to them why I was doing it. This occurred back in the summer of 2013. All was silent until Feb of this year when my book was released. After the reviews came in, this person decided to make comments on seven of them. As of the 18th of May the troller has placed 2 more additional comments. Now keep in mind she has no book review herself. She’s just piggybacking on others reviews. (She seems to be checking in occasionally to see what’s being said, and choosing after months to still make comments.) She selectively finds the weakest reviews and emphasizes in her comments the least favorable elements of that review.
So after thinking about all this I have to confess that I’m amazed (and concerned on some levels) that a person can be so infatuated with you that they feel the internal need to do such a thing. I mean what motivates such behavior? I didn’t spurn this woman romantically that was not an issue. At least not for me. (No telling what this woman was thinking.) So I see these comments on my amazon page. Go take a look here. Tell me…what would you do?
Questions
1. When and if should an author (or anyone I suppose) respond to trolling behavior?
2. Has this ever happened to you?
3. What makes a person behave towards someone whom they have never met personally.
Hey help an author out by buying my book and leaving a review. I figure the best way to shut a troller up is by success!
click here to check out the reviews.
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