A word about Authors and Critics · 9:55pm Apr 4th, 2017
(I kinda just want to have 45 blogs, so if you're not interested in my ramblings ignore this.)
I often find myself walking in two worlds on this site. I am an author. I write stories and send them out in to the public in the hopes entertaining people. This means that I both invite and deserve criticism. If I merely wrote for my own enjoyment I would just type into a word document and maybe share it amongst some close friends.
I am also a critic. I've written about this before, but the short version I believe that if you implicitly solicit my opinion then I absolutely have the right to share it, even though it may not be what you hoping to hear.
Lately I've been wrestling with just what the implications of that mean. Peruse enough stories and you're guaranteed to come across some form the archetype debate:
Here's what's wrong with your story
Who the fuck are you to tell me what's wrong with my story.
I understand both of these positions.
I've received criticism, very often it is phrased as fact: "You need to..." "This doesn't work because..." and while I understand that this is simply the most convenient way to express an opinion, I'd be lying if I said that my first thought often wasn't, "Who the fuck are you?" I've written more than a few stories, received a small measure of acclaim etc. So if I don't recognize your name you'd better believe that I'm going to wonder where you derive any authority to suggest I'm wrong.
But at the risk of outing myself as a hypocrite I freely admit to leaving the same type of comments on other people's stories.
Good news: this isn't a rant in either direction. If you leave me any critiques I will consider them, I may disagree with them, but I won't dismiss them. Because I understand what you're doing. My first impulse is often just that, knee jerk. We have to be better than our base instincts.
And if you're an author whom I've left advice for. Just know that I type my opinions as declarations, not because I'm claiming authority, but because it's fewer words.
It happens to all of us from time to time (heck, even when I'm begging for writing advise my first instinct in the rare blue moon that I actually get it is to do just that -- then I smack my self in the face and try to address it
)
You're not wrong to feel this way. I went through it a LOT in one of my stories..... for as you recall, there was one particular reader... we both ended up saying "okay seriously you're taking this wayyyy to far" to.
What was even less funny was that in one of my stories, one of the fimfiction Story Approvers (who I shall not mention because we've basically worked it out though I got uber-annoyed, twice) basically kept telling me to turn my dark adventure back into a slice of life.