Jash's Writing Tips: How to Take Criticism

Not every person you talk to about your work will like it. And, hey, they don't have to. Part of what makes the world of fiction so awesome is how varied it can be. All the opinions and styles that fill the vast fictional landscape help make it the way it is today.

So you will receive negative constructive criticism at times and that's a good thing. That tells you that people care about your work and know you can do better.

Since dealing with criticism is an important part of being a writer, I'll be talking about that today.

The Need of Criticism
As I said in the intro of this post, constructive criticism is a good thing. It is beyond important if you wish to improve as a writer. While we can be our own worst critic, it's also true that sometimes we'll overlook obvious flaws. So another person sometimes needs to step in so we can see where we actually are.

Criticism can be highly positive like I got for Inbetween: The Darkening and sometimes it can show that the message I wanted to get across wasn't clear like many of my one-shots. In all cases, the criticism that I receive helps me improve so that people can understand me.

Now not all criticism will be positive as not everyone will like what you write. People vary in how much they connect fiction to real life. Some people, like myself, have a clear line between the two. Well, not always clear but a knowledge that fiction is fiction and so you can do things in it that you couldn't ever do in real life. In my opinion, fiction is a place where you can explore forbidden/dark desires with no consequence.

So if you have a person who views fiction in a different way than that, they'll of course be more keen to point out how something in your writing wouldn't be okay in real life. I ship incest pairings while I don't support those, at all, in real life. But someone who views fiction and reality as being nearly the same might hound me about how I support incest in real life.

No matter the criticism, make sure you have your own points of view and aren't just changing out of fear or a need to belong. I'm not saying I'll always agree with you, but it's better to be honest so that your readers can trust you.

Besides, there's always a group of people that will like what you're doing.

Telling Who is a Troll
There are people out there whose sole purpose is to irritate you and get a reaction. These people won't be swayed by any arguments you give them as all they want is attention. They just want to get people riled up and nothing else. These people are called trolls and you shouldn't listen to any criticism they give you.

This can sometimes be tough as people might really loathe your work but not be trolls. They might give you scathing reviews and yet still not be trolls.

THIS review by LDF is not a troll while THIS review by red tail fury is. I admit that those are two very obvious instances of where you can clearly tell which one is which. The latter one is very angry with no sense of an actual critique. Just "how dare you make the characters like this". New Beginnings and Second Chances was very clearly marked as a slash (aka gay) fic so the person could've just avoided it if that wasn't their cup of tea.

People enjoy things that others don't and that's okay. But if you know something makes someone happy, and is harmless, you don't complain about you not liking it in certain spaces. Well, unless you're a troll.

But sometimes the trolls might not be obvious and you'll find yourself accidentally engaging with one. I have a "shoot first and ask questions later" (aka delete comments and so ignore them) way of dealing with them which does work for the most part.

A good way to recognize them is if they appear a little too angry and confrontational. I admit that it takes practice to recognize trolls as they can be sneaky little bastards at times.

Responding to Negative Criticism

Now a normal reaction to have when someone says you aren't really that good, is to get angry at them. To think that they just don't understand your genius. Hell, you get the 'right' people to like your work and they'll defend you. I've seen people go on the offensive and tell people the person who doesn't like said thing is just jealous.

I have seen this done to critics of the Twilight series. Am I jealous of all the money Stephenie Meyer made off those books? Yes. Am I jealous of her writing talent? No.

But it isn't good to start tearing down your critics first thing as feedback is beyond important to improvement. Not everyone will like what you do and that's okay. When I write I write for myself and am beyond shocked at people actually paying attention to me. When I get enough feedback from people I know enjoy my work, I start taking that into consideration when working on a project.

When someone doesn't like your work you must remember what the purpose of your writing is. What message you want to get out, the reaction you want, ect. So when you look at the negative criticism you can see if they're complaining about something you actually got wrong.

Such as some people on tumblr complaining about how some of my one-shots are rapey. Of course this could just be tumblr being tumblr aka let's misread things so we can find them offensive. But the point is that people were reacting to something I hadn't intended my one-shots to portray.

Hell, rape is the only thing I says 'triggers' me.

However, some people have criticized my grammar. I admit I don't always go for the textbook version of grammar, but I am always able to defend my choices without resorting to 'I'm special' or 'Something bad happened to me' first thing and not explaining myself without further questioning.

The grammar criticism is one of those instances where I don't correct myself as I had done what I had intended to do.
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