Comments on: How to deal with Criticism

By: Jordan Lapp

Jordan Lapp — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 06:22:38 +0000

Yeah. I’m not above rewriting when I see the need. I had a story at Baen’s Bar go through like 7 rewrites, and every one made it a better story.

By: outofafrica

outofafrica — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 12:57:27 +0000

But being an intellectual bully is so much fun!
On the other hand, my first (and as yet only) poem got published after I did a key edit in response to a particularly bitchy and harsh criticism in a public forum.

By: jordan

jordan — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 14:52:09 +0000

Or worse, they’ll telling you how to write your story according to a set of rules they only poorly understand

By: Oz Whiston

Oz Whiston — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:33:45 +0000

Addressing every comment made is suicide for a story. It creates a story written by committee.

But yes, I think when you use a workshop, developing the skill to sift wheat from chaff is what you’re doing. And you do have to remember that most other writers giving you an opinion are telling you how THEY would write your story.

The real trick is identifying the rare person who is trying to see how YOU want to write the story and offering advice to help you get there.

I actually found one of those and it’s like night and day to other critiques.

By: jordan

jordan — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 01:05:22 +0000

Hi Oz,

It just goes to show you that you can’t please everyone all the time. I’ve seen writers do contortions to try and address every last crit on their work.

I think judging which crits are worthwhile and which are tripe is a real skill worth developing!

By: jordan

jordan — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 00:58:09 +0000

Jason,

Sometimes, if I see someone making an ignorant comment, I’ll seek out some of their writing. Usually, it’s piss poor, but sometimes it’s great. That’s when I give their comment a second look.

By: jordan

jordan — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 00:56:27 +0000

Thanks Silvia, I certainly agree that conquistadors were conquerors first and gentlemen a distant, distance fortieth.

But yeah, pointing that out might have released some endorphins in the ol’ brainstem, but it probably wouldn’t have impressed the editors.

By: jordan

jordan — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 00:54:45 +0000

Hi Richard, the guy wasn’t an editor, just another writer. I find that crits by writers are of uneven value. If they, themselves, are good, they’re probably right. But I’ve gotten some poor advice from writers who didn’t know what they were doing.

By: Oz Whiston

Oz Whiston — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 23:23:19 +0000

You did the right thing. You did pretty much the only thing. Twits are twits. It would be difficult to know if they said anything that was useful.

I once listened to a room full of people tell me what I needed to study about fairies when it was clear to me that 80% of the room had almost no background in fantasy literature or fairies. But hey, they knew who was currently a hot writer that wrote about fairies and I obviously needed to copy that person.

And I kept my mouth shut and thanked them.

None of them had hit what was really wrong with the story I submitted. Someone else was able to tell me that. They all knew something was wrong and they were trying to help me. But they were all dead wrong about what it was. I had made basic storytelling mistakes, not mistakes about fairies.

Just a thought. But yes, Lady Irony snorted coffee out of her nose. No doubt about it. You have my complete sympathy.

By: Jason

Jason — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 17:39:23 +0000

My sincere congrats on holding your tongue and temper, Jordan. It’s something I have to consciously make myself do sometimes.

Richard has it right, too – often it is not worth my already very limited time to address an ignorant comment. I will, however, take the time to note where that comment came from and henceforth appropriately value that source’s further words.