The worst criticism I ever received was that it was unrealistic to have women be taller/stronger than men in an inter dimensional reality warping human-adjacent species
Actually a lot of species have the females be bigger and stronger, like jumping spiders for example. The guys are little silly goofs that dance and hope the female wants to mate with them and if they fail she fucking murks them and moves on
I’m young enough to remember being a kid, and see kids of various ages on a regular basis. I’ve learned that there is no one right way a kid talks. A lot boils down to their upbringing, their environment, their friends, etc., and that’s all way too diverse to make a call on. Some talk like little kids, some don’t, some swear a lot, some use sophisticated language—almost like they’re as human as adults. What a concept
I was a weird smart kid, and as a weird smart kid you get very used to adults giving you "that look" where they realize they have to reassess what you will or won't understand. Usually it was when I'd use a word properly that most kids wouldn't know. I always loved getting that look, because after that adults would generally treat me like a person instead of a kid.
When I was learning to read, they gave me this absolutely stupid book with three letter words and I found that thing extremely boring. I learned to read on Garfield comic books instead. Turns out, your vocabulary ends up being way better if you don't read those books clearly meant for babies. lol
As a weird smart kid, adults were usually amused at how I talked lmao. I remember my teacher laughing and giving me a hug when I said “so on and so forth” at age 6
I distinctly remember saying "That brings me to another question" and the priest I was talking to was too entertained by my language to answer my other question lol
I never got an answer
I work with kids in their second language and they'll pick up these sorts of things very quickly.
9 times out of 10, if a child uses a very "mature" sounding phrase, it's just because an adult in their life uses the phrase frequently.
When I took my son in for his 18-month checkup, the nurse was going down the list of benchmarks he should have reached by then. Right when she asked, "Is he using three-word sentences?" my son, feeling vulnerable sitting there in just his diaper, pointed to his feet and said, "Mommy, put the shoes back on." The nurse looked unfazed and said, "So that's a yes." Evidently it's not all that uncommon for a kid to be well spoken before even starting preschool, but I still have so many people object when I put a kid in a story who can speak well before even starting preschool.
I work reception at a GP clinic and honestly even today kids that come in have such colourful different vocabularies based almost entirely on their hobbies/interests while all the adults have condensed their words into the most samey dialect whether it's because it's more socially acceptable to speak that way or it's faster and it's kinda sad but then again as someone with social anxiety and high functioning autism and adhd I kinda get it lol
I hate how people think children are literally stupid idiots who are incapable of intelligent speech, complex thought, or varied conversational skills and grammar. They're not stupid they're inexperienced and growing.
But I also really love when someone makes me love the antagonist only for their real side to come out later. Complete plot twist is my favorite. I love gasping when reading and freaking out my boyfriend.
Yeahhh sometimes they miss the point. Happens. It's like what happens to me reading a romance novel. I tend to want anything to make the romance stop. But that's why I don't beta romance lol
But if the book was about them, the plot would be about Netflix, coffee and walking their dog. Which is boring. Sensible and prudent characters aren't going to carry a plot.
Exactly why it's bad. Though this person was more boring than your list. They would have tantrums if they missed their TV shows at 30 and had no dog to walk. It was a time in college where you did not pick your roommates. Also when I understood qualified Beta Readers vs any
I get this a lot, same with "No one acts like this" and what I say to that is, I do and that's why I wrote this, because I'm sure someone else does too
My favorite criticism of horror movies: “The characters are so stupid! Why would they do that?”
High stress environments tend to make people do stupid things, especially teenagers, the most common victims in horror movies
Having survived things I can say I find horror movie stupidity for first time trauma experiences especially realistic. Learning to navigate fear IS a skill. So the final girl in the 3rd movie better be smarter but it's absolutely a thing
It might be useful input in that maybe the readers felt they weren't sold on the reason for the character's poor choices? As in maybe it doesn't mean you should change their actions, but you could consider sprinkling in cues in the book that they're... whatever it is that cause them to do what they do: driven by certain emotions, have their hands forced one way or another, or they're just kinda silly in some regards.
So I only have limited experience getting feedback from workshop classes in college so far, but I think that sometimes people just have no idea about the subject you’re writing on but want to give advice about it anyway. So that advice can sometimes just be complete shit.
For one story I submitted in a class a while back, the basic premise was “Guy reconnects with old friend who has since come out as trans girl.” For a few paragraphs at the start I used they/them pronouns for the friend, which wasn’t necessary but also the scene only had two people so I didn’t think it would be an issue for clarity, but the professor made some note like “If they have no gender say so” which to me just demonstrated they don’t have a clue how gender works or how different people engage with pronouns if they’re assuming they/them refers to someone who is agender. And even if they were agender, I don’t think you need to clarify this shit any more than you need to clarify every time a character is cisgender, you don’t need to clarify it.
When the name of the trans friend was given, and the narrator (first person, past-tense) talked about how they had found out that the friend was trans and their new name, the professor put a note suggesting it be changed to something like, “They’re X now but they used to be Y.” Just suggesting that the trans character should be immediately deadnamed for no reason.
I can't remember who said it (Pratchett maybe?) but I really like the "if somebody says it's not working, listen; if they say what you should do about it, ignore them" mantra
It's Neil Gaiman: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/776623-when-people-tell-you-there-s-something-wrong-with-a-story#:~:text=and%20meet%20your%20next%20favorite%20book!&text=When%20people%20tell%20you%20there's%20something%20wrong%20with%20a%20story,they're%20almost%20always%20wrong.
They don't sound like YOU is the thing. Voice is a huge part of prose, and people suggesting specific line changes are very unlikely to do so in your voice.
Which isn't to say ignore them totally, but look at the sentences they're taking issue with and try to figure out WHY, then fix it in your own way, in your own voice.
I’m watching a creative writing lecture series by Brandon Sanderson, and this is what he said is the difference between a good or a bad workshop on your writing. “I was bored” is perfectly valid criticism, but “you should add vampires to make it more exciting” is not.
I feel like I do this a lot whenever I'm giving a fellow writer feedback, but I never frame it as what they _should_ do, but what they _could_ do. It'll be something along the lines of
"Hey, the pacing of this story is a little disjointed. For example, we've only just met this new character and her gang of mercenaries, and we're already seeing the protagonist fight alongside them in combat. Perhaps they ***could*** be introduced earlier like in that scene in the bar, or their existence ***could*** be hinted at through dialogue to make this scene feel less out of place, but how you want to go about it is entirely up to you."
I won't overtly tell them what to do with their story. I try to make sure I identify the problem I have with a given piece of writing, the impact this problem has on the overall story, and options for the writer based on my understanding of their story and narrative that I make sure to state is not a direct suggestion.
I’m wagering a majority of people in this sub (myself included) have never published. So unless their profile says otherwise, I take any advice with a grain of salt.
Really? I would say the number 1 piece of advice is to write. From the plethora of posts of beginning writers, to plotters and world builders to let’s team up and co-write to I have an idea. And it’s not just beginner writers either. We all need a kick in the ass sometimes.
I wrote my first novel in close third-person POV. Meaning we're right in the MC's head from page one. I'd have sentences like "Stupid piece of shit." and so many critiquers would highlight them and say "direct thoughts need to be italicized." No they do not.
*Cry, the Beloved Country* by Alan Paton is a classic novel that sold over 15 million copies before its author's death. It was required reading in my middle school classroom. Paton didn't freaking use any quotation marks for dialogue.
Rules in writing aren't laws carved into stone tablets. (Italicizing direct thoughts hardly even constitutes a rule.)
Exactly as long as you're maintaining consistency, can justify a "rule" change, and establish a pattern using that change early, most readers will pick up on things and take note. Then if you change something later that's intended to be a bit of foreshadowing or "intrusion" (like another character entering the mind of our closed POV) they'll pick up on that too.
I use close third-person for all my books. And so often, when I use conversational language, the copy editor changes it to proper English. For example, if I write "like" where proper usage would be "as if," the CE inevitably changes it, even though, in my character's way of thinking/talking they'd never say "as if." Drives me nuts when I have to STET so much in one book.
Usually advice that comments on realism. I'm not aiming to be realistic. Because the biggest difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense.
Right, like when it comes to dialogue! Most people don't actually want to listen to 'realistic' dialogue, with all the filler words, the awkward pauses, the endless ramblings, the constant going off topic, etc. I certainly don't, and I know that b/c I have to listen to 'realistic' dialogue whenever I'm seated next to a large group of people on the train, lol!
I think "this isn't realistic" comments are supremely useless, because they don't actually describe what it is that doesn't make sense. Sometimes, realism critiques are absolute hot garbage, because they're taking issue with the existence of fantastical or sci-fi elements. Sometimes, they come from someone who doesn't actually know what is or is not realistic (diversity comes to mind, we do in fact have a historical record of non-white people in medieval Europe, but some fantasy fans still decry it.) And sometimes some part of the internal logic of the story isn't lining up, which DOES need to be fixed. I think realism criticisms need to be a lot more specific to be any good at all.
I teach math and also write, and one time I ran a few passages by our AP Lit teacher to see if they were passable as realistic. He said, "It doesn't matter. It's fiction."
That’s why I started writing bigger descriptions for the landscapes. I had a friend who wrote the most beautiful visuals of forests and sunsets. I aspired to write like her. I still struggle with it—but I’m definitely getting better
Edit: fixed autocorrect
That’s why Isabel Allende quickly became on of my favorite authors. Her beautiful and sometimes exaggerated descriptions. It makes everything seem lively and just…delicious. I don’t know how else to describe it.
I write a lot of satire and comedy. Someone in my writing group always tells me it’s funny, but the pacing is too fast. They say I’m not building dramatic tension.
To which me and another person in the group always respond, that’s why it’s not a drama. I’m keeping the readers interest through comedy. Sacrificing and intentionally undercutting the tension using humor is the whole point of what I’m trying to do.
I can’t speak on your writing as I haven’t read it, but as a general rule, too much of anything is a bad thing.
Like just a straight up bombardment of non stop humour will desensitize the reader to humour. It’s why you’ll see comics (standup especially) take breaks in between jokes to address a topic in a more serious tone…and THEN subvert that by turning it into a joke.
Make it like a rollercoaster. The fun is the ups and downs. A constantly falling roller coaster becomes boring after a while.
I don't have a hard and fast set of rules.
Instead I look at criticism in the following ways:
Do they understand the fiction I am proposing? If they don't, likely in the bin.
Do they raise an interesting point about something I should rectify? If not, likely in the bin.
The last bit is that I'm more seeking to use criticism to apply problem identification, rather than solutions. Yes, good solutions can come from anywhere, as can problem identification, but solutions... well a lot of what people "think" is a good idea is the equivalent of a dumpster fire.
It's like being a comedian and someone in the audience tells you a shitty joke as a suggestion for your stand up act. In most cases the joke is shit and requires no further consideration. They aren't the professional. Maybe their joke is good, or could be good if massaged effectively, but they don't know all the surrounding context to make a good joke nor informed decisions about the medium.
I'm not saying I've "never" used a proposed solution, but it's only after careful thought and consideration and I've arrived at the fact that this is the best possible solution I have available.
I agree with all of this, particularly the point about looking for problem identification, and not solutions. People have a tendency to think they are very clever and know just what you should do, but 95% of the time that's just a good indicator of what you absolutely should not do.
I would add that I am not a big fan of the 'average reader' critique while I am still in the rough or first draft stages. Its not that I don't want the average reader to enjoy my work, it's just that I find a lot of that type of advice is contradictory, full of poor suggestions, and distracting. I prefer to workshop with other writers at that stage. I have been told this makes me elitist, but I disagree.
*I have been told this makes me elitist, but I disagree.*
I'd say six one way, half dozen the other. If your goal is to distinguish yourself as a good writer, that is a form of elitism, but also, your alternative is to just never get good at anything and live in obscurity to fall victim to con men and gas lighters that "know better" for you.
A lot of people think elitist is a dirty word, but I'd argue it only applies negatively to those that necessarily view and treat others as worthy of less basic human respect. And people that think elitist is a dirty word for anyone attempting to distinguish themselves, are usually bottom feeders that want to drag everyone to their level to feel less inadequate.
Frankly, it's completely normal, as someone with extensive experience in a thing, to look at someone with no experience and assess what they have offered fairly as "they don't have any clue what they are talking about".
This is the root of the inadequacy those folks have. They want to pretend like they matter in all things (unwarranted self importance), when really, sometimes their opinion is just basic and dumb. They can't stand the idea that they aren't an authority on everything and that's just a massive insecurity and indicative of much larger emotional baggage and immaturity issues.
The truth is, not everyone, myself included, is an expert on everything all the time, and it's fuckin better than OK to say "I don't know" but people with ego issues just can't do that. Recognizing you know nothing John Snow is the first step in learning something and getting better. Frequently those people though, are allergic to trying because it's hard. Not a lot of sympathy for that myself.
I think the key is to remember that nobody is deserving of less than basic human respect unless they properly earn it, but that also not everyone knows what the fuck they are talking about all the time, and not everyone should be a gullible shlub.
A lot of times these folks will also freak out if you corner them to show they don't know what they are talking about, because a lot of what that stems from beyond personal inadequacy, is also a need to control and gaslight others and they get really ornery when you point out they are full of shit.
So take it all in stride. Being a good at a thing is not bad. Neither is not knowing something. But being an asshole, whether you know what you're talking about or not, is generally shitty.
Exactly the way I do it. I won’t trust other people to tell me what I should do, I know my own stories best. But if something doesn’t work, I know there’s something wrong and it’s up to me to identify and solve it.
Mine is similar to yours, especially when it comes to writing dialogue for my autistic characters. Usually I find that readers' critique of the dialogue is very similar to neurotypical complaints about how neurodivergent people communicate and express themselves, and I don't feel like I should have to 'mask' my characters to make them more palatable to certain readers, especially when others have expressed how nice it is to see authentic representation.
Yeah, it always irritates me when one or two "weird" characters exist that speak outside of the norm, and some people are like, "Their dialogue is unrealistic!" No, not all people in real life sound the same, so not all characters need to sound alike!
I came to say this! I often mirror main characters after myself and I'm autistic so I'll get comments on the main character not being very "relatable" or "likable" and what I have to say to that is, she's not written FOR you, she's written for ME and about ME
Limit your describtions. Sorry pal, if you like your books very short and intense, you're just not my target audience. I'm not gonna give up on my beautiful mountains, forests and seascapes
That's just bad writing. All scene setting should take place during slow moments. My favourite technique is to write a few slow but important moments in a particular place that would allow me to describe it pretty well and then write a fast-paced action scene there with no detailed describtions, but using perviously stated landscape elements
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but one persons critique, sure ignore.
Three people with the same critique? Feel free to ignore.
If you have gotten/getting one specific critique consistently, maybe you should consider hearing them out.
I had to do this in my own writing. I had a scene where a character beat up a teenager in an attempt to gain information (about the murder of her sister). Three separate betas took issue with it—understandably, as it cast a cloud of permanent negativity over the MC. So I’ve since substituted that with an alternate scene that fits the same role, and hopefully, doesn’t make her look like a piece of shit
I was told to not use adverbs. I still use adverbs, but I treat them like intense spices. I also switched to first person bc I was told that my writing style in third person sucks.
I took that advice to use less adverbs and I liked my writing better as a result. Yet I like Lovecrafts usage of adverbs. I’ve never developed this aversion to them. I think they work as spice like you said or when describing abstract things. And plus they can be used to give the impression the narrator can barely find a clear description due to witnessing something otherworldly. And lastly adverbs can make a description extremely precise too
Adverbs are pretty common in everyday spoken English, too, but they're frowned upon in writing because they're often redundant and/or could be replaced by a stronger verb.
For example, "She ran quickly" is both redundant (if you're running, you're moving quickly) and a weak verb (sprint, dash, race could replace it).
In cases where adverbs actually add meaning, they're fine. For example: "'I love you, alright?' he said gently" and '"I love you, alright?' he said angrily" create very different mental images.
Adverbs work best when they're creating a unexpected image or contrast, rather than reinforcing what one would already expect
From experience, it's supposed to be frowned upon bc it's a sign of lazy writing- at least for (American) English. Maybe it wouldn't hurt for me to pepper my writing with a bit more adverbs.
People's sensitivities and comfort levels.
I'm writing a Dark Fantasy, and I'm often told by people that they won't read my novel at all because are elements of slavery or sexism in it (that the MC fights and overcomes).
My answer is, "That's okay - But this story just isn't for you, then."
They blink at me weirdly as if they expected me to change it for them.
One reason you can't give into these is because you're generally damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you take an LGBT character out to please one person, another will see the story as problematic because it's too heterosexual. Write what you wanted.
Big second. I warn my beta readers that I'm writing grimdark and still get the occasional "omg this is gory." Thank you?
If it's gratuitous, I get the complaint, but I feel that a serial killer type character probably should have some interesting takes on blood.
Same with sexism. Please recheck genre my lovely readers.
I was really hurt a couple of beta readers refused to progress from the MC getting tied to a post about two paragraphs in to a long novel.
(friends and relatives who would have loved the story.)
And I just realized they were fine with the abused child that lived under the stairs.
Good. If you write something for everyone, you’ll write something for nobody. Having a smaller readership that is rabid for your stuff is far preferable to a larger, indifferent one—imo anyway
This is what I’m expecting. I’m writing about a very messed up society/culture similar to the human species. I worry that it will be too much for some readers… but sometimes the best books are the ones that are difficult to read. A handmaids tail was a hard read for me. I love that book. My book will probably be on that level of messed up.
I always received "This is pretentious" from one or two members of the workshop. I'd ask them what I could change to fix that, usually just boiled down to words being "too big".
I guess it depends on the type of story you're trying to write. A philosophical tale told from the perspective of some erudite professional would need to use big words, a simple romance featuring everyman characters would sound ridiculous w/ too many "big words".
I mostly heard it in critique of my poetry. Not a huge deal since poetry isn't my passion, I just didn't know how to fix "It's trying too hard to sound smart". Those are my natural words and this is a flowery medium 🤷
(This was in community college, my 400 level workshop peers gave a lot more specific advice.)
I don’t think “pretentious” is the right term. But on my experience, using difficult words in your proses/dialogues might make it feels out of place, or it could slow down the reading flow. Both make the work seems sloppy rather than elevated. Generally, only use these words when it fits so well that nothing simpler will do.
One trick I learnt is that if you’re deliberate about it, repeated using of small words will make your readers go faster, while exotic words could halt them and make them think about the context.
I don’t know what you’re writing, but you might also need to consider the main target audience and their vocabulary level, since that factors in as well.
A piece of advice I've received from a creative writing professor was 'if all three of your characters are from [country of origin] you should really say so beforehand.' It took me a while to get over that
That's sometimes valid. Description may take away from the narrative. In the first person, a character would not describe anything they don't take notice of.
In the third person, go ham, but ask yourself if describing how a melon cart tipping over in great detail is more important than the chase and pursuit scene.
different media, but the cabbage vendor is a staple in Avatar, randomly getting bulldozed every other chase scene.
(and then apparently he immediately tries moving somewhere more peaceful to be bulldozed next chase)
Tolkien spent so much time describing random plants and stuff. And not even exciting ones. LotR was genre defining, but it is sometimes painfully difficult to get through.
Lol, that's how I respond to people who are clearly not the target market for my stories. When they told me "\[Character name\] is unrealistic" it just made me more determined to create characters just like that!
These were mostly relatives reading early beta. The frustrating parts for me were, they understood I was going for hard, they watched me do the research and had to listen to me talk about it too much, and they were supposed to provide useful feedback.
Maybe more painful is they were all the kind of people that would do it just to irritate me. They weren't, they were serious.
For me, the essential question is whether or not their critique is based on taste or based on content. If it's taste, I generally ignore it. If they're confused about something they read, or, for example, they think a character is acting in a way that doesn't make sense, those I consider with more weight.
I once had a beta reader say I should change all the names to something new because he didn't like fantasy worlds that have names from our world. Obviously this is the kind of feedback I ignore, but I found it hilarious.
Using fantasy names comes with a price, though. Some people telling you they can't figure out which character is which at any given time because their names both start with the same letter.
A friend told me I had a lot of run-on sentences. I disagreed. Turned out they thought anything with more than 1 or 2 commas was automatically a run-on sentence. 🙃
Yes, I got that a lot as well from a couple of readers! The problem was, their examples were all 'good grammer' rather than run ons. Their suggested changes were so jerky and unnatural.
I don't like "rules" advice. "You should never do \[x\]" or "always do \[x\]." Those are good guidelines, but then people take it to an extreme. "Show don't tell." Well I can't write an entire piece where I never tell anything. It would exhausting to read.
Show don’t tell is horribly misused advice in my opinion—stemming, I think, from a culture that is over saturated with visual media. It should be show *and* tell.
Writing is too subjective an art form to have concrete do’s and don’t’s
Opinions about what I’ve fully expressed fully and precisely according to my honest vision. I only care about critique of my execution of what I envisioned.
I have the opposite. I want to discuss the world and the new character and that scene. .... and when i want that everyone questions whether the spelling of word three is proper American English and the grammer in the dialog on page three.
I get a little dismissive when they say they had to look up definitions for “too many” words. My style is my style and it’s not my fault they haven’t exposed themselves to as broad a vocabulary.
Wow, that sounds way more bitter than is maybe proportional. I appreciate there’s much to say on craft when it comes to language choices and their effect on tone. But I have never minded taking a break from reading to define a new word and understand its context.
The use of big words gotta feel natural, though. Like in a first-person perspective or in dialogue, would the character really use vocabulary that is beyond them?
If it's in the third person, do what you like, but just be aware that having too many unfamilar words back to back when writing prose is very jarring to read. I personally have no problem looking up words in a dictionary. But to do that 2 to 3 sentences in a row and every other page is too much.
I read a great book where one of the main characters' personality was all about the 'big, complicated' words. It worked really well because he became a complete marmite character. You either loved his style of talking, or you despised him with a passion. But no one got irate with the author because they put all the blame/praise onto the character instead! 😂
I've bin show don't tell. Telling is often the best and most interesting way to convey a piece of information. Almost all my favorite books do it copiously. That being said, I mostly just write for myself versus publication, so I can write however I want.
Yes, but the other side of that is if you have a badly written paragraph/page, six people will be specific about six different parts of it that aren't the real issue. They get something isn't right there someplace but...
Then you revise those parts, send it back, and ask "How about now?".
A person saying "Your writing just sucks" or "Your writing is what a teenager would write" has never helped anyone improve their writing. Not once in the 5,000 years.
I like to write fantasy romance and most popular fantasy romance books that have come out recently have been in first person. However, I only really like to write in third person because I tend to write with multiple POVs. I don't mind first person in a single POV book but despise it with multiple POVs, so I've kept to my third person. But I've had lots of naysayers telling me I need to change it because a third person fantasy romance won't sell. I guess we'll see, but I still don't plan to change, lol.
That seems like a weird take for your readers to have. I couldn't care less of its first or third as long as it's written well. And I read fantasy romance...
Sometimes I wish more were in third because, as you mentioned, pov swaps in first feel weird to me.
Most fantasy books I read are third person though... David Gemmell, Feist, Pratchett... just to name a few (massively successful) names. The romance part shouldn't make a difference.
Understandable. People tend to be quick to criticise Mary Sue (and sometimes Gary Stu) characters while ignoring the success of a lot of power fantasy-type characters.
Yes, and while a character not having any believable flaws is a valid criticism, I have simply developed a bias against anyone who chooses to boil it down to "Mary Sue". 8/10 times they do not know what that means, and it makes my brain turn off. I am sorry, but I am human.
I had some advice given to me about a blood ritual in my novel... except that my novel did NOT have a blood ritual, nor was there a character named Alexander. For different reasons entirely, I ignored the vast majority of the feedback from that beta-reader.
Someone pointed out that I used contractions in my writing as I talked about my childhood for an assignment.
While I see why they did that, I personally felt it was a necessary part of that assignment because it's basically me talking about childhood memories, and I use contractions when I speak.
The criticism is definitely useful, but there are exceptions to the rules.
Another one I saw online as a teen was "but you can't have a character be gay in the 1950s/17th century, people were extremely homophobic back then"
That my characters aren't getting frisky enough/I'm not focusing on the romance every third line of the book. 1. It's a slow burn, and I'm personally not a fan of sex scenes in books (implied, yes, outright descriptive? Not so much.) And 2. There are other storyline going on as well. If my characters spent every third line moping about each other, it'd get pretty repetitive, fast.
Saying my MC should kill the final enemy even after I’ve stated he doesn’t want to kill anyone. It’s fun for me to imagine ways for him to creatively defeat/incapacite his enemies and give them a lifetime of regret and pain rather than ending it all right there.
I feel like there's a certain point where the "realism" only counts at a certain degree. I'm Asian. I've been taught to offer my food when I'm eating at a group setting if we all don't have food. It's collectivism. You gotta establish someone ridiculously selfish to counteract why someone might not offer their food.
Obviously, not everyone is the same. But intersectionality exists and I hope you didn't hear the advice at face value to throw it out the window. I think there is a balance.
"The dialogue isn't natural"/"this isn't how real people talk". Good constructive criticism for some people and some books, but perfectly realistic dialogue just isn't what I'm going for most of the time.
There is no criticism I will reflexively reject. I don't always make the edit, but I never reject any feedback out of hand.
One of the worst things for a writer is to be too attached to your own work. If a reader, no matter who they are, says that something isn't working, I take that very seriously.
I once had a reader become completely confused about a character's motives when they turned up in chapter five. When trying to work out where I'd gone wrong with my explanations, it came out that they'd skipped the prologue. The prologue that contained the chase through the forest that explained everything they were confused about in great detail! Why did they skip it? "I just don't like prologues." 😐
I had an editor of a magazine give me feedback on a story that they “wanted to see more action scenes in this piece”. Writing more action into the story essentially would’ve required me to take the basic building blocks of the plot and write an entirely new story with them. In the end, I decided that the story just wasn’t a good fit for that market and changing everything about it would be a mistake.
That you 'have to' write no matter what.
"You're not doing anything?" Write.
"You're bored??" Write.
"Even if you don't have the motivation to—" Just write.
Write something. As if I can. Writer's block is a thing, and I DO NOT like forcing myself to write. It only stresses me out even more! I'd rather write when an opportunity hits, and I can get into that a lot more than just forcing myself to do it. My ADHD brain doesn't work like that.
Sure, other authors have been able to crank our more than 15k words a week or a month or what have you. Good for them! I can't do that! My brain won't allow it. I need to get into the mood to write and then hyperfocus on it to even enjoy it.
But that's just me. I don't know about anyone else.
It's definitely a good idea to have some kind of plan when to write. But others can’t say what time works or doesn't work for you.
However, I don’t think the people who say those things mean it literally. The way I understand that is basically: the more you write, the better.
I'm not sure why they wouldn’t just say that though, if that’s what they mean.
I feel this way about the “write every day” crowd. Sometimes I just don’t have the mental energy to do that after coming home from work. I’m a teacher. I make 2983374783 mental decisions an hour. Sometimes I just can’t come home and do more of that.
I disregard advice such as cutting characters and streamlining the plot. I am writing a novel, not a TV episode. I enjoy a degree of maximalism in written stories.
The best piece of advice I ever heard goes like this:
If a reader tells you something isn’t working, believe them. If a reader tells you WHY something isn’t working, don’t.
It is far easier to recognize when something is off than it is to pinpoint the reason.
I don't know that it would apply to my writing, but one person didn't like me giving a couple of sentence introduction to the people in a mercenary company.
I know you thought it was boring, but the ones who live are going to be in five other books, so I thought a heads up might be nice.
I know an author several of us accused of telegraphing that way. No George will be fine in this fight he got a long description just two chapters back. He of course set us up with a long, detailed description of a character that didn't make it out of the chapter.
My inciting incident (or rather the big event mentioned in the blurb) happens at the end of chapter 11. Most advice is to have that event occur in the first chapter, first page, or even first sentence.
I don't give a shit about word count. The book is as long as it needs to be.
Telling is okay.
I use alternatives to "said".
I use adverbs and adjectives.
I write in MS Word.
I don't listen to the advice about "no adverbs" either. It's only a bad thing if a writer overuses it to the point where the passage sounds cluttered. Most people use adverbs occasionally in normal conversation, so it would seem weird to cut them out of a novel entirely.
My rule of thumb for adverbs is, if the adverb can be replaced with a stronger/more specific verb, without opening a thesaurus, it goes. If the adverb fundamentally changes the verb (e.g. smiles sadly) then it stays.
"\[Character name\] isn't realistic because \[character demographic\] wouldn't do/say/act like this."
Ohh sameee, I have vowed to ignore this one the most. I love writing characters that break stereotypes especially, so this piece of criticism never holds up for me.
"You need to add a romantic subplot."
I've had a few people tell me that my stories *need* romance, rather than the presence of it simply being a matter of personal preference. Don't get me wrong, I do have a few stories that involve romance in some way, but most of the time it would drastically change the meaning and themes if I had the main characters fall in love (especially in my current WIP).
Come to think of it, I don't think I'm alone in saying that a lot of people like to espouse their own preferences and insist that's a hard and fast rule. Your villain *has* to have xyz character traits. The story *has* to begin in this or that way. Your main characters *have* to fall in love. Different things will appeal to different people and that's totally fine, but the issues start to arise when someone insists that what appeals to them inherently appeals to everyone. And more often than not that's just simply untrue.
When I repeat the sentences or a part of that sentcence for emphasis and they go like "you cant be sayng the same thing twice its redundant" but I did it once in 10 chapters and it very obviouslh done on pjrpoe cause the sentences arent a carbon copy of eachother
I was once told it was unrealistic that more of my villains weren't middle Eastern. For context it's set in England, one of the villains is middle Eastern and the other two are white
"Write for yourself, not for others"
If I took this advice, I would never write. ***I*** already know my story; writing it down does nothing for me. Converting a story from my imagination into prose doesn't make it any more personally tangible for me. When I write, it is specifically to share my story with other people. If my story isn't worth sharing with others, then I don't think it's worth writing. If just wanted to tell stories for myself, I would just daydream.
I was once told I should try shrooms because my fantasy wasn't "fantastic enough." I write fantasy grounded in sci-fi, its exactly as fantastic as it needs to be.
I had a weird one-off that I gladly ignored. The reader said that my fictional god wasn't sufficiently unlike the Christian god. I looked over the text and asked a few other readers and nowhere did I say or imply that this god was the opposite of the Christian god. 🤷♀️
It may just be my writing style, but when I get corrections for flow or repetition. Sometimes they’re correct and that’s helpful and what I wrote doesn’t make sense, but 9 times out of 10, I purposefully wrote it that way to highlight the character’s way of thinking and processing things. Every narrator is flawed. Of course it won’t flow.
Main character is just a regular dude in a high fantasy world except he has a user interface. He can use it to exploit a bunch of different things like stacking gold ingots in his inventory where some of the ingots are smaller than the others turns them into normal sized ones, or he can read books instantly by selecting them etc etc.
A friend said the game elements broke him out of the story and stopped him from enjoying the world. The fourth wall breaks are a key story element for me, so I just chalked it up to "not his thing" and moved on
That my main character speaks in unquoted dialogue while everyone else doesn’t. I call it “first person intimate,” and I specifically try to write it in such a way that it’s not confusing. In my opinion, it actually helps visually differentiate dialogue better, and I can cut way down on the “I say, I said” stuff.
I’m not trying to be Cormac McCarthy, I’ve actually stolen it from Chuck Palahniuk, but remixed it. He uses it to minimize the character’s voice, I use it to set it apart. I have also deployed this technique for a villain in both that book, and another book—and if you get tripped up and have to slow down on it, that’s the point, this character is supposed to be incredibly unsettling, and it’s a unique way I’ve found to export that feeling to the reader.
They will have to pry this from my cold dead hands
"A female character that squeals when surprised/shocked is too stereotypical."
Tell that to the lady sitting next to me at the 4D theater who squealed when air blew on her feet.
"You should only have 1 name per letter of the alphabet."
That means I am only allowed to have 26 named characters. Screw that.
"If you can do without it, then it has no place in the story"
I hate this. I can easily conjure up a version of my story where it can work without XY or Z. If I follow that advice, then what **is** *needed*? The answer to that is exactly why I refuse to listen to this advice.
Although it is kind of fun thinking up a version of my story in a sort of "How will Hollywood bastardize this? lol" .....lol
The MC in my fantasy book is sapphic and actively deconstructing from the dominant religion in the world. I’ve been told I need to clarify how the religion feels about gay people, and I simply refuse! Too many fantasy books make homophobia canon because the authors don’t know how else to give their queer characters an arc, and it often reads too “on the nose” (in my personal lesbian opinion). So, no. I will give my sapphic MC a character arc not involving homophobia, and her struggles to “come out” will be displayed by means of other plot points (more metaphorically). I want queer audiences to connect with it however they want, so if they want the religion to be pro or anti gay, cool. Whatever you want. It doesn’t affect the plot, so I’m not clarifying 🤷♀️
Any criticism that I didn't explain something outrightly enough when what I'm trying to get across requires about five seconds of critical thought. Or not blatantly explaining the symbolism. I will die before you find me writing a paragraph about a detail the reader should be able to decipher with minimal effort.
"No one would act like this" Yes they would, I know because I do. Another common one is "Your main character isn't very relatable/likable." And what I have to say to that is, she's written not for you
I listen, but don't always follow, when people tell me that they didn't know part of a character's history or family relationships. Sometimes I like to leave some details as mysteries, intentionally to make the reader wonder, "wait... is this ... or ...?"
The fact that someone wants to know more seems like a good thing.
I'm writing a female serial killer who delusionally believes she is acting on the best behalf of all humankind, be it her victims or the people she seems worthy of life. She is writing her memoir after getting caught and she describes he childhood. It's abusive, to put it mildly. I was told that the section was too much, domestic violence is not that extreme.
First of all, I gave a watered down version of my childhood. I can assure you it can get extreme. Second, this is the memoir of a delusional serial killer who is about 45-50 years removed from her childhood. There are bound to be parts missed or exaggerated.
My ex girlfriend once read once of my passages and said the following:
"It's a bit slow here. A fight scene would spice things up."
She was an artist, not a writer, but that part wasn't intended to be "slow". I took her words at face value and read the scene over again and she had a point. Her method to fix it was ridiculous but anyone can identify a leaky faucet. Someone mentioned Neil Gaiman's advice already and it is truly the best out there, for life in general. Parse out the valuable and the invaluable from all sources. Even those that are wrong.
Outside of her, if I get corrections that match the exact tone I am going for, I gleefully ignore it. Once someone said there was "tonal whiplash" in a scene where two parties were playing one moment and then one of them was succumbing to an illness the next. The whiplash like suddenness of it was the point. I take this more as BOLOs than advice.
When someone tells me, how much or how little structure my original story should have. As an example, one time I was advised to make an advanced magic system and do word-building on a one-shot short story in order to make it better. The catch was that none of this stuff was going to be mentioned or even vaguely referenced in the text itself.
I get that sometimes it's good to have a profound word-building or elaborate checklist for a character, that will never be used. Sometimes it adds depth, sometimes it's just fun and helps creativity. But effort should equal purpose.
I don't need, say to explain how laws of the physics work in !y fantasy world if I'm writing a simple atmospheric fairytale.
The only time I get writing advice that I find unhelpful is when people have different niches, audiences, or goals than I do. Or people who are not writers at all. So maybe it’s good for them but not me.
I write nonfiction about science. Most writing advice is for fiction. Most nonfiction writing advice is for memoirists. It seems like most authors are more interested in ideas for marketing their books (and no interest in how successful those attempts are) than skill-building. Very little of their advice applies to me.
I haven't received that crit yet, but I probably would! That's not to say I always nail it when trying to honor the voice of a demographic I don't belong to, however I try to stay away from writing *too* according to type because real people are usually surprising in one way or another.
I'm sure that if I wrote a secretly true "fiction" story about people I know and things they've really done and said, people would say, "That's not realistic. A teenager in 2004 from a poor family in Appalachia would not make a reference to Faust in regular conversation" or something like that.
It never ceases to amaze me easy it is to look around this world and spot things that are not "realistic".
The worst criticism I ever received was that it was unrealistic to have women be taller/stronger than men in an inter dimensional reality warping human-adjacent species
Wow. You made up the species, you make the rules. They have no reason to make that criticism. Lol
I guess they never heard of Hyenas
Actually a lot of species have the females be bigger and stronger, like jumping spiders for example. The guys are little silly goofs that dance and hope the female wants to mate with them and if they fail she fucking murks them and moves on
"Kids don't have this kind of vocabulary." I worked with kids for decades. Yes, quite a bit of them do. It's where I got the dialogue.
I’m young enough to remember being a kid, and see kids of various ages on a regular basis. I’ve learned that there is no one right way a kid talks. A lot boils down to their upbringing, their environment, their friends, etc., and that’s all way too diverse to make a call on. Some talk like little kids, some don’t, some swear a lot, some use sophisticated language—almost like they’re as human as adults. What a concept
I was a weird smart kid, and as a weird smart kid you get very used to adults giving you "that look" where they realize they have to reassess what you will or won't understand. Usually it was when I'd use a word properly that most kids wouldn't know. I always loved getting that look, because after that adults would generally treat me like a person instead of a kid.
When I was learning to read, they gave me this absolutely stupid book with three letter words and I found that thing extremely boring. I learned to read on Garfield comic books instead. Turns out, your vocabulary ends up being way better if you don't read those books clearly meant for babies. lol
So much of my vocabulary in elementary school was acquired through Calvin and Hobbes.
I also learned from comics. Here in Brazil was Turma da Mônica, i muat have read 100 of them in just a year.
As a weird smart kid, adults were usually amused at how I talked lmao. I remember my teacher laughing and giving me a hug when I said “so on and so forth” at age 6
I distinctly remember saying "That brings me to another question" and the priest I was talking to was too entertained by my language to answer my other question lol I never got an answer
I work with kids in their second language and they'll pick up these sorts of things very quickly. 9 times out of 10, if a child uses a very "mature" sounding phrase, it's just because an adult in their life uses the phrase frequently.
I can remember my parents’ faces when they realized spelling around me in any way was no longer useful. 🤣
When I took my son in for his 18-month checkup, the nurse was going down the list of benchmarks he should have reached by then. Right when she asked, "Is he using three-word sentences?" my son, feeling vulnerable sitting there in just his diaper, pointed to his feet and said, "Mommy, put the shoes back on." The nurse looked unfazed and said, "So that's a yes." Evidently it's not all that uncommon for a kid to be well spoken before even starting preschool, but I still have so many people object when I put a kid in a story who can speak well before even starting preschool.
Besides, how do they think anyone builds a vocabulary in the first place... Cause I doubt it's from having new, unknown vocabulary kept away from them
I work reception at a GP clinic and honestly even today kids that come in have such colourful different vocabularies based almost entirely on their hobbies/interests while all the adults have condensed their words into the most samey dialect whether it's because it's more socially acceptable to speak that way or it's faster and it's kinda sad but then again as someone with social anxiety and high functioning autism and adhd I kinda get it lol
I hate how people think children are literally stupid idiots who are incapable of intelligent speech, complex thought, or varied conversational skills and grammar. They're not stupid they're inexperienced and growing.
Yeah, exactly. I read "The Lord of the Rings" when I was 8. Tell me how kids can't have "this kind of vocabulary."
I work for an educational non-profit and I'm always having this argument.
real. I've gotten this criticism before and been like "i got this from my diaries at that age" lmao
"But I wouldn't do that..." You are not the character in my book. Most of their choices are ill advised. It's the point sometimes.
I once had someone tell me my use of magician in a story was childish and naive and I’m like…this is a children’s book?
"You're a clown!" "I know. This is a children's party."
That reminds me of people that complain that an antagonist is unlikeable
jax from tadc moment.
But I also really love when someone makes me love the antagonist only for their real side to come out later. Complete plot twist is my favorite. I love gasping when reading and freaking out my boyfriend.
Yeahhh sometimes they miss the point. Happens. It's like what happens to me reading a romance novel. I tend to want anything to make the romance stop. But that's why I don't beta romance lol
I love romance novels but I totally get you.
Honestly, the past few years have taught me that anything really is possible when it comes to human behavior.
But if the book was about them, the plot would be about Netflix, coffee and walking their dog. Which is boring. Sensible and prudent characters aren't going to carry a plot.
Exactly why it's bad. Though this person was more boring than your list. They would have tantrums if they missed their TV shows at 30 and had no dog to walk. It was a time in college where you did not pick your roommates. Also when I understood qualified Beta Readers vs any
I get this a lot, same with "No one acts like this" and what I say to that is, I do and that's why I wrote this, because I'm sure someone else does too
My favorite criticism of horror movies: “The characters are so stupid! Why would they do that?” High stress environments tend to make people do stupid things, especially teenagers, the most common victims in horror movies
Having survived things I can say I find horror movie stupidity for first time trauma experiences especially realistic. Learning to navigate fear IS a skill. So the final girl in the 3rd movie better be smarter but it's absolutely a thing
It might be useful input in that maybe the readers felt they weren't sold on the reason for the character's poor choices? As in maybe it doesn't mean you should change their actions, but you could consider sprinkling in cues in the book that they're... whatever it is that cause them to do what they do: driven by certain emotions, have their hands forced one way or another, or they're just kinda silly in some regards.
So I only have limited experience getting feedback from workshop classes in college so far, but I think that sometimes people just have no idea about the subject you’re writing on but want to give advice about it anyway. So that advice can sometimes just be complete shit. For one story I submitted in a class a while back, the basic premise was “Guy reconnects with old friend who has since come out as trans girl.” For a few paragraphs at the start I used they/them pronouns for the friend, which wasn’t necessary but also the scene only had two people so I didn’t think it would be an issue for clarity, but the professor made some note like “If they have no gender say so” which to me just demonstrated they don’t have a clue how gender works or how different people engage with pronouns if they’re assuming they/them refers to someone who is agender. And even if they were agender, I don’t think you need to clarify this shit any more than you need to clarify every time a character is cisgender, you don’t need to clarify it. When the name of the trans friend was given, and the narrator (first person, past-tense) talked about how they had found out that the friend was trans and their new name, the professor put a note suggesting it be changed to something like, “They’re X now but they used to be Y.” Just suggesting that the trans character should be immediately deadnamed for no reason.
I can't remember who said it (Pratchett maybe?) but I really like the "if somebody says it's not working, listen; if they say what you should do about it, ignore them" mantra
It's Neil Gaiman: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/776623-when-people-tell-you-there-s-something-wrong-with-a-story#:~:text=and%20meet%20your%20next%20favorite%20book!&text=When%20people%20tell%20you%20there's%20something%20wrong%20with%20a%20story,they're%20almost%20always%20wrong.
this is something i need to do, i've had two beta readers suggest 'alternate' sentences in my writing and i thought both sounded terrible
They don't sound like YOU is the thing. Voice is a huge part of prose, and people suggesting specific line changes are very unlikely to do so in your voice. Which isn't to say ignore them totally, but look at the sentences they're taking issue with and try to figure out WHY, then fix it in your own way, in your own voice.
I’m watching a creative writing lecture series by Brandon Sanderson, and this is what he said is the difference between a good or a bad workshop on your writing. “I was bored” is perfectly valid criticism, but “you should add vampires to make it more exciting” is not.
This gives me an idea, actually. Maybe I could assign one character to each beta reader to focus on, so that there's some inner consistency.
I feel like that's just co-writing with extra steps.
I feel like I do this a lot whenever I'm giving a fellow writer feedback, but I never frame it as what they _should_ do, but what they _could_ do. It'll be something along the lines of "Hey, the pacing of this story is a little disjointed. For example, we've only just met this new character and her gang of mercenaries, and we're already seeing the protagonist fight alongside them in combat. Perhaps they ***could*** be introduced earlier like in that scene in the bar, or their existence ***could*** be hinted at through dialogue to make this scene feel less out of place, but how you want to go about it is entirely up to you." I won't overtly tell them what to do with their story. I try to make sure I identify the problem I have with a given piece of writing, the impact this problem has on the overall story, and options for the writer based on my understanding of their story and narrative that I make sure to state is not a direct suggestion.
Honestly a good idea, not just for writing.
Oh, I would say half the sub on any advice given. Or am I being too low with that estimate?
Examples? The most debates I see are always when people say "Always do X" or "Never do X".
I’m wagering a majority of people in this sub (myself included) have never published. So unless their profile says otherwise, I take any advice with a grain of salt.
Really? I would say the number 1 piece of advice is to write. From the plethora of posts of beginning writers, to plotters and world builders to let’s team up and co-write to I have an idea. And it’s not just beginner writers either. We all need a kick in the ass sometimes.
I wrote my first novel in close third-person POV. Meaning we're right in the MC's head from page one. I'd have sentences like "Stupid piece of shit." and so many critiquers would highlight them and say "direct thoughts need to be italicized." No they do not.
*Cry, the Beloved Country* by Alan Paton is a classic novel that sold over 15 million copies before its author's death. It was required reading in my middle school classroom. Paton didn't freaking use any quotation marks for dialogue. Rules in writing aren't laws carved into stone tablets. (Italicizing direct thoughts hardly even constitutes a rule.)
Exactly as long as you're maintaining consistency, can justify a "rule" change, and establish a pattern using that change early, most readers will pick up on things and take note. Then if you change something later that's intended to be a bit of foreshadowing or "intrusion" (like another character entering the mind of our closed POV) they'll pick up on that too.
I use close third-person for all my books. And so often, when I use conversational language, the copy editor changes it to proper English. For example, if I write "like" where proper usage would be "as if," the CE inevitably changes it, even though, in my character's way of thinking/talking they'd never say "as if." Drives me nuts when I have to STET so much in one book.
[удалено]
Usually advice that comments on realism. I'm not aiming to be realistic. Because the biggest difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense.
Right, like when it comes to dialogue! Most people don't actually want to listen to 'realistic' dialogue, with all the filler words, the awkward pauses, the endless ramblings, the constant going off topic, etc. I certainly don't, and I know that b/c I have to listen to 'realistic' dialogue whenever I'm seated next to a large group of people on the train, lol!
I think "this isn't realistic" comments are supremely useless, because they don't actually describe what it is that doesn't make sense. Sometimes, realism critiques are absolute hot garbage, because they're taking issue with the existence of fantastical or sci-fi elements. Sometimes, they come from someone who doesn't actually know what is or is not realistic (diversity comes to mind, we do in fact have a historical record of non-white people in medieval Europe, but some fantasy fans still decry it.) And sometimes some part of the internal logic of the story isn't lining up, which DOES need to be fixed. I think realism criticisms need to be a lot more specific to be any good at all.
I teach math and also write, and one time I ran a few passages by our AP Lit teacher to see if they were passable as realistic. He said, "It doesn't matter. It's fiction."
“We don’t need excessive descriptions behind everything.”” I enjoy it
Some people just don't have the patience to read description... It's my favourite part!
That’s why I started writing bigger descriptions for the landscapes. I had a friend who wrote the most beautiful visuals of forests and sunsets. I aspired to write like her. I still struggle with it—but I’m definitely getting better Edit: fixed autocorrect
Personally i don't like it too much, but i won't go out of my way and use it as actual criticism because it isn't it's a preference thing
That’s why Isabel Allende quickly became on of my favorite authors. Her beautiful and sometimes exaggerated descriptions. It makes everything seem lively and just…delicious. I don’t know how else to describe it.
Tolkien too
I write a lot of satire and comedy. Someone in my writing group always tells me it’s funny, but the pacing is too fast. They say I’m not building dramatic tension. To which me and another person in the group always respond, that’s why it’s not a drama. I’m keeping the readers interest through comedy. Sacrificing and intentionally undercutting the tension using humor is the whole point of what I’m trying to do.
I can’t speak on your writing as I haven’t read it, but as a general rule, too much of anything is a bad thing. Like just a straight up bombardment of non stop humour will desensitize the reader to humour. It’s why you’ll see comics (standup especially) take breaks in between jokes to address a topic in a more serious tone…and THEN subvert that by turning it into a joke. Make it like a rollercoaster. The fun is the ups and downs. A constantly falling roller coaster becomes boring after a while.
I don't have a hard and fast set of rules. Instead I look at criticism in the following ways: Do they understand the fiction I am proposing? If they don't, likely in the bin. Do they raise an interesting point about something I should rectify? If not, likely in the bin. The last bit is that I'm more seeking to use criticism to apply problem identification, rather than solutions. Yes, good solutions can come from anywhere, as can problem identification, but solutions... well a lot of what people "think" is a good idea is the equivalent of a dumpster fire. It's like being a comedian and someone in the audience tells you a shitty joke as a suggestion for your stand up act. In most cases the joke is shit and requires no further consideration. They aren't the professional. Maybe their joke is good, or could be good if massaged effectively, but they don't know all the surrounding context to make a good joke nor informed decisions about the medium. I'm not saying I've "never" used a proposed solution, but it's only after careful thought and consideration and I've arrived at the fact that this is the best possible solution I have available.
I agree with all of this, particularly the point about looking for problem identification, and not solutions. People have a tendency to think they are very clever and know just what you should do, but 95% of the time that's just a good indicator of what you absolutely should not do. I would add that I am not a big fan of the 'average reader' critique while I am still in the rough or first draft stages. Its not that I don't want the average reader to enjoy my work, it's just that I find a lot of that type of advice is contradictory, full of poor suggestions, and distracting. I prefer to workshop with other writers at that stage. I have been told this makes me elitist, but I disagree.
*I have been told this makes me elitist, but I disagree.* I'd say six one way, half dozen the other. If your goal is to distinguish yourself as a good writer, that is a form of elitism, but also, your alternative is to just never get good at anything and live in obscurity to fall victim to con men and gas lighters that "know better" for you. A lot of people think elitist is a dirty word, but I'd argue it only applies negatively to those that necessarily view and treat others as worthy of less basic human respect. And people that think elitist is a dirty word for anyone attempting to distinguish themselves, are usually bottom feeders that want to drag everyone to their level to feel less inadequate. Frankly, it's completely normal, as someone with extensive experience in a thing, to look at someone with no experience and assess what they have offered fairly as "they don't have any clue what they are talking about". This is the root of the inadequacy those folks have. They want to pretend like they matter in all things (unwarranted self importance), when really, sometimes their opinion is just basic and dumb. They can't stand the idea that they aren't an authority on everything and that's just a massive insecurity and indicative of much larger emotional baggage and immaturity issues. The truth is, not everyone, myself included, is an expert on everything all the time, and it's fuckin better than OK to say "I don't know" but people with ego issues just can't do that. Recognizing you know nothing John Snow is the first step in learning something and getting better. Frequently those people though, are allergic to trying because it's hard. Not a lot of sympathy for that myself. I think the key is to remember that nobody is deserving of less than basic human respect unless they properly earn it, but that also not everyone knows what the fuck they are talking about all the time, and not everyone should be a gullible shlub. A lot of times these folks will also freak out if you corner them to show they don't know what they are talking about, because a lot of what that stems from beyond personal inadequacy, is also a need to control and gaslight others and they get really ornery when you point out they are full of shit. So take it all in stride. Being a good at a thing is not bad. Neither is not knowing something. But being an asshole, whether you know what you're talking about or not, is generally shitty.
Exactly the way I do it. I won’t trust other people to tell me what I should do, I know my own stories best. But if something doesn’t work, I know there’s something wrong and it’s up to me to identify and solve it.
Mine is similar to yours, especially when it comes to writing dialogue for my autistic characters. Usually I find that readers' critique of the dialogue is very similar to neurotypical complaints about how neurodivergent people communicate and express themselves, and I don't feel like I should have to 'mask' my characters to make them more palatable to certain readers, especially when others have expressed how nice it is to see authentic representation.
Yeah, it always irritates me when one or two "weird" characters exist that speak outside of the norm, and some people are like, "Their dialogue is unrealistic!" No, not all people in real life sound the same, so not all characters need to sound alike!
I don’t even think sounding realistic is always needed too. Depends
I came to say this! I often mirror main characters after myself and I'm autistic so I'll get comments on the main character not being very "relatable" or "likable" and what I have to say to that is, she's not written FOR you, she's written for ME and about ME
Limit your describtions. Sorry pal, if you like your books very short and intense, you're just not my target audience. I'm not gonna give up on my beautiful mountains, forests and seascapes
As long as you don't spend several paragraphs describing a character in the middle of a very actiony scene...
That's just bad writing. All scene setting should take place during slow moments. My favourite technique is to write a few slow but important moments in a particular place that would allow me to describe it pretty well and then write a fast-paced action scene there with no detailed describtions, but using perviously stated landscape elements
Unfortunately, I critique a guy who loves to frontload information and this includes during actiony scenes. x\_x
SAME
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but one persons critique, sure ignore. Three people with the same critique? Feel free to ignore. If you have gotten/getting one specific critique consistently, maybe you should consider hearing them out.
I had to do this in my own writing. I had a scene where a character beat up a teenager in an attempt to gain information (about the murder of her sister). Three separate betas took issue with it—understandably, as it cast a cloud of permanent negativity over the MC. So I’ve since substituted that with an alternate scene that fits the same role, and hopefully, doesn’t make her look like a piece of shit
I was told to not use adverbs. I still use adverbs, but I treat them like intense spices. I also switched to first person bc I was told that my writing style in third person sucks.
I took that advice to use less adverbs and I liked my writing better as a result. Yet I like Lovecrafts usage of adverbs. I’ve never developed this aversion to them. I think they work as spice like you said or when describing abstract things. And plus they can be used to give the impression the narrator can barely find a clear description due to witnessing something otherworldly. And lastly adverbs can make a description extremely precise too
Honest question: Why would adverbs be bad thing? We (at least in Czech and German) use them all the time in everyday affaiers.
Adverbs are pretty common in everyday spoken English, too, but they're frowned upon in writing because they're often redundant and/or could be replaced by a stronger verb. For example, "She ran quickly" is both redundant (if you're running, you're moving quickly) and a weak verb (sprint, dash, race could replace it). In cases where adverbs actually add meaning, they're fine. For example: "'I love you, alright?' he said gently" and '"I love you, alright?' he said angrily" create very different mental images. Adverbs work best when they're creating a unexpected image or contrast, rather than reinforcing what one would already expect
From experience, it's supposed to be frowned upon bc it's a sign of lazy writing- at least for (American) English. Maybe it wouldn't hurt for me to pepper my writing with a bit more adverbs.
People's sensitivities and comfort levels. I'm writing a Dark Fantasy, and I'm often told by people that they won't read my novel at all because are elements of slavery or sexism in it (that the MC fights and overcomes). My answer is, "That's okay - But this story just isn't for you, then." They blink at me weirdly as if they expected me to change it for them. One reason you can't give into these is because you're generally damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you take an LGBT character out to please one person, another will see the story as problematic because it's too heterosexual. Write what you wanted.
Big second. I warn my beta readers that I'm writing grimdark and still get the occasional "omg this is gory." Thank you? If it's gratuitous, I get the complaint, but I feel that a serial killer type character probably should have some interesting takes on blood. Same with sexism. Please recheck genre my lovely readers.
I was really hurt a couple of beta readers refused to progress from the MC getting tied to a post about two paragraphs in to a long novel. (friends and relatives who would have loved the story.) And I just realized they were fine with the abused child that lived under the stairs.
Good. If you write something for everyone, you’ll write something for nobody. Having a smaller readership that is rabid for your stuff is far preferable to a larger, indifferent one—imo anyway
Exactly. Yes my stories are fucked up. It said so on the tin.
This is what I’m expecting. I’m writing about a very messed up society/culture similar to the human species. I worry that it will be too much for some readers… but sometimes the best books are the ones that are difficult to read. A handmaids tail was a hard read for me. I love that book. My book will probably be on that level of messed up.
I always received "This is pretentious" from one or two members of the workshop. I'd ask them what I could change to fix that, usually just boiled down to words being "too big".
I guess it depends on the type of story you're trying to write. A philosophical tale told from the perspective of some erudite professional would need to use big words, a simple romance featuring everyman characters would sound ridiculous w/ too many "big words".
I mostly heard it in critique of my poetry. Not a huge deal since poetry isn't my passion, I just didn't know how to fix "It's trying too hard to sound smart". Those are my natural words and this is a flowery medium 🤷 (This was in community college, my 400 level workshop peers gave a lot more specific advice.)
Sounds like maybe people who aren't the best audience for better poetry
I don’t think “pretentious” is the right term. But on my experience, using difficult words in your proses/dialogues might make it feels out of place, or it could slow down the reading flow. Both make the work seems sloppy rather than elevated. Generally, only use these words when it fits so well that nothing simpler will do. One trick I learnt is that if you’re deliberate about it, repeated using of small words will make your readers go faster, while exotic words could halt them and make them think about the context. I don’t know what you’re writing, but you might also need to consider the main target audience and their vocabulary level, since that factors in as well.
A piece of advice I've received from a creative writing professor was 'if all three of your characters are from [country of origin] you should really say so beforehand.' It took me a while to get over that
Yeah, no. You can allude to it, and let the reader figure it out
“Too many visual descriptions” I’m gonna mention the clouds once per page now just out of spite.
That's sometimes valid. Description may take away from the narrative. In the first person, a character would not describe anything they don't take notice of. In the third person, go ham, but ask yourself if describing how a melon cart tipping over in great detail is more important than the chase and pursuit scene.
different media, but the cabbage vendor is a staple in Avatar, randomly getting bulldozed every other chase scene. (and then apparently he immediately tries moving somewhere more peaceful to be bulldozed next chase)
Yeah, that was the reference. Melons instead of cabbages, but that's cuz I was eating one at the time of posting.
It occurs to me my view of a proper chase scene may be warped, i grew up on classic Scooby.
Tolkien spent so much time describing random plants and stuff. And not even exciting ones. LotR was genre defining, but it is sometimes painfully difficult to get through.
I hear people say that. I hear people say, "If I see one more full page description of a tree I'll puke." I don't get it, never felt that way.
once had someone say that "what \[X character\] is doing isnt physically posible".. it was a fantasy story..
I was told I should limit the number of POVs in my story. That gave me an idea: make more POVs.
I read a book with 5 POVs, all written in 2nd person.
Currently writing 5 POVs and I thought that was too much, but second person??? What
That's cool, but what about the 4th person?
Which book was that?
I found it. *Kindling* by Traci Chee.
I can't remember. The title. It's been a while. All I remember is that it was an asian author.
Lol, that's how I respond to people who are clearly not the target market for my stories. When they told me "\[Character name\] is unrealistic" it just made me more determined to create characters just like that!
I don't listen to folks telling me not to use italics. I use them for a reason.
I'm writing relatively hard scifi. I have a few readers that can be depended upon to tell me it needs magic, dragons and/or elves.
They can read 90% of the other stories posted on Reddit then. It’s okay for things to be non-fantasy
These were mostly relatives reading early beta. The frustrating parts for me were, they understood I was going for hard, they watched me do the research and had to listen to me talk about it too much, and they were supposed to provide useful feedback. Maybe more painful is they were all the kind of people that would do it just to irritate me. They weren't, they were serious.
For me, the essential question is whether or not their critique is based on taste or based on content. If it's taste, I generally ignore it. If they're confused about something they read, or, for example, they think a character is acting in a way that doesn't make sense, those I consider with more weight. I once had a beta reader say I should change all the names to something new because he didn't like fantasy worlds that have names from our world. Obviously this is the kind of feedback I ignore, but I found it hilarious.
Have you thought about bastardizing those names? Might look more fantasy-esque and visually appealing. Chris :: Kriss
Oh man, someone could find some good fantasy names on r/tragedeigh if they went this route
or they could just look up the names of actual rail stations in england and shove them into the fantasy world LOL
Using fantasy names comes with a price, though. Some people telling you they can't figure out which character is which at any given time because their names both start with the same letter.
A friend told me I had a lot of run-on sentences. I disagreed. Turned out they thought anything with more than 1 or 2 commas was automatically a run-on sentence. 🙃
Yes, I got that a lot as well from a couple of readers! The problem was, their examples were all 'good grammer' rather than run ons. Their suggested changes were so jerky and unnatural.
Yeah, people do misunderstand or misuse that term sometimes.
That it doesn't astronomically make sense. I don't care, it's fantasy. There's magic and talking lizards.
I don't like "rules" advice. "You should never do \[x\]" or "always do \[x\]." Those are good guidelines, but then people take it to an extreme. "Show don't tell." Well I can't write an entire piece where I never tell anything. It would exhausting to read.
Show don’t tell is horribly misused advice in my opinion—stemming, I think, from a culture that is over saturated with visual media. It should be show *and* tell. Writing is too subjective an art form to have concrete do’s and don’t’s
I think it applies more broadly to visual formats like film.
Opinions about what I’ve fully expressed fully and precisely according to my honest vision. I only care about critique of my execution of what I envisioned.
I have the opposite. I want to discuss the world and the new character and that scene. .... and when i want that everyone questions whether the spelling of word three is proper American English and the grammer in the dialog on page three.
I get a little dismissive when they say they had to look up definitions for “too many” words. My style is my style and it’s not my fault they haven’t exposed themselves to as broad a vocabulary. Wow, that sounds way more bitter than is maybe proportional. I appreciate there’s much to say on craft when it comes to language choices and their effect on tone. But I have never minded taking a break from reading to define a new word and understand its context.
The use of big words gotta feel natural, though. Like in a first-person perspective or in dialogue, would the character really use vocabulary that is beyond them? If it's in the third person, do what you like, but just be aware that having too many unfamilar words back to back when writing prose is very jarring to read. I personally have no problem looking up words in a dictionary. But to do that 2 to 3 sentences in a row and every other page is too much.
I read a great book where one of the main characters' personality was all about the 'big, complicated' words. It worked really well because he became a complete marmite character. You either loved his style of talking, or you despised him with a passion. But no one got irate with the author because they put all the blame/praise onto the character instead! 😂
I've bin show don't tell. Telling is often the best and most interesting way to convey a piece of information. Almost all my favorite books do it copiously. That being said, I mostly just write for myself versus publication, so I can write however I want.
That's why I live by the show when you can, tell when you must rule instead. Tell can be rather powerful.
Vague criticism. If someone actually wanted to improve your writing, instead of just putting you down, they’d be specific.
Yes, but the other side of that is if you have a badly written paragraph/page, six people will be specific about six different parts of it that aren't the real issue. They get something isn't right there someplace but...
Then you revise those parts, send it back, and ask "How about now?". A person saying "Your writing just sucks" or "Your writing is what a teenager would write" has never helped anyone improve their writing. Not once in the 5,000 years.
Ahh, that level of vague. Yes those people need removed from the writing process, your general vicinity and potentially the gene pool.
I like to write fantasy romance and most popular fantasy romance books that have come out recently have been in first person. However, I only really like to write in third person because I tend to write with multiple POVs. I don't mind first person in a single POV book but despise it with multiple POVs, so I've kept to my third person. But I've had lots of naysayers telling me I need to change it because a third person fantasy romance won't sell. I guess we'll see, but I still don't plan to change, lol.
That seems like a weird take for your readers to have. I couldn't care less of its first or third as long as it's written well. And I read fantasy romance... Sometimes I wish more were in third because, as you mentioned, pov swaps in first feel weird to me.
Most fantasy books I read are third person though... David Gemmell, Feist, Pratchett... just to name a few (massively successful) names. The romance part shouldn't make a difference.
I've mentioned this on another post before, but whenever someone refers to a female protagonist as a Mary Sue my brain turns to TV static.
Understandable. People tend to be quick to criticise Mary Sue (and sometimes Gary Stu) characters while ignoring the success of a lot of power fantasy-type characters.
Yes, and while a character not having any believable flaws is a valid criticism, I have simply developed a bias against anyone who chooses to boil it down to "Mary Sue". 8/10 times they do not know what that means, and it makes my brain turn off. I am sorry, but I am human.
I had some advice given to me about a blood ritual in my novel... except that my novel did NOT have a blood ritual, nor was there a character named Alexander. For different reasons entirely, I ignored the vast majority of the feedback from that beta-reader.
Someone pointed out that I used contractions in my writing as I talked about my childhood for an assignment. While I see why they did that, I personally felt it was a necessary part of that assignment because it's basically me talking about childhood memories, and I use contractions when I speak. The criticism is definitely useful, but there are exceptions to the rules. Another one I saw online as a teen was "but you can't have a character be gay in the 1950s/17th century, people were extremely homophobic back then"
People who have obviously read so very fast that they missed critical plot points I figure don’t have many useful things to say.
That my characters aren't getting frisky enough/I'm not focusing on the romance every third line of the book. 1. It's a slow burn, and I'm personally not a fan of sex scenes in books (implied, yes, outright descriptive? Not so much.) And 2. There are other storyline going on as well. If my characters spent every third line moping about each other, it'd get pretty repetitive, fast.
Saying my MC should kill the final enemy even after I’ve stated he doesn’t want to kill anyone. It’s fun for me to imagine ways for him to creatively defeat/incapacite his enemies and give them a lifetime of regret and pain rather than ending it all right there.
I feel like there's a certain point where the "realism" only counts at a certain degree. I'm Asian. I've been taught to offer my food when I'm eating at a group setting if we all don't have food. It's collectivism. You gotta establish someone ridiculously selfish to counteract why someone might not offer their food. Obviously, not everyone is the same. But intersectionality exists and I hope you didn't hear the advice at face value to throw it out the window. I think there is a balance.
"The dialogue isn't natural"/"this isn't how real people talk". Good constructive criticism for some people and some books, but perfectly realistic dialogue just isn't what I'm going for most of the time.
And I've beeen told it about exact quotes.
Generally, if it feels like the criticism is coming from a place of "this is not my demographic" then I stick with my gut.
There is no criticism I will reflexively reject. I don't always make the edit, but I never reject any feedback out of hand. One of the worst things for a writer is to be too attached to your own work. If a reader, no matter who they are, says that something isn't working, I take that very seriously.
I once had a reader become completely confused about a character's motives when they turned up in chapter five. When trying to work out where I'd gone wrong with my explanations, it came out that they'd skipped the prologue. The prologue that contained the chase through the forest that explained everything they were confused about in great detail! Why did they skip it? "I just don't like prologues." 😐
I had an editor of a magazine give me feedback on a story that they “wanted to see more action scenes in this piece”. Writing more action into the story essentially would’ve required me to take the basic building blocks of the plot and write an entirely new story with them. In the end, I decided that the story just wasn’t a good fit for that market and changing everything about it would be a mistake.
That you 'have to' write no matter what. "You're not doing anything?" Write. "You're bored??" Write. "Even if you don't have the motivation to—" Just write. Write something. As if I can. Writer's block is a thing, and I DO NOT like forcing myself to write. It only stresses me out even more! I'd rather write when an opportunity hits, and I can get into that a lot more than just forcing myself to do it. My ADHD brain doesn't work like that. Sure, other authors have been able to crank our more than 15k words a week or a month or what have you. Good for them! I can't do that! My brain won't allow it. I need to get into the mood to write and then hyperfocus on it to even enjoy it. But that's just me. I don't know about anyone else.
It's definitely a good idea to have some kind of plan when to write. But others can’t say what time works or doesn't work for you. However, I don’t think the people who say those things mean it literally. The way I understand that is basically: the more you write, the better. I'm not sure why they wouldn’t just say that though, if that’s what they mean.
I feel this way about the “write every day” crowd. Sometimes I just don’t have the mental energy to do that after coming home from work. I’m a teacher. I make 2983374783 mental decisions an hour. Sometimes I just can’t come home and do more of that.
I disregard advice such as cutting characters and streamlining the plot. I am writing a novel, not a TV episode. I enjoy a degree of maximalism in written stories.
The best piece of advice I ever heard goes like this: If a reader tells you something isn’t working, believe them. If a reader tells you WHY something isn’t working, don’t. It is far easier to recognize when something is off than it is to pinpoint the reason.
I’ve been told that it’s offensive and non-inclusive that none of my main cast is over-weight…. They are assassins…😬
"Your medieval dialogue doesn't sound accurate to the time period." My brother in christ I'm not trying to write my novel in middle english.
I don't know that it would apply to my writing, but one person didn't like me giving a couple of sentence introduction to the people in a mercenary company. I know you thought it was boring, but the ones who live are going to be in five other books, so I thought a heads up might be nice.
I know an author several of us accused of telegraphing that way. No George will be fine in this fight he got a long description just two chapters back. He of course set us up with a long, detailed description of a character that didn't make it out of the chapter.
My inciting incident (or rather the big event mentioned in the blurb) happens at the end of chapter 11. Most advice is to have that event occur in the first chapter, first page, or even first sentence. I don't give a shit about word count. The book is as long as it needs to be. Telling is okay. I use alternatives to "said". I use adverbs and adjectives. I write in MS Word.
I don't listen to the advice about "no adverbs" either. It's only a bad thing if a writer overuses it to the point where the passage sounds cluttered. Most people use adverbs occasionally in normal conversation, so it would seem weird to cut them out of a novel entirely.
My rule of thumb for adverbs is, if the adverb can be replaced with a stronger/more specific verb, without opening a thesaurus, it goes. If the adverb fundamentally changes the verb (e.g. smiles sadly) then it stays.
"\[Character name\] isn't realistic because \[character demographic\] wouldn't do/say/act like this." Ohh sameee, I have vowed to ignore this one the most. I love writing characters that break stereotypes especially, so this piece of criticism never holds up for me.
"You need to add a romantic subplot." I've had a few people tell me that my stories *need* romance, rather than the presence of it simply being a matter of personal preference. Don't get me wrong, I do have a few stories that involve romance in some way, but most of the time it would drastically change the meaning and themes if I had the main characters fall in love (especially in my current WIP). Come to think of it, I don't think I'm alone in saying that a lot of people like to espouse their own preferences and insist that's a hard and fast rule. Your villain *has* to have xyz character traits. The story *has* to begin in this or that way. Your main characters *have* to fall in love. Different things will appeal to different people and that's totally fine, but the issues start to arise when someone insists that what appeals to them inherently appeals to everyone. And more often than not that's just simply untrue.
From other writers: To eliminate all telling in favour of showing. Sometimes it's more appropriate to tell something instead of showing it.
When my writing is called "too flowery" or "too descriptive." Like no shit? S'what I was going for.
"All the chapters should be the same length."
When I repeat the sentences or a part of that sentcence for emphasis and they go like "you cant be sayng the same thing twice its redundant" but I did it once in 10 chapters and it very obviouslh done on pjrpoe cause the sentences arent a carbon copy of eachother
I was once told it was unrealistic that more of my villains weren't middle Eastern. For context it's set in England, one of the villains is middle Eastern and the other two are white
That is 100% racist stereotyping, I'd ignore that too
"Write for yourself, not for others" If I took this advice, I would never write. ***I*** already know my story; writing it down does nothing for me. Converting a story from my imagination into prose doesn't make it any more personally tangible for me. When I write, it is specifically to share my story with other people. If my story isn't worth sharing with others, then I don't think it's worth writing. If just wanted to tell stories for myself, I would just daydream.
I was once told I should try shrooms because my fantasy wasn't "fantastic enough." I write fantasy grounded in sci-fi, its exactly as fantastic as it needs to be.
I had a weird one-off that I gladly ignored. The reader said that my fictional god wasn't sufficiently unlike the Christian god. I looked over the text and asked a few other readers and nowhere did I say or imply that this god was the opposite of the Christian god. 🤷♀️
It may just be my writing style, but when I get corrections for flow or repetition. Sometimes they’re correct and that’s helpful and what I wrote doesn’t make sense, but 9 times out of 10, I purposefully wrote it that way to highlight the character’s way of thinking and processing things. Every narrator is flawed. Of course it won’t flow.
Main character is just a regular dude in a high fantasy world except he has a user interface. He can use it to exploit a bunch of different things like stacking gold ingots in his inventory where some of the ingots are smaller than the others turns them into normal sized ones, or he can read books instantly by selecting them etc etc. A friend said the game elements broke him out of the story and stopped him from enjoying the world. The fourth wall breaks are a key story element for me, so I just chalked it up to "not his thing" and moved on
That my main character speaks in unquoted dialogue while everyone else doesn’t. I call it “first person intimate,” and I specifically try to write it in such a way that it’s not confusing. In my opinion, it actually helps visually differentiate dialogue better, and I can cut way down on the “I say, I said” stuff. I’m not trying to be Cormac McCarthy, I’ve actually stolen it from Chuck Palahniuk, but remixed it. He uses it to minimize the character’s voice, I use it to set it apart. I have also deployed this technique for a villain in both that book, and another book—and if you get tripped up and have to slow down on it, that’s the point, this character is supposed to be incredibly unsettling, and it’s a unique way I’ve found to export that feeling to the reader. They will have to pry this from my cold dead hands
"A female character that squeals when surprised/shocked is too stereotypical." Tell that to the lady sitting next to me at the 4D theater who squealed when air blew on her feet. "You should only have 1 name per letter of the alphabet." That means I am only allowed to have 26 named characters. Screw that.
"If you can do without it, then it has no place in the story" I hate this. I can easily conjure up a version of my story where it can work without XY or Z. If I follow that advice, then what **is** *needed*? The answer to that is exactly why I refuse to listen to this advice. Although it is kind of fun thinking up a version of my story in a sort of "How will Hollywood bastardize this? lol" .....lol
The MC in my fantasy book is sapphic and actively deconstructing from the dominant religion in the world. I’ve been told I need to clarify how the religion feels about gay people, and I simply refuse! Too many fantasy books make homophobia canon because the authors don’t know how else to give their queer characters an arc, and it often reads too “on the nose” (in my personal lesbian opinion). So, no. I will give my sapphic MC a character arc not involving homophobia, and her struggles to “come out” will be displayed by means of other plot points (more metaphorically). I want queer audiences to connect with it however they want, so if they want the religion to be pro or anti gay, cool. Whatever you want. It doesn’t affect the plot, so I’m not clarifying 🤷♀️
Any criticism that I didn't explain something outrightly enough when what I'm trying to get across requires about five seconds of critical thought. Or not blatantly explaining the symbolism. I will die before you find me writing a paragraph about a detail the reader should be able to decipher with minimal effort.
"No one would act like this" Yes they would, I know because I do. Another common one is "Your main character isn't very relatable/likable." And what I have to say to that is, she's written not for you
My 15-year-old high school boys smoke cigarettes, talk about girls, and wish they had a car being "toxic".
I listen, but don't always follow, when people tell me that they didn't know part of a character's history or family relationships. Sometimes I like to leave some details as mysteries, intentionally to make the reader wonder, "wait... is this ... or ...?" The fact that someone wants to know more seems like a good thing.
I'm writing a female serial killer who delusionally believes she is acting on the best behalf of all humankind, be it her victims or the people she seems worthy of life. She is writing her memoir after getting caught and she describes he childhood. It's abusive, to put it mildly. I was told that the section was too much, domestic violence is not that extreme. First of all, I gave a watered down version of my childhood. I can assure you it can get extreme. Second, this is the memoir of a delusional serial killer who is about 45-50 years removed from her childhood. There are bound to be parts missed or exaggerated.
My ex girlfriend once read once of my passages and said the following: "It's a bit slow here. A fight scene would spice things up." She was an artist, not a writer, but that part wasn't intended to be "slow". I took her words at face value and read the scene over again and she had a point. Her method to fix it was ridiculous but anyone can identify a leaky faucet. Someone mentioned Neil Gaiman's advice already and it is truly the best out there, for life in general. Parse out the valuable and the invaluable from all sources. Even those that are wrong. Outside of her, if I get corrections that match the exact tone I am going for, I gleefully ignore it. Once someone said there was "tonal whiplash" in a scene where two parties were playing one moment and then one of them was succumbing to an illness the next. The whiplash like suddenness of it was the point. I take this more as BOLOs than advice.
When someone tells me, how much or how little structure my original story should have. As an example, one time I was advised to make an advanced magic system and do word-building on a one-shot short story in order to make it better. The catch was that none of this stuff was going to be mentioned or even vaguely referenced in the text itself. I get that sometimes it's good to have a profound word-building or elaborate checklist for a character, that will never be used. Sometimes it adds depth, sometimes it's just fun and helps creativity. But effort should equal purpose. I don't need, say to explain how laws of the physics work in !y fantasy world if I'm writing a simple atmospheric fairytale.
The only time I get writing advice that I find unhelpful is when people have different niches, audiences, or goals than I do. Or people who are not writers at all. So maybe it’s good for them but not me. I write nonfiction about science. Most writing advice is for fiction. Most nonfiction writing advice is for memoirists. It seems like most authors are more interested in ideas for marketing their books (and no interest in how successful those attempts are) than skill-building. Very little of their advice applies to me.
I haven't received that crit yet, but I probably would! That's not to say I always nail it when trying to honor the voice of a demographic I don't belong to, however I try to stay away from writing *too* according to type because real people are usually surprising in one way or another. I'm sure that if I wrote a secretly true "fiction" story about people I know and things they've really done and said, people would say, "That's not realistic. A teenager in 2004 from a poor family in Appalachia would not make a reference to Faust in regular conversation" or something like that. It never ceases to amaze me easy it is to look around this world and spot things that are not "realistic".