Re: Critique rules

On Jan 15, 5:45 pm, Tina_H...@xxxxxxxxxxx (Tina Hall) wrote:
ShellyS <shell...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Tina_H...@xxxxxxxxxxx (Tina Hall) wrote:
ShellyS <shell...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


(snip)

And those AOL writers boards were full of people so quick to
give advice, even if you didn't ask for it and were just
venting and argued with you if you didn't thank them
properly. And I can do a long post just on the arguments over
outlining. The outliners on that board outnumbered those of
us who don't outline by a ratio of 5 to 1 or thereabouts. I
learned through painful experience to just step back and find
another topic to discuss. ;)

Sounds like the people here insisting you had to have a plot
planned out, rather than just following the character around.


There are people like that all over cyberspace. They'll give advice
and you have the choice of how to react. You can ignore it, you can
say thanks and then ignore it, you can argue it to death, or you can
flat out tell them to mind their own business, you were just venting.
I've learned that saying Thanks, then ignoring advice I don't want is
the easiest, nicest approach. Trying to modify the online behavior of
others is as useful as trying to herd cats. Or pigeons who are more
likely to poop on you.

There are people who simply think their way is better or that their
way is the only possible way because how could anyone else, for
example, write a whole novel without an outline because they can't do
it. If more people agree with them than you, you're in a no-win
situation IME if you keep arguing it or getting upset at them.

I don't follow my characters around, BTW. They tell me what's going
on. My backbrain dictates to me. To me, there's a difference.


That's what the regulars here did, when I asked for help
with the wording for the vampire story. (Oh, and you're not
worth any consideration if you haven't got several thousand
words, no matter what you feel is your writing process.)

You're now doing what I asked for those three or four years
back, and I'm very grateful for it. (Not with the vampire
story, of course, and thinking about how that was killed
still makes me sad.) It's more work, of course, more words
that were written without knowing how to do it better, but
at least one individual willing to give the right kind of
advice - rasfc as a whole has more in common with that WCH,
very hostile to new writers. Even the people you praise.
Those who yell 'nine and sixty ways' the loudest are those
that discard it even as they're yelling it; there's only
their way and none other.

The hardest thing I had to learn is that other people don't
know better than I do. Sure, maybe they're professionally
published writers, but the only thing they're expert on is
their own writing and getting their own writing published.

It's not so much that they are or claim to be experts, but that
they plain out ignore whatever a new writer says about what
feels right, because a new writer of course can't know that. New
writers have to do it their way, regardless of whether it fits
the new writer or the story.


That's not what I said. I didn't say they claimed to be experts. I
said the newbies who are or were like me will likely see them as
experts due to their credentials. That was what I had to learn, as
I've explained in a few, rather long posts in this thread already.

I mostly posted such questions on AOL, not here, but the few times I
have here and most of the time on AOL, when I did, I got both sorts of
answers and enough of them were helpful and sufficient to teach me all
the stuff I've already mentioned I learned about writing and dealing
with comments and critique. I'm still learning. Even Patricia has said
it. Take what you can use and ignore the rest. She gave examples of
her friends who wrote in all manner of process. She even explained her
process which was different than others she'd mentioned. I have found
plenty of people who approach writing as I do or similar enough to
realize your way is your way. Patricia even cautioned that what works
for you on one story might not work for you on another story. The
other very helpful person was an ex-editor/ex-agent/aspiring pro
writer who teaches writing on occasion. She's seen writing from all
angles in her careers, which added a lot of weight to her comments,
but by then, I'd learned how to assess what she had to say without
putting any extra authority on it. I had come to realize what she said
was what was her experience.

They might have useful advice, but I still get to pick and
choose what will work for me. I was only discouraged when I
was too naive to know better and too easily intimidated.

I'm talking about not knowing better. I wasn't intimidated, I
was frustrated about all those people claiming things that just
didn't fit the story, and saying they wouldn't help with what I
asked for until the story is done, as of course it has to be
rewritten afterwards. I don't work that way.


Well, I didn't know better, either, which I believe I said. Back in
the posts about the WCH. I was intimidated in the sense that, not
knowing better, I took the words of someone with pro experience as
gospel. Not the words of the others in the class, just those of the
teacher. My frustrations came from not being able to write the "right"
way and thinking I'd therefore never be good enough to get published.
That was wrong. My writing and luck will determine if I get published.

(snip)

(You praise Patricia, I hold it against her that she said
it's rude to object when someone tells you what your society
has to be like and would throw the book against the wall the
way it is, all completely out of the blue and without me
asking for a critique on anything. That's not the action of
someone who is against people forcing their ideas on others,
that's the action of someone who supports and defends it.)

Not having read, or if I did, not remembering, what Patricia
told you, I can't speak to it. I can say that if someone
tells you their thoughts, I've learned it's better to thank
them and ignore them than to argue with them.

There's nothing to thank them for. It's like saying you should
cut off your toes and fry them, or they won't talk to you, when
you ask for ideas about how to decorate your flat. (Of course
after telling them they're talking rubbish, it's best to just
ignore people with such idiot ideas. But someone saying it's not
ok to object to some loony insisting on cutting your toes off
says much about them.)


I'm polite. I've learned to thank people for at least trying to help,
whether it's wanted or not. They don't need to know I don't take their
advice. I don't understand your analogy at all. And telling people
their advice stinks does no good. It just annoys them. If I thought
they'd listen, I might explain how it's bad advice for me and hope
that will get them to reconsider and... no, wait. I did that. Lots of
times. On the AOL SF writers board, the AOL Horror writers board, and
the AOL fiction writers board. It didn't work.

On MBs and in newsgroups, unsolicited advice is the name of
the game. Why I needed 6 years to learn that, I don't know,
but once I did, my online experience improved greatly. :)

My killfile has grown greatly. :)

I simply read the threads that interest me and answer the posts I can
answer reasonably and politely. And if things start to go downhill,
I've learned to back away and stop responding.

(snip)

--Shelly
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: If only I knew then...
    ... Although I loved writing, I was talked ... musicians [quite a few were mega money making writers]. ... recording, you develop of sixth sense for what the public will buy. ... at college asking advice from Charlie down the pub who reads 'Amateur ...
    (rec.music.makers.songwriting)
  • Re: Critique rules
    ... advice and you have the choice of how to react. ... same thing to new writers is still existent. ... their own writing and getting their own writing published. ... It's what I'm saying. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)
  • Re: If only I knew then...
    ... Although I loved writing, I was talked ... musicians [quite a few were mega money making writers]. ... recording, you develop of sixth sense for what the public will buy. ... at college asking advice from Charlie down the pub who reads 'Amateur ...
    (rec.music.makers.songwriting)
  • Re: If only I knew then...
    ... Although I loved writing, I was talked ... I worked with the best, commercial writers, producers, arrangers, A&R ... musicians [quite a few were mega money making writers]. ... Only listen to advice from guys who have been there and done it in the ...
    (rec.music.makers.songwriting)
  • Re: If only I knew then...
    ... Although I loved writing, I was talked ... I worked with the best, commercial writers, producers, arrangers, A&R ... musicians [quite a few were mega money making writers]. ... Only listen to advice from guys who have been there and done it in the ...
    (rec.music.makers.songwriting)