Re: Critique rules

ShellyS <shelly.s@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Tina_H...@xxxxxxxxxxx (Tina Hall) wrote:
ShellyS <shell...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Tina_H...@xxxxxxxxxxx (Tina Hall) wrote:
ShellyS <shell...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

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.

Saying that now isn't going to change what effect the WCH had on
you, or that a similar attitude killed my story.

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.

Heh.

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.

They're also yelling 'nine and sixty ways'. Right here, and then
they turn round and prescribe their kind of writing, learning,
characters. If you point out that there are other options, they
get hostile towards your option.

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'm not arguing it, just pointing out what happens. The people
who do this are right here, after all, still not admitting to
any of it. (Just ask them on one of the subjects they do this,
and they'll confirm that their way is the only way.) That means
they don't know what they're doing, and the danger of doing the
same thing to new writers is still existent.

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 a different thread, where I'm just curious how it works,
because I don't understand it.

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.

It's what I'm saying.

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.

And I point out a different possibility; that when you don't
take their words for gospel, and point out where it doesn't suit
your story, you'll be told that you can't know anything, and
have to do it their way.

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.

While I'm no wiser about how to write better. (As opposed to a
regular here still claiming that you get better when you write
more; that's a lie.)

You're helping me with improving that. :) Alone I can't.

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.

Yep. That's the thing; people not knowing better, and running
into folks that are counterproductive. On the WCH or here.

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.

It wasn't trying to help, either. It was crashing in with 'that
has to be <this> way'. Without even understanding why it was
<that> way (it wasn't the subject, after all, so no reason to
explain why, there was only the brief mention of a fact, which
was also ignored by that poster crashing in claiming it could
never be that way).

They don't need to know I don't take their advice. I don't
understand your analogy at all.

It's someone demanding that you do something utterly loony, with
no idea what he's talking about, and then someone else saying
it's rude to object to that.

And telling people their advice stinks does no good.

It wasn't advice. It was the demand to do something their way,
as that's the only way, with no knowledge of the subject. (The
one fact that was mentioned was ignored, after all.)

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.

It's not easy to pick out posts that might contain interesting
stuff when the subject isn't changed. Besides, some people are
just not worth reading, because nothing they have to say could
possibly have any value. They simply have no credibility
whatsoever.

--
Tina
Reading: Seasons&Elements 1, Controlled by Magic: 196614 words, at 32.38%
WISuspension: Magic Earth series
Posted to Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.sf.composition.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Critique rules
    ... They'll give advice ... very hostile to new writers. ... their own writing and getting their own writing published. ... I mostly posted such questions on AOL, not here, but the few times I ...
    (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 ... 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)