Thread: Constructive criticism v. flaming

I think that statement "harsh criticism helps writers" is a load of shit for two reasons:

1. It reflects poorly on you; at best, you'll seem arrogant. At worst, you'll appear outright rude.
2. People won't listen to you because they don't like you.

One other thing; I've seen some people do reviews in an MST3K format. Do not do this unless you get permission from the author. The reason is that MST3K's hare minimally helpful and they often come across as rather mean-spirited.

I look at reviewing as being similar to teaching; my idea of a review (at least, applied to fan fiction) is instruction intended to help the author grow as a writer. And I don't remember any good teachers who weren't "nice" people.

Originally Posted by Drakon

One other thing; I've seen some people do reviews in an MST3K format. Do not do this unless you get permission from the author. The reason is that MST3K's hare minimally helpful and they often come across as rather mean-spirited.

I apologize if this is a newbish question, but what the heck is MST3K?

Originally Posted by Kelleo

I apologize if this is a newbish question, but what the heck is MST3K?

Mystery Science Theater 3000 is a TV show where a man and his robot friends are forced to watch bad movies and they riff on the flaws.

Obviously, due to its nature, it can come off as rather mean-spirited.

Originally Posted by Drakon

Mystery Science Theater 3000 is a TV show where a man and his robot friends are forced to watch bad movies and they riff on the flaws.

Obviously, due to its nature, it can come off as rather mean-spirited.

Oh, I see. Yeah, definitely not a good way to review something then. That sounds familiar though, I think I might have seen it before.

Originally Posted by Kelleo

Originally Posted by Drakon

Mystery Science Theater 3000 is a TV show where a man and his robot friends are forced to watch bad movies and they riff on the flaws.

Obviously, due to its nature, it can come off as rather mean-spirited.

Oh, I see. Yeah, definitely not a good way to review something then. That sounds familiar though, I think I might have seen it before.

I've never seen an actual review posted on a story done in this manner, but I have seen people with whole blogs dedicated to finding stories that they think suck and then tearing them to pieces. While I can imagine they might seem funny to an unrelated individual, I would think the actual author would be humiliated by it. It's the kind of thing that can scar you and make you never want to write again.

Originally Posted by Prof. Lugion

I look at reviewing as being similar to teaching; my idea of a review (at least, applied to fan fiction) is instruction intended to help the author grow as a writer. And I don't remember any good teachers who weren't "nice" people.

I sometimes come off as overly strict, but I don't think I'm mean.

Oh definitely not. There's a huge difference between being "strict" and being "mean".

While I do agree with most of what was said, in my opinion an author must be prepared for negative reviews or comments even if it does discourage them or even causes them to give up (at first). In my opinion, if an author intends to become great they have go through what all great authors went through, because just as a piece of seemingly worthless carbon requires amazing pressure and hellish heat to become a precious diamond, every author faced rejection at first, which is why only the tenacious make it through.

My first experiences with writing ended with me giving up, and ending before even giving it a real shot. At least now I realize that it was because of the flaming, but thankfully I didn't give up entirely, and instead of learning by making mistakes and changing as I go, I took another route, I stared reading about how to better my writing.

And I do admit that I might be a little intimidated by the reactions of readers, that won't stop me from coming up with great ideas for stories, stories that will soon be written. :)

Originally Posted by Lance

While I do agree with most of what was said, in my opinion an author must be prepared for negative reviews or comments even if it does discourage them or even causes them to give up (at first). In my opinion, if an author intends to become great they have go through what all great authors went through, because just as a piece of seemingly worthless carbon requires amazing pressure and hellish heat to become a precious diamond, every author faced rejection at first, which is why only the tenacious make it through.

I can't do little more than agree with everything you just said. Sure, it's good to be nice and try to find something positive to say but getting heavily bothered by tiny things like someone pointing out a grammatical error or saying they find a character a bit boring is a bit too much. Honestly, I feel like Lance said it well, you start off a bit rough around the edges but gradually you smooth out and really improve as time goes on. Sure, it might come off as harsh but these things happen. For example looking back at my old stories I thought the way I executed them and the ideas were complete crap, awkward wording, poor description, poor pacing, lukewarm plot, one-dimensional characters. I'm glad I got that critique I needed on and off Bulbagarden because that really helped out a lot even though I don't think I'm an exceptional fanfic writer.

Originally Posted by Lance

While I do agree with most of what was said, in my opinion an author must be prepared for negative reviews or comments even if it does discourage them or even causes them to give up (at first). In my opinion, if an author intends to become great they have go through what all great authors went through, because just as a piece of seemingly worthless carbon requires amazing pressure and hellish heat to become a precious diamond, every author faced rejection at first, which is why only the tenacious make it through.

But, of course, we shouldn't be making it hard for them for the purposes of "weeding out" those people who aren't suitable for writing. The mentality that a person can pile on negativity and harsh, biting words into a review for an author just because "hey, it's not my responsibility to make my criticism constructive, it's the author's responsibility to grab the valuable advice out of it" is a mentality to be shunned and avoided. You can reject people and point out problems gracefully. Those who don't are the worst of the crop, not the best, and it's an unfortunate reality that people accept, not an ideal that people follow.

I am a good example of this, in my opinion. While writing what parts of Generation 2021 I wrote (and no, I don't think I'll be continuing that anymore, unfortunately), the first parts were horrible (or at least I think they are looking back), but nobody gave me any bad comments. In the end, I still kept on writing, and eventually, it was the continued reading and writing that made me better, not the comments that anybody gave me. Even people who read it later on gave me these comments ("The first parts are pretty bad, but reading ahead, it looks like you improved quite a lot.") I was a little bothered by some of the comments given, but only because I myself realized upon re-reading that my writing was pretty bad. Eventually, I had ground my piece of rough carbon down myself, just by sheer practice toward reaching my role model.

Perhaps a bit of what happened was that I read a lot of the reviews that had been given to other people, which weren't as painful to read because they weren't targeted to me, but made me feel sympathy for the people it was targeted toward and giving me a desire not to make the same mistakes. Learning from the mistakes of others is a perfectly valid way to learn.

I agree with Zekurom that "a writer needs to learn to deal with harsh criticism" isn't an excuse to flame someone. Whoever, I have met all to many people who even handled very carefully and with encouragement, give up without really trying at the first sign that the utter crap they've come up with wasn't brilliant and someone might not think it was the best idea ever. Not out of pride, just out of fear.

I've been a beta many times and people have asked for my honest opinions and assistance on their stories and ideas. I certainly don't pull my punches, but I like to think that even if my criticism is very harsh, that I give very good suggestions, explanations, encouragement and the promise that I would give all the help the author asked for to make the story better, as well as always telling the writer that what they say goes, and not to just take my word for things but follow their instincts if they have strong feelings about something. And even with all this, I've had people give up on something after I've critiqued their first chapter. Sometimes after I've just given my opinion on their premise. If the reviewer/critic/beta has genuinely tried their best to be evenhanded and encouraging, if the writer still quits/cries/whatever, its not their fault. It could be that the writer simply doesn't have the objectivity needed to really examine themselves, or the right story idea hasn't come along to make them want to.

Originally Posted by NoirGrimoir

It could be that the writer simply doesn't have the objectivity needed to really examine themselves, or the right story idea hasn't come along to make them want to.

I think that's the biggest problem, when misunderstanding constructive criticism with flaming. We really need to objectively look at our works, which is kind of a problem since in the end these are our personal creations, and we love them like we would our children. It's no wonder we get all aggressive when someone start badmouthing our kid. So we should try to learn to be more wise parents... what the heck was I talking about?

@Gotpika; you also improved your action scenes a lot.
@Lance; you´re right on that, you know I took the litmus test yesterday for one of my character and I was wondering that it´s a sign of a mary sue if an author has a liking for a specific character over all the others, but I myself like all the characters I create and feel bad if they´re insulted, both fics and RP characters.

Though I do agree that a writer always starts off slow and they always start off with that feeling you know, when you still don´t know your way around things and don´t know what to do. I for one got a lot of harsh reviews when I first started and it was really tough honestly, bulba was really different four years ago compared to how it is now but I managed to pull through it, of course I´m still far from a good writer compared to a lot of others but I think that I´ve gotten quite better compared to when I started, because even if they were harsh I still tried to do what I can to follow on the review.

Originally Posted by Stellar Gale

you´re right on that, you know I took the litmus test yesterday for one of my character and I was wondering that it´s a sign of a mary sue if an author has a liking for a specific character over all the others, but I myself like all the characters I create and feel bad if they´re insulted, both fics and RP characters.

Yeah, I wouldn't take Sue test seriously. They're usually crap made up by know-it-all know nothings and the term Mary-Sue has pretty much become a term without real meaning anyway.