Criticism, it never gets easier, does it?

A lament thread, really.

Although I appreciate people commenting and criticizing my work, whenever I see them, I always become tense, thinking "OHGODOHGODOHGODOHGOD, please don't kill me." and all. To be honest, I always feel a bit ashamed of myself a little whenever my work gets criticized. I know that people who do that are nice people who have no intention of making me feel bad, but still.

If I can't handle criticism at THIS early stage, I worry that I might never get my work published...

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

You mean to say you receive criticism in the first place? I always feel like I don't have enough, harsh or sugarcoated :|

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am...

*chuckles, scratching back of head* Well, I do get some criticism from, according to last post, three different tropers (thanks, people). They are all nice people and I know that, but actually looking and evaluating their posts needed a bit of courage.

Yeah, harsh criticism is ALWAYS preferrable than no criticism at all.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Merlo: Show me some of your stuff. I prefer completed works/chapters to concepts, though.

It's much less humiliating to receive criticism from a beta reader than to receive it from a larger audience (and the stuff I've written that's gotten the most justified criticism from a large audience wasn't beta-read.)

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

Amen to that.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Half my unwillingness to read reviews is that they're not critical enough. Half of it is I'm going to wake up one day and find myself reviewing my own work. (You enlist a critic upon the strength of their cruelty, so that it will be known things have been done wrong.)

Nous restons ici.

There are times, though, when my reaction to criticism is a sigh of relief. "Oh, I'm not completely mental—that part really is messed up/parses weirdly/doesn't make sense!" It's nice to have some confirmation that some flaw you think you've noticed is in fact there, and you're not just being overly critical and paranoid about yourself.

"Proto-Indo-European makes the damnedest words related. It's great. It's the Kevin Bacon of etymology." ~Madrugada

I've got exactly the same problem. Whenever something I've made is criticized, I'm always like that. Extreme anxiety usually followed by some relief because they didn't say it completely and utterly sucks. There's also another effect: Sometimes when I've finished something I'll think "Yeah, it's not good, but it's readable." and then, just after I've sent it for criticism I'm suddenly all "OH MY GOD IT SUCKS AND THAT PART NEAR THE END HOW COULD I LEAVE IT THERE IT'S HORRIBLE IT BUUUUUUURNS!"

I predict it does get easier, it's just a long way to reach that point.

My sentiment, exactly.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

The key to getting more criticism.

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

........

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

I don't accept advice from losers who suck at writing. You'll never be as good as me anyway. Because I'm a genius.

Edit: I waited ten seconds and no criticism. It clearly didn't work.

edited 16th Aug '11 12:15:01 AM by Dealan

CRITICISM on how you are a jerk!

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

My problem with criticism is in that it's never anywhere near as harsh and detailed as I'd ideally like it to be. I see which things were mentioned as in need of fixing, and I wonder "But what about all those other 200 totally sucky things that torture me every day but this person didn't mention at all?! Were they not as sucky as I thought they were? Were they not mentioned because they sucked so hard that it's impossible to fix them?!" And so on until I feel like quitting altogether.

You can't please everybody. Spelling and grammar should be flawless before anyone else sees your work, but beyond that, all criticism is subjective and should be treated as such.

Despite any criticism, you have no obligation to change your story to suit anyone but yourself. You'll never make it perfect. You'll never get it to match the pictures and voices in your head. At some point you have to declare it done and move on to something else.

Most of all, you have to practice. Your best critic will always be yourself.

Under World. It rocks!

And your worst critic too. It gets in the way of your creativity, the thing without which the critics wouldn't have material to criticize.

edited 16th Aug '11 8:41:53 AM by QQQQQ

Whenever I have a review pending and I am about to read it, my heart starts beating frantically and does not stop doing so until sometime after the review. This beating is tempered by praise, which makes me go "Awwwwwwww," and corrective criticism, which makes me go "So and so has a point, and it's clear he/she read the thing."

I'd say it does get easier, only because you come to expect critics to say certain things and it's no longer treading into a vast open space each time you ask for a critique. You may also develop a particular "review reading mood" that allows you to read the review more calmly and technically, instead of personally as we are wont to do. (For me, such a mood only comes about after I've read the review once, gone to bed, woken up, and am reading it a second time)

"You got a match?" "Uh, yeah, my butt and your... uh... butt."

I love criticism. I get annoyed when people don't criticize my work.

The worst thing in the world for me to hear is "meh, it's pretty good." It means they're lying and too nice to admit it.

Not that criticism is nice to hear, but it's helpful enough to override that...

I am now known as Flyboy.

I really crave criticism, so I can make my stories less sucky. But even so, I'm pretty nervous before reading it.

I don't think it ever gets easy, but you do get a bit more able to cope with it as time goes by.

It does not matter who I am. What matters is, who will you become? - motto of Omsk Bird

Criticism does get easier, actually. You just have to handle it right.

The key is figuring out who to dismiss and who to accept, and you're golden.

Read my stories!

Which isn't even necessarily going to be the same thing for the same people.

"Proto-Indo-European makes the damnedest words related. It's great. It's the Kevin Bacon of etymology." ~Madrugada

Precisely. Which is why I can't offer strict guidelines.

Read my stories!

ITT: We whine about readers not not liking our work. :P

I think it's unrealistic to ask or expect casual readers to give you criticism on your work. It takes a lot of thought and effort to write helpful criticism, and most people who read things online are doing it for fun, not to help you improve your writing. If you get positive but critically unhelpful reviews, you should feel honoured, not annoyed.

The best option for getting con crit is to find somewhere devoted to criticism, like "Troper Critique Club", or get a beta-reader; when criticism is the main goal, you can expect more of it. Ask for criticism on specific areas; it gives the reader more focus, and it means you have to judge for yourself what you think needs work. You can also ask open-ended *

questions to get more out of them— "Did you like this scene?" is less helpful than "What did you like in this scene? What didn't you like?"

As for fear of criticism in general— eh, you'll get over it. I used to freak out when I made forum posts; I was terrified someone would jump on me for saying something they disagreed with. Then one day, that exact thing happened, and amazingly the world didn't implode. The more you do something, the less frightening it becomes. So open yourself up to criticism! The power is yours!

Thanks for the all fish!

I didn't see any whining.

Also, there is the fact that you have to know who doesn't like your work because it is not in their demographic, and because there are legitimate problems.

Read my stories!