When do you trust yourself?

A question about your own self-critique methods.

When it comes to writing things, when do you trust what you're seeing is a flaw, and when do you decided to take it elsewhere?

Alternatively, when do you trust what you're seeing is not a flaw, and when do you decide to trust the stranger-critique?

For me, personally, I tend to think everything I write sucks, so I tend to usually trust the people giving opinions, as well as trust my own opinions on what sucks.

I think it is a very rare author who can truly make an objective assessment of their own work, so I tend to trust other people's critiques more then I do my own, although I might still ignore them if the criticism is about a stylistic choice.

I usually do my own beta-reading for mistakes and problems with flow; that's basically just word- or sentence-level stuff, and I can identify my own mistakes easily enough. I've never really done much at higher levels, either with my own criticisms or anyone else's.

All the time.

When other people see a flaw, I usually trust that a flaw exists, but it may not be the flaw they see. (Other writers' experience is instructive here—when Orson Scott Card was told that The Worthing Saga was too long, he realized that it felt too long, so he made it even longer by giving it more description and better pacing. The result works pretty well.)

Once I've finished examining what everyone else said.

When I think I'm writing what I hoped in my mind. Also, after asking for someone's opinion on how they view something, and finding out that they saw what I thought they would see.

My standards and expectations are obviously not very high as of yet. I recently emerged out of that amateurish, Darker and Edgier, Mary Sue-prone phase evocative of fourteen-year-old girls.

Never. Can't trust that guy, he's a compulsive lier. Seriously, I have been cursed with a tremendous ego, so I can never trust myself to say that an idea of mine is stupid, and NOT the most amazing thing ever composed within a human mind.

A combination of both, I guess.

Right now, I'm trying to act as my own editor and critic, since I don't show my writing to many people (read: anybody). I'm sure I know when something is flawed, or when something feels off, and then I try to fix it.

When I am ready to send things out to a beta reader or whatever, I think I can take their advice or criticism as well, since they are looking at my work from a completely different perspective. Things I didn't see as errors or shortcomings will be much clearer.

So, I sort of trust myself.

I don't trust myself at all. I have trusted Beta readers.

This, to some extent.

I can usually rely on myself to pick out things that are unrealistic, but whether or not this is a bad thing is situational. I don't bother trusting myself to pick out bad writing and plotting, though.

Pretty much. Although as I mentioned in another thread, it definitely should be beta readers, plural - a single one isn't terribly reliable.

I trust myself to pick out things that I wouldn't want to read, since I am my own target audience (in other words, my target audience is young, straight males who like a cross between Action and Porn with Plot, and prefer it with a very fast pace and lots of blood). But I don't trust myself to be entirely objective, either... I know that there are probably instances of unintended Continuity Drift, problems with grammar/syntax/etc., IKEA Erotica and any number of other problems that another person could spot more readily than me, and I therefore am quite willing to take constructive criticism.

However, if your criticism is unconstructive, prepare to be called out on that. One time, a guy posted a comment on one of my Literotica stories that read simply "lame"... my response was "Since you're already monosyllabic, I'm not going to pick on you too much. Retards have it bad enough already." I was much nicer to the critics who posted whole paragraphs about what was wrong with that story, even though they were, in a way, harsher: because some of their comments actually helped, there was no reason to be mean to them.

I always think I've done the best thing ever, that's why I ask other people to read my stuff for me. But I'm around a lot of yesmen which gets quite annoying. That's when I go to the Internet for help 'cause no one's more brutally honest than someone from the internet.

I can rely on myself for grammar and spelling issues, usually. However, for things like pacing, natural dialogue, and characterization, I have to ask other people.

Alternately, I have to trust myself if I can't find a beta reader for a certain story, so I figure I need to train myself to at least try to see it objectively (like what might be entertaining to other people, what might be only funny to me, etc). Then, I have to find a similar story (that is considered good) and dissect it to figure out how that author wrote theirs (like what was their description to dialogue ratio, did they tell it straightforward or use flashbacks and snippets, did they use tangents or were they to the point, etc). Then I play with their methods to figure out what's best for my story.

And if I can't find a similar story, I just wing it. If there's no resounding, "It sucks a lot," I continue doing what I'm doing.

edited 29th Oct '11 9:31:20 PM by BlackElephant

Ironically, I find that I tend to be more critical of my own work than do other people. I don't use beta readers and I usually only specifically ask people for advice when I'm unsure of how to handle a particular idea or I'm unsure about the direction the story is taking.

Otherwise, I tend to trust myself more than anyone else. I write to entertain myself and explore specific themes and ideas that are of interest to me, rather than anyone else. It's great that people read and enjoy my work, and their feedback means a lot, but if my work is at all good it's because I've been able to use it to do what I am interested in and give it a strong personal value.

Yeah, I usually trust myself. I mean, I'm writing the thing, I have to have some level of trust that I know what I'm doing, otherwise why am I here at all?

Stealing this line, because I think it sums it up nicely. I tend to feel good about my work, and trust my judgement, when I think the thing that's on paper is close as it's going to get to the scene in my mind. It's kind of hard to pin down specific criteria for it, actually, and it's kind of a nebulous feeling. But when I get it, and find that zone, I feel really good about it.

I also tend to trust myself when it comes to matters of character behavior. But second opinions usually never hurt.

I generally only trust myself or others when we both agree. I find often that while I like a story reading it back, as soon as someone makes a criticism, it ruins it for me and I'm like 'oh yeah, I see how it sucks now', and that's when I try to make adjustments.

If they criticise it but I still don't agree even after they've explained the problem, I usually just assume they're 'not getting it', since I know perfectly well I have strange tastes, and would rather cater to them than those of a random stranger, even many random strangers.

But generally everything I write stays in a quantum state of both sucking and not sucking until some asshole collapses the waveform.

In my case, more work = more trust. If I just keep hacking away at that block of marble, eventually it'll start looking like Michelangelo's David...or something like that. Preferably something with a nice hat.

Granted, ideas/info/opinions of others > self-trust, so there's that. Working with others can only lead to a positive gain for all parties involved, so I'm always willing to keep an open mind. Still won't keep me from fretting that those people will give me a reason NOT to trust myself, but what can you do? Burying your head in the sand doesn't seem like a very pleasant option.

Lawdy, had forgotten I started this thread. That was weird.

I wouldn't say the opinions of others are always trustable. After all, there is such a thing as bad advice, or misguided advice. Part of trusting yourself is knowing when to stick to your guns and when to bow to criticism.

True. As far as writing goes, I feel it's generally better to trust others' opinions more than one's own, but neither should be totally trusted or ignored.