Authors: A question

I don't mind seeing criticism, of the plot construction, the character development, the action, "purple patch" description or whatever. I do go to a writer's group so I'm used to such things - but please be wise and assess whether the author is experienced or not. If you're received hundreds of positive comments, had stuff published and think you're quite good a negative comment can be quiet salutory and bring you back to a piece of work to determine whether there's serious flaws you missed, but for a new writer it can seem very harsh.

Good observation and advice.

Well here is a bit more honesty! Why this insufferably patronising tone I wonder! What gives you the idea that because you are a "published author" that you are in a unique position to provide expert criticism? In any case we have several hundred people who already provide expert criticism on this site so if you want to provide criticism why not get on with it without the song and dance? That is purely my inexpert opinion as a strictly amateur writer by the way!!

As a author, I prefer critical comments come to me in a pop up. I find a negative comment on the board distracting. It seems to take other readers off topic. Frequently they focus on that comment and how they disagree or agree with it and it could become the center of discussion for all the other readers. Most authors are fine with criticism; especially if it is done thoughtfully, constructively and privately.

If you liked it...praise it, if you didn't like it...forget it and move on.

This genre is so personal in taste, that it makes criticism difficult.
I think published comments are best as an acknowledgement of enjoyment.

Informed critical comments should be by private pop-ups.
It is then up to the author to either take it on board, enter into a private discusiion, or igore it.

Personally I think my work is nothing more or less than silly spanking stories and ought to be treated as such. If they bring enjoyment to some then great.
They most certainly are not polished literary fiction.

You opened an interesting discussion, SpankingFire. I would like to make a few considerations.

What differentiate this site from most if not all others is the incentive to comment. I have had more comments here on one story than on other sites on the bulk of my stories.

Although there are comments like "Great job", most try to show that they read the story and are commenting on things that touched their emotions.

I for one would like to receive comments on the story structure and flow, mainly because English isn't my first language. And I don't mind if it's a message or a public comment.

I try to point positive aspects of a story I liked. I don't comment on a story I disliked because it would be a comment born from my personal preferences. I never comment on grammar or on ortography. I only comment if the readability of the story is in danger like no paragraphing, mixing tenses and mixing narrative point of view. But it is me.

Foremost, like probably all authors, professional or amateurs, I love receiving feedback, and this site is great at it.

An aside, there are comments and there are comments. There are two types of comments that I (reluctantly) feel aren't appropriate - and for one of the types I'll have reference another site because I haven't seen that type of comment here.

1) "Something I like should have happened and it didn't so I hate this story":
The closest I've seen to this here is someone who dislikes F/m commenting that they didn't like F/m on a story that was labeled F/m, but I've seen a much better example on another site.

An author whose work I enjoy (i.e. someone whose books come out in hard cover, not someone whose internet posts are good) recently published another book in a long running series. After reading that book I headed to a forum that talks about the author's work, mostly because there are posters there who usually point out things that I might have missed. I found a few things being talked about that I missed - minor points that tied into long running plot elements - but I also found a confusing thread.

It's a forum dedicated to this author's work and one thread there was about how terrible the book is because the main character didn't do X, Y, and Z - thus the author had written an unbelievable book because the character should have done X, Y, and Z. When another poster pointed out that the main character was working to a tight deadline and barely had time to do the things that had to be done, the initial poster said that defense was irrelevant because the author had complete control of the timeline. To paraphrase her position
"Because the author chose to write a book where all the action was to a tight deadline, he didn't leave room for the character to do X, Y, and Z and since the character should have done X, Y, and Z the author decided to write a fatally flawed book. Probably as a direct insult to his fans or in an attempt to torpedo his own series."

Personally, I see the entire series as pure escapism with nice plot twists in each novel and while it might have been nice to see X, Y, and Z happening, having the main character do those things would have doubled the size of the novel. Pointing that out made no difference, because the poster had decided that to be a good book X, Y, and Z had to happen and since they didn't the book was fatally flawed and everyone should stop reading that series.

In short, not only can't I understand that poster's obsession with the main character doing X, Y, and Z, I can't understand why she felt the need to start a thread and share her opinion - using circular arguments of "the author controlled the plot so if it the plot dictated X, Y, and Z couldn't happen then that's the author's fault too".

2) Reading the author's personal believes into a story
I've seen this one here and in forums dedicated to various authors. A character in a story says X and there's comments about "how could the author use that character to espouse his awful personal beliefs?" or "the author has to have <a great darkest/an underlying hatred of women/a fatally flawed understanding of X/a hatred of this or that ethnic group> at the core of his being - otherwise he couldn't have included X in his story".

That's an appropriate comment on a manifesto, political essay, etc but not with a work of fiction. Authors often include nasty characters who say and do nasty things, but that doesn't mean that the author secretly indorses doing that nasty thing.

I can't see t hat. I mean, part of the enjoyment of writing is to stretch things so you can see outside of your own head.

Goodgulf

If you've read something I've posted and took the time to comment about it - regardless of what that comment was - I thank you for reading my work.
~Sar~

That really depends. A fictional work can be written in a way that endorses that character's worldview.