Comment thread spin-off

A few comments on the comment thread got me thinking. Several people mentioned a reluctance to criticize because it might discourage people. On the surface a noble notion to be sure, but consider some other examples:

An amateur cook decides to take their chili recipe to a chili festival. Should they expect only raves if their chili displeases most of the folks attending?

A self-taught painter decides to put their work in a local show. Same question.

These examples point out the fundamental difference between TRULY "writing for oneself" (like a journal of stories no one ever sees that gets dragged out each time the author wants to excite themselves) and writing and then choosing to submit that work for public scrutiny.

Now, I'm not advocating nastiness, especially if it's nastiness for nastiness' sake, but I don't see why every public venue needs to be a 'safe space'? When I was getting my Master's in Fine Art, we did "crits". And let me tell you, they could be BRUTAL. BUT......they served a purpose! They were meant to challenge one's work to make each new effort better.

So what do you all think? Does the safe treatment apply once someone decides to publish? Does avoiding criticism help anyone?

I'm curious to hear some thoughts.

This is a very interesting topic, for which I can't come up with a simple answer. The problem is we're all different. My solution was to put in my author profile that I welcome all comments including negative ones. And I really meant it. For one thing, the occasional negative one makes the positive ones more believable. I would like to believe most comments are reasonably honest, otherwise they don't have any value at all. Secondly, it isn't good for readers to always get what they want. As writers, we should sometimes tease them, confound their expectations and generally mess with their brains. Seen from that point of view, a negative comment is a badge of honour.

More generally, I think criticisms should be made very carefully. The LSF is a friendly community and that is worth protecting. It is particularly dangerous criticising someone you don't know, because you're unaware of their mental state and the criticism could be more devastating than it was intended to be. A good policy, which I was taught on some course or other many years ago, is always to pair a negative observation with a positive one.

Good point, AB. For me the problem with negative comments is that they are public can prevent some folks from even reading the story. At the same time "constructive" criticism can be very helpful to a writer.

So, the way I solve this is to leave only positive comments that are attached to the story and I use "popup's" if I have suggestions on ways the writer might improve his story/style. Big advantage of the popups is they are private and don't "poison the well" for others.

I'll be blunt, when I'm down-really down-the comments help pick me up. Granted, I don't always leave comments, like when I read a story when I'm exhausted to help me fall asleep, because either the comment won't make sense latter or it'll be taken the wrong way. No, what really has discouraged me from writing, was being physically threatened for posting my work in an actual CP community, spankingtube, where we we're given or own space for our stuff. It just blew me away. People from our own community threatening genuine violence to one of their own for sharing what we're all interested in. Trying to get back into it. Usually it's just not enough time but I still have a CP library in my head I want to share.

As Alan mentioned, it's a problem that we don't really know each other in here. In a physical class, you get to know the other participants, and you soon get an impression of who is particularly vulnerable and who enjoys to be a bit provocative in their comments. Such knowledge makes is possible to adjust your reactions

I don’t really like the idea of ‘criticism’ in the area of artistic endeavour, however niche, implying hallowed expertise and wisdom. I try to be appreciative in my stance, that even, or maybe especially, what seems to be the worst written story took some real effort to write, and has meanings for the writer that I can’t know about.

I comment a lot, but I can’t comment on everything I read, even if I like it but if I really dislike something, either because it seems clumsily written, or it’s not to my taste, I leave it be.

If I have some, hopefully helpful, suggestion for improvement, I’ll make it in as positive a way as I can.

I saw a cartoon today with someone holding an umbrella to protect themselves from the contents of a watering can, while pouring water on their own head themselves, saying ‘criticism? No thanks, I’ve got plenty of my own!’

We do have a good mix of writers here. Some like to create stories that are simply to their taste who then offer them for more public viewing. Others have a more professional approach and create stories to test the market. There are, I'm sure, many other motivations for writing as well. Would a more critical level of commenting really help every writer? Do we all want to know that a particular story of ours sent someone to sleep? This is a friendly community and I hope that can be preserved. Kerrsutherland's experience of being physically threatened is surely worrying.

Critical comments that are helpful:
-Saying if something breaks the plot or story (like, a character changing names three times throughout the story making it unreadable)
-Noting if a poem doesn't flow or read easily
-Noting egregious spelling errors and formatting errors (so they can be easily fixed)

Critical comments that aren't helpful:
-"This is a bad story because XYZ..."
-"I don't like your writing style."
-Saying you don't like the story/poem/whatever, but giving no actual feedback, just being negative
-Nitpicks and personal dislikes forming the entirety of the comment ("I don't like M/M stories, so I didn't like this." etc)

I think ultimately while we do open ourselves up to feedback and criticism by sharing our work here, we're not doing this commercially (obvious exception for stuff published via LSF Publications). We're not selling you a product, we're giving you a gift. To be entirely critical when there's no need - you're not protecting other consumers from wasting money, you're not guiding people on how to spend their money - is often pointless and just to make the commenter feel better. I find that some people love leaving very critical comments because it makes themselves feel better about themselves.

Not everyone here wants to get better. Taste is subjective. Issues that can be quickly fixed - like typos, or formatting errors - are fair game. Feedback on how you've personally experienced the story is fair game. But when people give feedback but present it like there's an objective problem, it becomes shitty IMO.

Just my take and my opinion. Honestly, I'm surprised I haven't had more negative feedback on my earliest stories loaded on here - I wrote them when I was 19 years old, I have no real education in writing, and looking back there are some embarrassing errors and problems with them.

kerrsutherland
May I ask what triggered such an extreme reaction?

If I have something that may be construed as being negative to say about a story, I do my best to be respectful. I've had people be negative about my stories and at time, the negativity was warranted. However, telling me the same negative comment over and over doesn't help. I do look back at things I've written and put up here and thought, "Gee idiot, why did you write that, were you having a crappy day that day," or I've told myself, "learn to proofread idiot."

The thing is, be respectful, be considerate, don't be mean just to be mean, don't find fault just to find fault. In other words, don't look for trouble.