How to be a critic and preform criticism. · 1:58am Sep 29th, 2020
It's obvious to anyone who makes anything ever that most people do not know what criticism is, nor how to do it. It seems like the common internet citizen thinks that criticism is blasting someone just trying to entertain others with a fire hose of negativity while shitting and giggling at how much that creator sucks. Or at best, just dropping brick after hate filled brick on their heads while chanting "The problem with that is..." over and over and over and over while pretending that's helping and not in fact making a person who just wants to entertain you with free stuff they make out of the kindness of their heart want to shoot you, then themselves.
Clearly, someone needs to explain what criticism actually is, since online reviewers like the Angry Video Game Nerd, Cinema Sins, and the Nostalgia Critic have brainwashed everyone into thinking that "Criticism is an excuse to be an asshole to someone." It is not.
Criticism is the analysis and judgment of the merits and faults of a literary or artistic work. Let me repeat that. The merits and faults. Note how that includes the word merits. Just in case you guys do not know what merits means (I'm not infantilizing anyone, do remember there are many young people on this site), merit means "the quality of being particularly good or worthy, especially so as to deserve praise or reward."
This means that to provide criticism you must list what you feel is good about a given piece of artistic work as well as what you feel is bad about it. If you are not doing that, you are not criticizing, you are bullying. You are tearing down. You are destroying any motivation someone has to create anything anymore ever again because as far as they can tell, all they do is make terrible crap that's bad.
Got that? If you want to criticize something, or provide a critique, you have to praise AND admonish. BOTH. THINGS. AT. ONCE. If you don't do that, you're not being a critic. You're just being an asshole.
Here's the thing. I can take criticism. I relay can. Why? Because criticism is polite and clearly trying to be helpful. What most people do is just rip into something I made to try and make them happy for a brief moment in this shitty shitty thing we call life and make me feel worthless and terrible and like I should et back to trying to kill myself. What most people do, is, bullying.
Yet they call it criticism. They keep using that word, and it does NOT mean what they think it means.
As an example, let me tell you guys what made me so angry I can feel my pulse in my hands right now. I wake up and literally the first thing I experience before even fucking getting my pants on, is a private message where someone tells me I fucked up a trivial detail, refuses to understand that it's not a fuck up after I explain "no you're not right about what the character is trying to do there. It's X not Y." MULTIPLE FUCKING TIMES, and then insist I rewrite a chunk of a story that would mean at least 1000k of new text because changing 2 tons of food to 20 tons of food means I would have to completely change Queen Katydid's reaction, and furthermore alter Silverlight's intentions and change a ton of behind the seens stuff, all because they don't understand the point of sending a small sample to prove you have a supply of something to sell! Why do I need to do all of that? Because they don't understand what Silverlight is doing, they refuse to understand any logic other than their own, they insist it needs to be fixed, then they hide behind the shield of criticism.
Stop. Fucking. Doing. That.
If you want to help me tell a better story, how about you ask me "hey, do you need a beta reader?" or otherwise offer actual services? Like, you know, an actual critique of the work.
Geez....
If you want a beta reader, I'm available. I'm not much of a critic, but I can and will make suggestions. It's YOUR story, not mine. It's what I do with "Along New Tides" by Merchant Mariner.
5366381 Not for this one I don't. I may stop writing all togeather. This happens more than people being nice and/or thankful. It's like they think I dont put ~31 hours of work into a chapter...
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I hope not. I like your work! In fact, I should go back and start rereading, just to refresh my memory. Covid brain is NOT fun.
If you feel the need to talk, you have my number and links. Always happy to help a friend! (I think you ARE my friend, so may I ask to be your friend?)
5366388 I dont personaly think we've interacted enough to be friends, but I see no reason to say no other than something that's fixable by being friends.
5366392
Sounds like a plan. Feel free to call on me when you feel the need.
They think the quantity is a mistake?
Well said Meep. Unfortunately over the last 15 years I have seen this change in how people interact with each other. Often times this is blamed upon the anonymity of the internet, but I tend to wonder if perhaps people are just no longer taught how to criticize constructively.
Thank you for the reminder, as well as having said it so well. With that said, if you ever need a beta reader please feel free to ask. I would be happy to assist you or any other writer.
With that said, I hope your day gets better. Take care.
5366531 I may have need for a beta readeer soonish. I know this came across as a bit aggressive, but when you wake up to 31 messages totaling about 30k words, all of which is "this is a problem, also this and this" well... I think even a person who doesn't have social difficulties and emotion control issues would be angry.
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I don't blame you at all Meep. That would have had me riled up also. Just let me know when and how I can assist you. To me, this is about sharing and helping each other not a competition.
...yep. Even the people at Rage Reviews aren’t that hard headed
Wasn't that story also written, uh... several years ago at this point? Do they expect perfection in every syllable, then?
5367027 Their objections were to my own worldbuilding and rooted in a logic which experts in certain subjects have told me was erroneous.
5366820 Rage Reviews are still trying to be funny and entertain. So at least there's that.
Honestly, I think that criticism might be part of why I don't comment very much. I have this way of thinking that I need to actually have some sort of criticism in order to comment. I need to learn to just... positively comment on things I like without needing suggestions or a review.
I'm sorry you have to deal with the morons of the Internet like that. Insisting that the author is wrong and you clearly know better than they do about their own story to their (digital) face is not criticism. It's just being a jerk. How do people even...?
Anyway, if you need any more beta readers, I'd be happy to help as well.
5367166
The thing is, criticism is an important part of growth-- so long as it is reasoned and constructive. A sharing of ideas, proposal of how something might be improved, though not an order of it. Response to criticism is just as important; if it is genuine, one must take care to take into account that which is suggested, regardless of whether any changes are made based off of it. Taking genuine criticism personally is as bad as receiving bad criticism is, often worse.
That said, I'm not saying Meep is overreacting-- this does indeed sound like someone whining for the sake of whining, from what has been said.
5367166 Here's a good way to get yourself into the habit of providing good criticism even if what you have to say is mostly negative.
Find ANYTHING you like about the chapter or story. Start with that as a simpel statment. "I particulay liked X, and it made this enjoyable." then say something like "Did you mean to have X person do Y because it seems a bit off because of reason Z. I mean if not that's fine, I still enjoyed the characterizations and all, but I am just curious if that was meant to be like that." If you can, finish it with a third thing you think was done well. That will be well recirved, and if you have a good point and the author cant be like "Oh! You misunderstood X, I am sorry it was unclear, how can we make it more clear?" they will probably be like "Oh no! I didn't mean that. How do we fix it?"
YOu get them to see you liek what they did and care about what you see as a mistake in a posative way.
5367172 I can take criticism, just ask any of my beta reader sor editors. WHen I am working on something, if someone tells me "hey this isnt' too good, here's why" I'll fix it. I've rewritten 15k in my backburner fic alone because someone point out it was kind of an exposition dump and woud lserve better as a scene in and of itself.
FINISHED products are different for me. I have some pride in the dumb I polished into some horsewords. But even then, I can take criticism if it's polite and genuine. What I can't take is a systematic demolition of my published worldbuilding. Especially not when this is all I have in terms of "thing I do for society".
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Thank you both for the comments and advice. The pattern you've suggested, Meep, actually falls in line with how I try to leave constructive criticism already.
I fear I wasn't clear in my original comment though. My issue with comments stems from a mindset of not commenting unless I have such constructive criticism. It's when I don't have any criticism that I run into problems. If I found nothing wrong whatsoever in a fic or chapter, no matter how much I enjoyed it, I find it difficult to just express my enjoyment of the author's work, or join in the discussion thereof.
I don't suppose either of you have any advice on that front? It's a bit of a weird issue, but such is the life of a lurker, I suppose.
5367701 I try to always at least say "Thank you" on every story I read. Even if I have nothing in particular to say, it's still nice they did all that work for me.
5367813
Now, that's a good idea. I do that sometimes, but I should really do it for all of them. Speaking of which, thanks again for all the excellent horsewords Meep!
5367959 You're most welcome.