🌈Ranibow Sprimkle🌈

The thing about wanting people to do a thing well is that it's never going to happen unless you allow them to do it poorly and clumsily first, and give feedback (but not harassment) on those attempts.

Which in fiction discourse specifically means that if you say "people should only handle [delicate topic] if they can do it with perfect care and sensitivity", you're essentially saying people shouldn't handle the topic at all, because they won't do it perfectly the first time they try - even if they have first hand experience with the topic itself, translating that to a well communicated story is its own skill that requires practice.

And you might say, "ok, but they don't have to publish it professionally", which is fair... except that amateur circles where people are supposed to be practicing and learning seem to come down even harsher on people who handle something badly.

The older i get the more i realise constructive criticism isn't even used correctly in most situations where people share their art. Or that most people aren't looking for their work to be critiqued unless they specifically ask for it since sharing stuff publicly is scary af.

Like yeah, it's tempting to want people to improve and be someone who can personally help them, but I find most people improve naturally as they produce more work passionately rather than having their flaws pointed out and essentially be told to do homework before they can do stuff they find passionate about again.

Unless you're paying for a service, or money is being exchanged in general and expectations aren't being met, or that the person specifically asks for help, I really don't see how telling people who does things for passion that they need to meet some standard to post shit.

Ok, so, if I’m reading a fic, and enjoying it, but catching typos, should I *not* pass that on? Usually I try to send a private message of some sort, and say ‘hey, I was enjoying this, but found some typos and wanted to let you know, and here’s what they were.’ I always figured by saying it privately (not anon tho!), it’s pretty low key and folks can either use the info or not, depending on their energy/motivation levels? But does that still bug authors?

@purple-hel​ It does! Or at least, according to what I’ve been repeatedly told, it does bother a lot of people.

The thing is, and I’ve talked a lot about typos in particular before, some people may want to know about them, some people don’t. If the fic doesn’t say at the top that they welcome crit/let me know if there’s typos, etc, it’s usually a safer bet not to send them, or at the very least ask the person if they want to know before sending. As an aside to anyone reading along, if you want to be notified of typos, you should absolutely put that in your notes so people like this know they’re welcome to help out!

I absolutely 100% get that sending people typos is so often well-intentioned, and usually from someone who thinks “well I would want to know” but for a many people, this can trigger rejection sensitive dysphoria. Even if it doesn’t, it can feel pretty bad to write anything from a couple hundred words to a couple hundred thousand words, screw up the courage to share it online in the hopes that you might be able to make someone else happy by giving them something nice to read, and then to have someone drop by and say “I liked this but I’ve gone and catalogued what you did wrong!” No matter how polite or friendly it just... can really suck the fun out of writing for a lot of people.

The profoundly eyerolly thing about this new round of “concrit” wank is this presumption that authors will just write down whatever and slap it up online? If you know any writers you probably know how incredibly fucking wrong that is. And even if they did just verbally barf something up and post it, it’s people’s right to do that; nobody is grabbing the end of your nose and forcing their words into your eyeballs. 

But you can usually tell when something’s slapped together without a lot of care. This isn’t a function of writerly skill per se. A fic can be riddled with SPAG errors or OOC everything and you can still tell whether there was thought put into it. I think fans have a pretty good sense of that sort of thing, and the stuff that demonstrates thought and care bubbles to the top. It’s not always going to be technically well written or interpret the characters in a manner you find understandable, but The Claw does what The Claw does. 

I also don’t think people (if they are indeed operating in good faith, which I question) understand the relationship required between a writer and person giving them feedback? There is vulnerability in opening yourself up to criticism, and that requires trust. Once we have established that trust I let my betas rip my work to shreds, because I have faith in their judgment, and criticism from people you trust, not random drive-by commenters, is what makes your work better. 

And, like. If you genuinely want to help people improve their writing? Go join a writer’s group online or something. Sign up to beta for a challenge or big bang. Build relationships with writers via comments or social media. If you’re genuinely helpful they’ll vouch for you and recommend you to their author friends. Demonstrate you are worthy of trust before you start giving out criticism. It cannot be presumed, only earned.

Here’s what gets me about the whole concrit thing. I am a professional editor. My job is literally giving people constructive criticism.

As a professional, I can tell you I would get exactly zero (0) work if my methods involved jumping onto something already published and laying out all its issues in front of an audience. First, I would know nothing about what the author’s intentions were. I would not know if the piece of work succeeded in terms of doing what the author set out to do. I wouldn’t be familiar with the author’s aims. All of these things are things an editor should know before jumping into the critique part.

Above all, an author asks an editor for help. That’s how it works.

An editor-author relationship must be built on trust. This isn’t about authors being delicate little flowers who can’t take criticism, okay? This is about authors putting their blood, sweat, and tears into something, and an editor knowing that obviously, this means authors are emotionally invested in their work. They should be! If authors feel nothing, their readers will feel nothing. Creators are not robots. They are people with thoughts and feelings that, surprise, can be hurt. A good editor says, “Hey, I know this is really scary, but I think we can work together to make sure you’re telling this story the best way you know how, because I’m standing outside of it and can offer you some perspective.”

People who want to drop “constructive criticism” (or just criticism full-stop; many people do not know the difference, to be quite honest) all over work published on the web (never mind that this is hobby writing and nothing that needs to be of publishable quality at all) aren’t doing it for the author. They don’t know the author. They don’t have a relationship with the author. They’re doing it for themselves. They’re doing it to feel superior. Otherwise, they’d try and establish a relationship with the author first. Because that is how the real industry works. (And fandom should be more lenient! Far, far more lenient! This is a hobby. This is fun! Critique does not need to be a part of the fun. If a commenter thinks it does? That’s on them, not the author. They’re the ones who don’t know how to have fun, except at the expense of others.)

Without a relationship that establishes trust, and which ensures the author and the editor are both compatible and on the same page regarding the work, criticism (no matter how constructive) is just criticism. It’s like leaving a one-star review on Goodreads but knowing damn-well the author is going to see it (because that criticism will immediately be transported to their inbox).

If you are not someone’s editor or beta reader, you have no business telling them what they should or shouldn’t do with their work. You have no business trying to mold them or guide them. They didn’t ask for you. If you genuinely want them to succeed or improve and think you see a way to help them do that? Offer them a critique. Ask if they want to hear what you have to say. And if they say no, accept that and move on. Editing someone else’s work without being in an established editor-author relationship is not your responsibility; it’s not your job. You are not a crusader who must convert all those grammatical or characterization heathens who dare make spelling errors or choose to envision a character differently than you do. Even the most valuable criticism in the world will fail to be constructive if the author isn’t receptive to it, and there’s no faster way to make an author close up than to drop an email full of your personal complaints into their inbox. 

So I used to make fun of this guy for using the same face over and over. And you know what? Kudos on this made for actually taking the criticism and breaking out of his rut.

This is also terrifying and I hate it.

“Kudos for actually taking the criticism and breaking out of his rut.“

Except it wasn’t criticism, it was constant daily harassment. Look, I’ve been making comics for the internet for 10 years. I made comics for BuzzFeed for about two years, but people love to focus on those comics for some reason. They were simpler and quicker because I needed to publish at least one thing a day. And I loved it! I learned a lot!

At some point when I was getting really popular, Reddit and Tumblr decided they’d had enough and launched a targeted campaign against me. Tried to doxx me multiple times. Sent death threats. 4Chan threads started popping up for the sole purpose of spreading rumors that I’m a pedophile. All because I was making “lazy” comics and getting a salary for it.

Also, it’s always the same 10 or so comics that got posted as proof of my laziness. I made 1,008 comics at BuzzFeed (I counted). I worked really hard for my extremely mediocre salary.

Now that I’ve left BuzzFeed and don’t have deadlines anymore, I can spend more time on comics and only draw things I’m passionate about (like my dick). But make no mistake—if you like my stuff now, it’s because I pushed myself so hard as BuzzFeed. I’m not better now because of the “criticism” I got from trolls on the internet. Don’t fucking take credit for that.

UNASKED FOR CRITICISM IS NEVER ‘CONSTRUCTIVE’. YOU’RE NOT BEING HELPFUL, YOU’RE JUST BEING MEAN. 

Except, as Adam says above, it’s not criticism. It’s just harassment. 

Everyone who puts something online is open to criticism. Everyone. Anyone is allowed to say, “I don’t like this,” or “Hm, there are some problems here.” That’s the inherent risk of putting your work out for others to see. 

The problem isn’t that people said “Hey, Adam, you seem to be drawing the same thing over and over a lot and it’s kinda getting old for us as viewers.” Hell, the problem wasn’t even people making the occasional “Hey that Adam guy sure draws the exact same face over and over doesn’t he?” joke. Those things are part and parcel of sharing your work, especially to as wide an audience as Adam has.

The problem, as he said above, was that it went beyond criticism - invited or no. It went beyond jokes. It turned into harassment. People tried doxxing him. They sent hate mail. They accused him of all kinds of ugly things. All because they didn’t like his art.

That isn’t criticism. That isn’t even “unasked-for criticism.” Shit, that isn’t even being “mean.” That’s bullying. That’s being fucking evil. 

Call a spade a spade. Don’t lump bullying (”fuck off and die”) in with perfectly normal reactions to art (”I do/don’t like this”). The former is so far from the latter it might as well be in a different galaxy.

Hatedom.

It’s a fandom dedicated to hating someone or something.

And it acts like it’s righteous, but really it’s full of shitty people who want to get off to hurting someone.

came for the awesome art & storytelling, stayed for the very important message underneath.

Not to be an anxious bitch about this, but

Some more memes on the topic:

(This post refers to a very specific kind of reader. It does not refer to those of you who ask us questions about our fics in the comments, discuss our fics with us, leave long comments analysing your favourite parts or flail, nor to those who don’t comment and only leave kudos. We love and appreciate you so much and you are the reason we keep writing. Please never change ❤)