offer something: the license to speak their minds Except everyone already has the licence to speak their minds freely in this medium. No creator can offer this: they can only indicate whether or not they approve or disapprove of it being done in their presence. There is no "opt out of concrit" button and there is no "opt into concrit" button; people's perceptions of what fandom encourages/discourages are obviously wildly different, and that's what headers are for. Making a big deal out of being open to criticism only tacitly reinforces the ridiculous idea that criticism is somehow objectionable or not okay in general, which it just isn't -- it can only be objectionable under certain circumstances (such as, critting someone who said "no crit please", flaming, etc).
That there exists a fear of hurting writers' feelings at all is a product of a heavily writer-biased fan culture in this space, and it exists because despite reams and reams of words written on the subject of "you are not your work", writers constantly whine and moan about omg negativity. By default, because we are vocal, because we are producers, only our voices ever really get heard, so newcomers to fandom form impressions about behaviour based only on what the writers think is okay/not okay. I think that's fucked up. I think fan writers could take a leaf or two out of pro writers' books (not that pro writers don't moan or whine, but whining in response to criticism is considered unprofessional, and rightly so). I'm not trying to say fanwriters should all aspire to be like the pros, whatever their reasons for writing; just suggesting that perhaps emulating this particular pro behaviour wouldn't be such a terrible, awful, no-good thing.
I mean, there's this huge insistence by writers that their work is their baby and blah blah blah feelings, but if you've (general you) encountered an evil beast who hates your "baby" on the internet, wouldn't it make SENSE to simply tell yourself that you are not your story? Wouldn't it, oh, I don't know, reduce/minimise/eliminate your suffering if you learned not to take story crit so personally? Again, I'm not saying everyone should do this, nor that this is the Best Approach to Online Engagement Evar; I'm just saying it wouldn't hurt anyone if we all tried. ^_^
no subject
Except everyone already has the licence to speak their minds freely in this medium. No creator can offer this: they can only indicate whether or not they approve or disapprove of it being done in their presence. There is no "opt out of concrit" button and there is no "opt into concrit" button; people's perceptions of what fandom encourages/discourages are obviously wildly different, and that's what headers are for. Making a big deal out of being open to criticism only tacitly reinforces the ridiculous idea that criticism is somehow objectionable or not okay in general, which it just isn't -- it can only be objectionable under certain circumstances (such as, critting someone who said "no crit please", flaming, etc).
That there exists a fear of hurting writers' feelings at all is a product of a heavily writer-biased fan culture in this space, and it exists because despite reams and reams of words written on the subject of "you are not your work", writers constantly whine and moan about omg negativity. By default, because we are vocal, because we are producers, only our voices ever really get heard, so newcomers to fandom form impressions about behaviour based only on what the writers think is okay/not okay. I think that's fucked up. I think fan writers could take a leaf or two out of pro writers' books (not that pro writers don't moan or whine, but whining in response to criticism is considered unprofessional, and rightly so). I'm not trying to say fanwriters should all aspire to be like the pros, whatever their reasons for writing; just suggesting that perhaps emulating this particular pro behaviour wouldn't be such a terrible, awful, no-good thing.
I mean, there's this huge insistence by writers that their work is their baby and blah blah blah feelings, but if you've (general you) encountered an evil beast who hates your "baby" on the internet, wouldn't it make SENSE to simply tell yourself that you are not your story? Wouldn't it, oh, I don't know, reduce/minimise/eliminate your suffering if you learned not to take story crit so personally? Again, I'm not saying everyone should do this, nor that this is the Best Approach to Online Engagement Evar; I'm just saying it wouldn't hurt anyone if we all tried. ^_^