animercom replied to your post :<p>Hi ferret! i was reading your recent posts and...
Even if you are writing for fun, how are you going to improve your writing if you delete feedback?
I mean, I assume you’re just trying to bait me, but sure, let’s play, hahaha. This assumes that a) improving is a goal for me (spoiler alert: it’s not.) b) that “writing for fun” still somehow means “trying to meet someone else’s expectations” (second spoiler alert: it doesn’t have to, if that’s not fun for you) and c) that some rando on the internet telling you that you wrote the characters wrong cause it’s not how they would have done it is inherently valuable because it’s “feedback” (spoiler alert: please stop).
Actual constructive criticism relies on trust as a foundation. The primary part of that is the trust that the person providing the criticism has a shared goal of bringing the artist’s piece closer to the artist’s goal not the criticizer’s goal. You can’t do that if you don’t know the artist’s goal. To know my goal, you’d have to ask me. Shockingly, no one who’s ever left a critical comment on one of my stories has asked me what my goal was with the piece. Why is there an assumption that if you’re making and sharing creations, you must be trying to get better? Like, I don’t go to karaoke and assume everyone up on stage is there trying to win America’s Idol. Probably, the bachelorette party is just wanting to have a good time with their friends, and they’re too drunk to care that Becky can’t hit the high C. They certainly don’t need me walking up and telling them that. What they do need is more nachos.
I do not trust people I don’t know to criticize with my goal in mind. I trust my beta, I trust my friends, I trust the people who were part of the creation process.
I can already tell that @animercom and I have different goals, cause I’m not here to “improve my writing.” If it’s fun for you to have people out in the wild tell you what you did “wrong,” (according to them) by all means, ask for that, keep your critical comments, bathe in all the “feedback.” But don’t put your goals and desires on me. That’s not fun for me. I choose not to make it part of my hobby, that I do in my spare time, for fun. And my message is to other creators to tell them that it’s okay if a) improving isn’t one of your goals b) criticism isn’t fun for you or c) you want to keep criticism contained to the people who you trust to have your goals in mind.
I’m not going to bother trying to stop people from leaving critical comments. That conversation has been going on for millennia and the message still hasn’t gotten through, so I’m not wasting my breath on that right now. But I do want my fellow creators to not feel guilty for curating their own space and chasing their own joy, regardless of what shape it comes in. You don’t have to “take everyone’s opinion into account.” It’s your art. It’s your opinion. Ignore anyone else’s that you want to ignore. It is okay to just be here to have a good time, dancing around, singing your own way, even if it’s not on beat or on key. Heck, pass the nachos.
You don’t owe it to anyone to make improving to their standard part of your goal for your personal fun time.
