Love roaming reddit, and always append my Google searches with the word "reddit" at the end. It's a wealth of knowledge, and oftentimes, the subreddits are very helpful and welcoming. However, I recently posted a short sample of my novel for feedback, and the results I got were bizarre. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, of course, so if someone wants to say it wasn't for them, or even that it was dog shit, that's all fine and dandy, and it's probably accurate, to an extent. But I wanted to share some feedback I got for my scifi comedy novel, which has obvious inspirations taken from Hitchhiker's Guide. Here is the sample I posted, for reference (just the first 5 pages): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zrCog1KduAwficnPM9xkRBtHHVJasO334GaM3sPhuy8/edit?usp=sharing So, the first one was the most reasonable, but I still think they're way off. In regards tom how it's too similar to HHGTG: Plenty of stories satirize the beginning of the Universe. The Book of Genesis isn't exactly a foreign concept in storytelling. Additionally, nowhere in my story does it say God made a mistake in making the universe, nor in HHGTG does Arthur Dent save the universe, as far as I'm aware. As for alien names, I've never seen alien names not be nonsense -- they're aliens. As I said, this was the most reasonable feedback, but I think they're just being picky, and some of the similarities they point out either isn't even in my story, or isn't even in HHGTG. And they obviously have zero idea what copyright infringement is. I have a completely different plot, different characters, different jokes, different wording, different pacing. I just don't get it. The second one was a bit more bizarre: The very mention of God makes them want to put the book down because they think it "legitimizes the Christian god," even though I wrote him as a completely nonsensical chef. Plus, it's kinda odd to get offended at a piece of fiction having God in it, because I didn't write a damn theology book, I can tell you that, lol. I'm as staunch of an atheist as they come, but I'd never put a book down for some background information about the religions in a universe. This third critique, however, was the most ridiculous. They literally didn't even read my story, but decided to attack my intro, which starts out "Hey, guys." In regards to my character being the "Chosen One": My protagonist isn't really special in any way, and doesn't have any particularly overpowered skillset, so not sure where the Mary Sue thing is coming from. The protagonist also is definitely not a self-insert in any way, and I'm not really sure where that assumption came from, or the assumption that I assume my readers are male. Just seem like accusations out of left field, and they didn't even read the story, just my logline, lol. All that said, I guess I just wanted to get some others' thoughts on feedback like this. We're always told to be open to feedback, and that if multiple people are saying things about a given piece, they're probably right. But, looking at the above critique, I just don't see it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is pretty crap feedback, and I don't feel bad about being defensive about it.
Don't bother to feel defensive. Disregard crap critques out of hand and put your energy into considering and possibly acting on the thoughtful critiques. The ability to discriminate between the two is one of the most valuable writing skills you can learn.
I’ve had similar experiences on Reddit. My most popular work got ripped to shreds by a bunch of philistines who made it their business to hurl as many vicious insults as they could. This was poetry that someone told me made a huge positive difference in her life, so I know they’re wrong. Reddit is full of losers who make themselves feel good by making fun of and downvoting everyone who isn’t exactly like them, especially when they know there won’t be much opposition except from the victim. Plus they’re so far left that they see anyone to the right of Mao Tse-Tung as the next Hitler, so I’m not surprised about the particular comments. All this is why I closed my Reddit account.
Where exactly did you post your work for critique? Subreddits often have wildly different user bases, so the critique and its quality varies just as wildly.
Nope. Never get defensive. It makes you look terrible, even if the critique is ridiculous (which those Reddit ones mostly were). Say thank you and move on. You're bigger than them.
You know, there is a reason Reddit users are called "Redditors". In my experience, many Redditors are disrespectful know-it-alls. I'm not saying that every single Reddit user is like that, but many are. And you know, I was a frequent user of the site. I posted questions to many subreddits, and no matter how well-thoughtout the question was, I'd always get downvotes and then a couple of guys/gals would flood my post with their wisdom. I remember I asked for some guidance on how to use BJT transistors. I got badly downvoted and I didn't understand why. I was going through a tough period and my confidence was rock bottom, so this didn't exactly help, like at all. The tipping point was when I was seeking some writing advice. I asked something in /r/writing by making a post to the best of my ability. My confidence issues made me extremely scared to post it. Bare in mind that this was the first time I was setting myself up to talk to other writers, so I was intimidated beyond words. But anyway, I decided to just try my luck and hit post. A couple of minutes later, it was removed because it had "personal context." That hurt. Like, a lot. It just confirmed all of my negative feelings that I wasn't meant to communicate with the "real writers", so I apologized to the mods of r/writing and left. I don't necessarily blame them. I mean, they were doing their job to moderate reddit, but the mod response was really cold and 'formulated'. There wasn't a hint of humanity in it. The rules are the rules though... Honestly, after that, I vowed to not ask something writing related again. I felt that I was just not knowledgeable enough, and therefore unable. But a couple of months later, I decided to try again with a forum. I had good experience with tech forums, so what if I went to a writing forum? Anyway, I found this place called "WF.org" and I wrote a post. I wrestled myself over an hour whether I should post it. I asked myself, "would real writers ask something like this? Would they even bother to answer it?" And I almost Alt+F4'd my way out. But I decided to just go for it, and minutes later, I received responses that were really compassionate and understanding. (Though I didn't see them for an entire day because I was too scared to check). I felt so happy and accepted, and I never looked back. I immediately looked into the contests and the workshop and started learning how to use this place. It took me months to figure it out but WF.org turned out to be integral at least for the beginning phase of my writing life. Seriously, if it wasn't for some truly wonderful members here, the contests and the workshop, I would never improve, and at some point, I'd likely give up. So, in short, Reddit was mostly useful for bringing me here. And with everything going on at the site right now with its CEO and the way he's handling the protests, I'm beyond disgusted. I don't make posts there anymore but sometimes I reference information from other posts. I'll be looking into removing it from my life completely.
Yeah, not a great place for substantive critique. The users tend to only be interested in a very narrow type of science fiction—typically hard, military sci-fi/space opera in the vein of The Expanse—and dismiss everything else. Good luck to anyone who wants to discuss anything other than worldbuilding over there. r/writing is awful most of the time. The ban on any sort of personal context or specifics about your project makes it tough to give or receive useful advice and results in the sub being flooded with the same kind of questions every day (because they’re among the only things the mods don’t remove).
I guess this is what's meant by "It's always darkest right before the dawn." Also, their loss is our gain.
There is a subset of people who see the anonymity of online as an excuse to let their inner asshole run wild. It was like that in the 90s, with bulletin board systems before the internet became a thing.
We've sure come a long way since then, and really fast too. Technology has progressed at breakneck speed. Back in those days we were using dial-up modems with a typical speed of 14.4Kbs. I don't think there was much downloading of music or video clips(especially) back in the early days unless you wanted to wait three days or longer. There is this lingering thought that the faster something progresses, the faster it reaches its end.
And ironically, when all our digital words disappear because the last server runs out of power, ancient texts inked on papyrus will still exist, though in somewhat tattered form. Our wooden houses will crumble to dust, and the Pyramids will remain, almost as originally built (because they were deliberately designed in the form things fall into—they're essentially already piles of rubble). Things chiseled in stone by our ancestors will remain when paper books have decayed into nothing. It's largely true what they say—"They just don't make 'em like they used to." It's almost as if we're racing to destruction and we can feel the mainspring coming unwound as our civilization moves faster and faster to its end.
One thing I would say in defence of moderators is that I would hate to moderate on a subreddit … the reason you get template responses is because moderators are up to their eyes in shit and don’t have time to respond with more humanity Reddit brings so much traffic many of whom are trolls that mods spend most of their lives in a state of combat fatigue we’ve been through some shit here in the four years sine the new regime took over but it’s nothing compared to some of the stuff moderators attached to big sites have to deal with daily
This is true, and that's why I didn't place too much blame on them. I think Reddit in itself is flawed. In fact, any large sized community is impossible to moderate to the standards done here. But with AI, I feel like that will start to change in the coming years.
Of course that opens a whole new can of worms. Auto-generated machine censorship, with heavily backlogged mods needed to release prisoners from digital prison because they strung together a few red-flagged words unintentionally or in an innocent way.
I don't know what reddit is like so I can't comment on it, but it can be too easy to characterise critiques that one doesn't like as troll critiques. We all think our work is amazing and it's quite natural to get defensive about it. I recall one member who'd published a book on Amazon asking people to report a review of his book as a troll review because he didn't like what it said. Not every review is going to gush praise. Readers are entitled to like what they like and criticise what they don't like. When your work gets out into the wild, that's just what happens. Not every site is going to be as gentle as this one.
As much as I would like to see the benefits of the type of AI common in a lot of SciFi of the last few years. I worry that we will wind up with HAL9000 or skynet the way society is going.
I deleted my reddit account a few weeks ago. I'm sure there are useful pockets of information, but it seemed that no matter what I looked at (sports, tv shows, writing, anything), nearly every thread turned into some sort of shitfight with people arguing at each other because they didn't share the same opinions. The only way to then win those arguments was to hurl more abuse. As w.bogart mentioned above, the anonymity allows users to leave their tact and civility at the door and run wild. It's been nice finding this forum in the last week. I'm appreciating it alot Edited to add... to address your comment about critique. Someone else mentioned being able to differentiate between trolling and constructive critique. My theory is, I'm not the best writer in the world, but from critique I've received in the past, I know I do some things reasonably well. Critique is always better received if a positive is highlighted as well as what could be improved - it suggests the reviewer is coming from an unbiased position. For example, if they say, I really like your dialog, but the main character is a bit bland, I'd be inclined to believe them. If they just come at me and say, 'that whole thing sucks', then I'm not taking that on board.
