I\’m going to apologize in advance, because I feel the need to vent a little bit. Something was said to me this week that didn\’t sit very well with me, and I feel that it could also apply to others. I try to make my posts positive, but this feels like an important topic to share.
Before I start, I want to back it up a little bit. In past posts I have mentioned that I want to be a writer, and that I am in the process of writing a book that I dream about publishing someday. In an attempt to enhance my writing abilities, one of the tools I stumbled across was a website called Scribophile. I had never heard of it before, so I did some looking into it and gave it a try. Let me tell you. It is one of the most helpful websites I have ever used, and I love everything about it. If you are an aspiring writer, or know someone who is, I would absolutely recommend this website.
The idea of Scribophile is to share single pieces of your work at a time, like a single chapter in a novel, and other members of the website can critique your work and give you pointers and advice on how to improve it. However, you have to earn points before you can actually post anything. You earn points by critiquing other people\’s work, and the better the critique, the more points you get. This is what encourages people to give you really awesome critiques instead of half-a$$ing it just so they can post their own work. It has been incredibly helpful for me, and many people have pointed out flaws in my story that I didn\’t notice myself, allowing me to make it even better than I originally thought it was.
Unfortunately, even though it is a rule of the website to be respectful of everyone\’s work, even if you don\’t like it, that isn\’t going to stop everyone from being a jerk. I posted one of my chapters earlier this week and someone left a \”critique\” on it that was pretty rude and intentionally mean, and it ended up ruining my whole day. I put critique in quotes, because he didn\’t exactly leave any constructive criticism on my work, or really any pointers on how I could make it better. The whole time he just highlighted various sentences and said how he didn\’t like this, or how that part sounded way too childish or non-believable, or how it was a bad idea and I should basically just rewrite the whole thing. He said nothing about how he thought I could improve it, but he still got points because he hit the minimum number of words required to be written for a critique. So he got what he wanted, and I was left with a wasted critique (you only get three critiques per piece).
I completely understand that not everyone is going to like what I write about it, I\’m not trying to accomplish that. I too have read some pieces on Scribophile that I didn\’t like, but I was still encouraging of that writer to keep writing what they are passionate about instead of taking a giant crap on something they put a lot of time and work into. Sharing something like this isn\’t always easy for some people, and comments like this can easily convince them to give up on something because of one mean person\’s comments.
I guess I just really want to know what people like this get out of being so rude and hurtful? It also makes me wonder how many people have given up on a dream because someone said they were bad at something. Y\’all got to be careful with what you say to people, because you never know how your words will affect them. Even comments from a complete stranger are hard not to take personally.
I\’ll admit that this guy\’s comments stung a little bit, and I don\’t think I did any more work on my book for the rest of that day. But now I\’m making myself get over it because I don\’t really care if this guy thinks I am a bad writer. I\’ve had plenty of other people on Scribophile tell me they have been enjoying my work, so why would I let one butthead ruin my dream? Exactly, I\’m not going to. I\’m chuckin it in the f*ck it bucket and moving on.
And that\’s exactly what I encourage all of you to do, too. It hurts when someone craps on your work, but not everyone is going to like what you do and there\’s really nothing you can do about it. Don\’t let a handful of Debbie Downers prevent you from doing something you love. Get back up on that horse and prove it to them that you can accomplish your goals. Because that really is the best revenge in this kind of situation. Giving up is letting that bully win. Getting back up and working even harder at something is telling them that you\’re not going to let them get to you. No one should have to give up on a dream if it is important to them.
Keep working hard, and I\’ll see you next time! 🙂
Megan Reiffenberger