All Comments on 'Giving and Taking Lit. Feedback'

Thank you for sharing your opinions with us; I hope every writer and aspiring writer will take your words to heart. It wouldn't hurt some readers to take a look at it, either.

This was a nicely done and well-written article, but I have refrained from voting on it.

I think this insight could be applied in more situations as well. Great input. Thanks for sharing!!

for both the reader and the writer.

Thanks for this bit about feedback, I always welcome feedback to my stories, whether is is positive or negative. I have had comments about my written conversations being stiff, I consider that a constructive comment. I have had comments deploring the readers loss of five minutes of their life to read my story.

Bottom line, if the comment is just a negative slam, with no redeeming qualities, I delete it, if it has some merit, I leave it.

This... this is weird giving feedback on a story about feedback. Bah, anyway.

I thought this was nicely phrased and touched on a lotta good points. It came off fair, reasonable, and very helpful. And what worked best for me was the parts about an author staying true and keeping identity. Taking the good and bad and finding what works for you.

It would due folks some good in my opinion to give this a read and soak in it for a bit.

Great piece.

I try and NEVER attack the writer. I may give my critique or an illustration, but never an attack on the writer himself and am saddened when I see that. I enjoy the type of stories I read too much to want the writer to become aggravated enough to stop. I'd even like to sign in, but as a novelist, I would much rather just stay anony-mouse...

Back in the day when I took some writing classes, one of the most difficult things I learned was how to give constructive criticism without being hurtful. It is hard to underestimate how vulnerable a writer can be, putting her- or himself "out there". It is their story, their imagination, their talent on the line. The least we readers can be is respectful of the effort and labor of love. Writing is so much harder than it looks; really good writing is so rare. To the hypercritical, try it yourselves! To all writers out there, short of sloppiness, hats off to you for your guts and creativity.

Everyone should be required to read your piece before submitting a comment. I write for the joy of writing. I sometimes am a little thin skinned about the negative comments, especially those who don't have enough nerve to leave their names. I love you took the time and effort to write this. I just like other authors delete negative comments who are out there to just slam an article without being helpful. Thank You again for your submission!!

posted a story recently, written how I wanted to write it, following the advice of one of these "how to" stories, and sure enough got a cranky pants anonymous comment telling me they wanted to know what my character did in his spare time...why is it relevant? I set my story in a specific situation, and wanted to let the audience see the character how they wanted to see him, rather than doing the whole "I am john I am 21 I live in a quiet little town and work here and have these friends and like this and do that but I don't like this..." reading this work helped me listen to the people offering advice or opinions on the story itself, and tune out the people telling me how they wanted it written to suit their specific needs

I wish I had read this before ever posting any feedback. I do think I tend to be a cheerleader, and for the most part constructive, but I have lapsed at times. What I have never done is post anonymously, which I don't think should even be allowed (or voting, for that matter). You're right, even using our user names we're anonymous, but at least this way the writer can address the commenter directly. I have sincerely had the nicest emails from writers that I have posted at least a partly negative comment for.

I will absolutely use this as a guideline going forward!