Reminder that the AO3 comments section is not a place where you should put criticism, constructive or otherwise, unless it is explicitly asked for by the author. This is like super basic fandom etiquette and in most cases you’re being the opposite of helpful. You can crush a writer’s spirit with just a few words, regardless of your intent. It costs you absolutely nothing to just close that tab and let it go.
It’s funny that half the time I see authors on my dash saying they don’t want unsolicited concrit, and the other half of the time I see writers bemoaning the fact that nobody leaves comments or concrit anymore.
If anybody is confused about why either of these things happen, it’s evidently because authors are in fact in wide disagreement on how it should work.
For my own part, I think that the human brain is wired in a way that when you put writing out there, the natural instinct is to engage in dialogue if you respond at all. I think that establishing an assumption that people shouldn’t say anything unless it’s unconditionally positive has a chilling effect on any form of feedback at all, because even if people DO have positive things to say, they’ll be afraid that they’ll inadvertently trip over the author’s boundaries.
I’m sensitive to the fact that not every writer is in a good headspace to accept even gentle, well-constructed criticism, but it seems a lot more likely that you’ll get the results you want if you assume you will get criticism unless you specifically ask NOT to, as opposed to the other way around.
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/2oQF5AA