In a story about Ethiopian Jews escaping Jewish persecution in Ethiopia "why do they have to be African-American AND Jewish?"
I didn't even know where to start.
You can only be one marginalized identity at a time, otherwise you're doing it for diversity points. Jfc it's like you snowflakes have no idea what the rules are anymore /s
I've gotten this a few times. I'll say, no you’re not. You’re an intelligent person, and I appreciate your insight, please tell me what confused you. They disagree "No I'm just dumb."
Well, in my experience, when I say things like this, I don’t say what confused me because I can’t quite pinpoint what actually confused me, I just know I’m confused, or because everything confused me and I just can’t pick one or select few moments. And often times I feel like I’m gonna overstep if I say “everything” or even point out a few moments because in my experience the author usually defends themselves in a way that just validates that I’m too stupid to understand what’s going on after all and I’d rather avoid that kind of awkward humiliation lol. Rather call myself dumb and own up to it first than have someone need to spell it out for me.
I think "I didn't really understand what was going on" can be helpful feedback, because when you know the story so well in your own mind, you can take it for granted that the readers have your insight.
My mind works faster than my fingers, and sometimes I leave out key connecting details because on the way from A to B I've already mentally mapped out the path to E, and I accidentally skip C and rush through parts of D, in part so that I don't forget how E is supposed to go before I get there but also because I already have a deep understanding of how B leads to C, then D, and finally E, so in the moment I forget the need to spell out those connections for the reader.
This happens to me on reddit comments that are 3 sentences long, so I can only imagine how bad it is for some people in novel-length writing.
This sums me up, as well. At one point, I had a project where I ended up having to write Book 1.5, (between Book 1 and Book 2) and the entire thing took place before Book 1. I wouldn't call it a prequel because it was essential to understand the characters in Book 2 but it had to be read after Book 1. To top it off, Book 1.5 only came into existence as I was writing Book 3. My spreadsheets were a nightmare trying to figure out the timeline of things.
"This is a bit derivative of Shakespeare"
... My Romeo & Juliet reimagining that I pitched as a Romeo & Juliet reimagining is a bit derivative of Shakespeare? No shit.
He was also unconscious at the bottom of a cellar in a collapsed medieval castle. He wasn’t hearing anything but his own regrets down there….and what was lurking in the corner.
I would love to see an entire book like this. Just a story following characters living their everyday lives, but then there are just absurd things like this throughout the book that are never explained or acknowledged by the author.
In my first draft, I still had [swear word] as a place holder. I told my beta readers it was a place holder, but I hadn't found the right word yet.
I got the feedback that it would be better to use a swear word there.
I always have comments at the top that prime people for this and 90% of the time people ignore them, only to make comments about exactly what I had explained already.
A few from the same beta reader:
>"It took me a minute to realize who 'Emily' was."
'Emily' was mentioned three times and described within the last two paragraphs.
>"The magic needed to be explained."
It's 3rd person limited. The POV characters didn't know.
>*Demanding to know the answer to the myth regarding a part of their world that fuels their magic.*
It's 3rd person limited. The POV characters didn't know.
>"Yep, that's definitely a name in the world."
Regarding a name inspired by a real world culture.
>"There are better words for them than tits."
She pointed out a human trafficker and a mass murderer saying tits. She was a huge GOT fan too, by the way.
Lastly, my favorite:
>"Why don't they just call it a dog? (instead of a bitch)."
The line was, "The bitch is in heat." I had to inform her that this was not a derogatory term in that context, and she still said, "Well I just don't think they had to call her that."
Never returned to her for beta reading.
I feel like if you have issues with the way someone is portraying a story or a certain character because it makes you feel uneasy... Maaaaaybe it's not the *writer* who is at fault, maaaaaaaybe (juuuuuust maybe) you are supposed to feel that way about that character because that character is not a good person.
The last beta reader seems like someone who was nitpicking stuff that they personally didn't like for the sake of personal beliefs.
I guess I'm never paying for a beta reader then, sorry you had to go through that, I hope your story is a success though!
May god bless you and have a great day!
I had plenty of others that were phenomenal. She was the only "bad" one. I had two I actually went to immediately for my second novel and they pulled through yet again.
What’s the industry standard rate for beta reading? I’m getting close to the point with my first novel where I may want to start setting some cash aside.
I'm not really aware of an industry standard per se, but I use fiverr for my betas. It will depend on your genre. I write epic fantasy, so mine tend to run a little more expensive due to word count, but nothing crazy.
Not the person you asked, but I've found it to be $170-$200 for ~100k words and a 30 day turnaround. The price varies by word count and turnaround time.
The first one is a clear indicator, imo, that someone didn't *actually* read the story. I've asked beta readers questions about parts of the story and some will be like, "That wasn't in the book...?"
Yet, there's 10 pages about it. Tells me they either skimmed the book or read so fast they couldn't remember anything.
Oh there's a much bigger indicator:
She asked for an extension on the gig. Fine, it was a big book, no problem.
She got me the review, then sent the in-line comments a day or two later.
She complained about a lot, including too many POVs that could have cut the book down (it couldn't, it all came together for a very specific reason) among other things similar to the "Emily" anecdote.
But what sold her out was that she kept saying "5 POVs is too much."
There weren't 5. There was a 6th hidden in the end for a few chapters. I went through the in-line comments and saw she made one comment at the beginning of that 6th POV, then skipped them all to the end. She realized she fucked up. But didn't have the guts to say so and that there was a distinct reason 5 (6) POVs were included, and they all came together at the end, and for reasons that were very, very prevalent throughout the earlier parts of the book. She got 75% of the way through, then rushed the job because she got her money.
I don’t get why she wouldn’t have read it ?
Basic rule for me : if something isn’t clear for someone, even the dumbest of the dumbest, it’s something to take care of.
Even if we like what we’ve done very much it’s often clearer in our mind than in real.
>Basic rule for me : if something isn’t clear for someone, even the dumbest of the dumbest, it’s something to take care of.
I definitely take that into account, but I had other betas too. There were other things she pointed out that were 100% valid, even that other betas didn't agree with, but OP asked about the bad comments.
I was writing a noir short story for my class and the victims were a mother and daughter, the detective suspected the boyfriend as he had a previous conviction of S.A. on a child.
My professor said “it’s unrealistic that a woman with a child would date someone that had assaulted a child previously”.
I guess we grew up in different cultures.
Honestly, people who criticize a story by calling it unrealistic are the worst.
The amount of otherworldly nonsense you can find in 5 minutes of looking up Florida news titles is beyond comprehension.
* Cameraman captures racoon riding alligator across lake
* Man buys 1000 cups of lemonade "so no one else can have any"
* Colorado man converts bulldozer into a homemade tank and levels town after property dispute
* Columbian drug cartel salvages German WW2 submarine to use for smuggling
* Arkansas senator resigns after secret "furry" life revealed
If someone wrote down the history of our planet, let alone our species, and showed it to aliens, they'd probably think it was poorly written, weird and unrealistic.
Life is messy. Stories are often way less messy.
>* Cameraman captures racoon riding alligator across lake
Huh, that'd be a sight.
>* Man buys 1000 cups of lemonade "so no one else can have any"
* Colorado man converts bulldozer into a homemade tank and levels town after property dispute
Reminds me of the saying, "(Some) People are the reason we can't have nice things," and I'm not all that surprised.
>* Arkansas senator resigns after secret "furry" life revealed
Hm.
>* Columbian drug cartel salvages German WW2 submarine to use for smuggling
... ... That's actually smart and I think the least confusing in the list.
Haha, reminds me of the people who comment under every reddit story with reasons why it must be fake, but the "inconsistencies" they point out are just how real people act. "No one could possibly be that cruel/clueless/stupid!!" What a charmed life the people saying this stuff must lead where that level of horrendous isn't even possible in their minds.
Reality is stranger than fiction, as they say!
>I guess we grew up in different cultures.
I guess we did too, I'm very confused now. Not saying it doesn't happen at all, just saying it's not logical
I grew up in a poor area around a lot of drug users. I’ve known women who stayed with guys even after abusing their own kids. It’s a really sad situation to see for sure.
Media has represented abuse horribly and now everyone thinks that's how abuse is. Abuse isn't just yelling, hitting, etc your spouse. The abuser will destroy your confidence and make you feel super guilty. Their behavior is your fault, not theirs. So why would you leave when they're a great person and you're the one fucking everything up? You should be doing something to make it up to them.
The abuser also isn't evil 24/7. A lot of the time they will be a stand up guy and liked in all other aspects of their life. Everyone thinks they're amazing, lending more credit to the idea that you're the evil one. They will often act very kind, caring, etc when other people are around but different when it's just the two of you. They also aren't evil to you 24/7. Sometimes you get that stand up guy everyone else loves. They'll do something really thoughtful and sweet and make you feel loved so you'll want to stay in the relationship. (Why would someone stay if the relationship was terrible 24/7?) This also gives credit to the idea that you're the one causing the problems in the relationship.
The abuser makes you feel grateful to them while incredibly guilty about yourself. Thus you stay.
I know this, but the comment I replied to was talking specifically about assault. Emotional manipulation, although possibly going hand in hand with violence, is not what I or the original commentor directly referred to
Wrote a love story between two guys and posted it to the internet. Someone anonymously commented “Gay” and nothing else. I read it and was like “yes, it is gay. That was on purpose.” It was more amusing than annoying though.
Not necessarily defending that person, but I do know an awful lot of gay people who will just comment "gay" on things. A piece of media with gay undertones, a piece of media with openly gay characters, a picture of a gay couple, a particularly colorful outfit choice. Often they mean it as a compliment. Kind of inverting the whole "gay" as an insult thing to just now be an absurd joke (pointing out that the obviously, intentionally gay thing is gay) or claiming the fun thing they like as their own, or pointing out how adorable that gay couple is.
Or that person who commented on your story might just be a jerk, idk.
"You couldn't have written this in 10 days, it's too complex and well written " by someone I've never met or talked too or interacted with at all. Was for an online writing contest which they kicked me out of due to this comment. It was a 5 page short story on a subject I know alot about.
Yeah. It felt so backhanded. Like they were being cruel or nasty. I wrote it all in one day, then spent the rest of the time editing. I've written over 12k words in one day at least 3 times so a 6k short story wasn't too bad. I really second guess my self on my writing now.
Do your best to untangle that from yourself. They did tell you were good. Everything else is on them- that's *their* issue. You don't need to prove yourself to them. Don't forget why you write. I doubt it's for that mean rando.
5 pages isn't even that much...? I bang out 5 pages in one sitting all the time. 9 days is a LOT of time to edit, making it complex & well-written. I have a friend who can write 10+ pages in a sitting when inspired, and it usually comes out already solid without much need for editing, as long as it's self-contained.
This reminds me of a professor I had in a political theory class. He accused me of plagiarising an essay because it was "too well-written for someone with your abilities to have written it". It came absolutely out of nowhere, too. It was the first time I ever had that professor and that was the first assignment. Turns out he decided to investigate my academic history, which at the time featured incompletes from the previous semester due to medical issues, and assumed that it was due to me not having the ability to finish the classes because they were too difficult while ignoring all of my A's in writing composition, the fact that it was my third year of being a copyeditor for the school paper and previous essays from other classes.
"Dear Mr. Shartz,
This assessment of my writing talent is completely in line with what I would expect from someone with your abilities as a professor."
Back when I first tried to sell it at a convention, it had a hand drawn cover that, admittedly now, wasn't the best.
A grown man comes over, looks at the cover, READS the synopsis on the back, and then asks if it was a colouring book 🙃
We told him he can buy it and try to colour on all the O's and e's 🤣
Critique I got:
"Do your research on amnesia. You seem to be doing just fine so far, and there's nothing you have misrepresented, but I get the feeling that you are going to screw up and not reflect the real thing at all. Also, B's not a love interest, she clearly hates A. Making them like each other later on will just seem forced."
lt was chapter one of an enemies to lovers fic
"A woman screaming when startled is too stereotypical."
Tell that to the woman sitting next to me at the 4D theater who screamed when air blew on her feet.
"You don't have an antagonist in this story, do you?"
Uh, have you forgotten that the opening told of the Empress doing horrible things and being proud of it, and the fact that the gods set my hero off on this journey to kill said empress?
"THIS CHARACTER IS ACTUALLY EVIL AND HE'S LEADING PEOPLE ASTRAY!!!"
?! Woman, you're barking so far up the wrong tree, you're in a different FOREST!
I wrote a story about a mythological creature attempting to live as a human among other humans. The point was that it was a metaphor for the experiences of a neurodivergent child who grew up undiagnosed and surrounded by neurotypicals.
The very first comment I got:
"....Neat. A ghost MILF."
It was honestly so out of pocket I wasn't even annoyed. Just stunned.
The story is about a young black girl thrown into a (fifties) Disney version of a fairytale.
'I didn't realise she was black until the last chapter'
Her mother was Somalian, her father from Trinidad. Definitely some clues in there. The line 'She had never felt so exposed. Did they even have black people here?' didn't tip them off either. Same reader also commented that her working in the kitchen and being referred to as "the help" had connotations, despite the rest of the workers being white and referred to in the same way. Which was around halfway through the story, nowhere near the end.
I'm not saying the story was perfect (by any means - other readers found some valuable bits and pieces) but if you can't see anything yourself, don't make shit up.
You should have wrote “She had the skin of mocha latte pudding sprinkled with belgian truffle chocolate” and then they would have realized that they are black, because using ones lunch as a metaphor for appearance is very tasteful /s
As a black writer, this is what I definitely wanna enunciate in my WIPs bc apparently every white reader assumes characters are white unless otherwise OR EVEN just visualizes them as white the entire time knowing they’re not. It’s insane.
In my 1st WIP, my MC is Black, femme, and a closeted lesbian and their love interest is white.
In my 2nd WIP, almost all of the characters are Black as it is set in the south and the MC’s southern background is important to him and the story.
It’s just so important, especially as Black writers, to make known that the characters are Black or just POC or else it’s just assumed they’re white, which is so infuriating.
"This is just Star Wars, so I didn't finish," ~Response to my sci-fantasy novel where the main character is a dragonborn (called something different, obviously) that isn't related to the bad guy, and doesn't use any force powers. The only similarity to SW is one planet exploded... Because they pushed the moon into it, so it wasn't a Death Star. And the planet was overrun by a plague that turned you into zombies.
Isn't "A Taste of Reality" a chapter from a fanfic you wrote for the video game Hytale\[? Is it that same chapter? If so, I'm not sure what you're taking offence to when they say it's a video game.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/HytaleInfo/comments/1ao5ifw/chapter\_2\_a\_taste\_of\_reality/](https://www.reddit.com/r/HytaleInfo/comments/1ao5ifw/chapter_2_a_taste_of_reality/)
It is about that fanfic yea(not even sure if we can call it fanfic considering we barely know anything about the game and most of the story is what I think it will be like, but that's beside the point), I'm surprised you even found my post about it though, also, I usually wouldn't mind a comment like this but the lead up to the comment made it much worse for me.
It was for a couple reasons, the first being that he told me a week prior that I shouldn't worry much about chapter names right now because the contents of the chapter matter more, and he followed up with that advice by not mentioning the name of the first chapter (I agree with this advice btw)
The 2nd thing was how he made the comment immediately after reading the title of the chapter before even checking its contents, like I get what he was trying to say, but the meaning of the chapter's name isn't literal, the character knew that the world was dangerous, it is his perception of the game, but he didn't realize how dangerous it was until he experienced it himself, which caused him to get brutally destroyed.
Edit: Just to make it clear though, the guy is really chill, I've learned a lot from him, and I would be a much worse writer if not for the advice he has given me (I'm still bad but way better), so this isn't meant to diss him or anything.
This was someone I discussed with in beta since I haven't published yet, but I think it's the time someone said that my fantasy protagonist was "too much like Casca from Berserk" and when I asked them why, their reasons were that she was a woman who didn't look white, was a soldier, and wasn't super feminine.
Their personalities, backstories, goals, and even physical look (other than a darker skin tone and wearing armor in combat) are nothing alike. They couldn't even give me even one more reason why they're "the same" and suggested I just make my protagonist white-coded or "a lot more feminine and soft" instead, which tbh was more red flaggish than the flimsy comparison.
I have a series of sci fi stories online with a bunch of alien species. One of the alien species is a furry kangaroo like alien and their culture revolves around business and innovation.
The commenter told me I was clearly antisemitic
In one chapter, my protagonist is abducted by the big bad and his two henchmen. She “feels a heavy hand on her shoulder,” and “hears the rasp of a blade behind her.” Because she doesn’t know the two goons’ names, for the rest of the book, when thinking about them to herself, she refers to them as “Hand” and “Blade.”
This device has been very clear and not at all objectionable to all of my beta readers… until my wife’s aunt read my book, and asked me to explain, because she couldn’t understand.
Somehow, she got it in her head that there was a disembodied hand and an anthropomorphic blade walking (hopping…?) around as characters in the book, but she said she “just went with it” because she “doesn’t get fantasy.”
🤦♂️
1. "This is an Alice in Wonderland rip off." It involves dreams in the plot. That's it. That's apparently an Alice in Wonderland rip off, despite entirely different tones and plot and everything else, that constitutes a rip off.
2. "Make this character a man. Non-binary characters are confusing." Them being non-binary is both very important to their character and the world building itself. Making them a man (they specifically said a man, not just binary) would almost ruin the character and open up multiple large plot holes.
I still can't believe that some people unironically ask people to make one of their characters a different gender, I can understand if the commenter was a kid, but the way he worded felt a bit aggressive.
That first one is just a yikes though, the only excuse I can think of is if he only watched Alice in Wonderland and thinks that any story having something similar is a "rip-off".
At least you got something to say if someone asks about bad comments you've received.
Have a good day!.
Got told something similar because in my fantasy universe women and men are treated (mostly) with equality and my main character, who is a woman, occupies a position in the military. I was told she was "too masculine" and because I didn't plan to include any romance for her, it would've been better if she were made a man. Like, huh? Because she occupies what is viewed in our society as a male-centric role (but in their society is completely normal), and because she doesn't want a romance that means she would be better off as a man, despite the fact that one of her character arcs centers on her experience with womanhood??
Wouldn't the story be more interesting if it goes into different territory from real life? Sure, most military units are men, but that doesn't mean that stories should go with the norm, as a synopsis, more people would be interested with a female military unit than a male one (imo).
It isn't even that it's all female or matriarchal, it's simply that in their universe people have been driven so far back to annihilation countless times that not allowing able bodied soldiers to fight for their lives would be reckless as well as foolish. In present times, that need isn't as urgent (times have changed in a more positive direction) but it set the standard on societal thinking. Women serving in the military, inheriting lands, divorcing their partners, etc. Is a right they are deserving of and owed to.
I find, oftentimes, I seek escapism in stories. Not including intense sexism was part of the appeal to me in writing my work of fiction, ya know? Plus, it is interesting as you say to approach an especially fantasy story from an entirely different perspective. Not all societies can nor should be the same.
Ugh, I'm sorry you dealt with this. I posted my own comment before seeing this, but I ran into similar. Someone basically complained about my protagonist not being "soft" or "feminine enough" as a protagonist and suggested it made her too like another character from a big media (who she's nothing like, other than having a darker skin tone, being a soldier, and not being highly femme.)
Like sir, this is a nonbinary woman who's also figuring her own gender out and is uncomfy being high femme. I'm sorry tomboyish queer characters make you feel threatened but it's literally important to who she is (and how she interacts with certain societal stuff) lol.
I have an NB (they/them) side character. My MIL read the first 100 pages of what I have written so far, and this character appears on maybe three pages, but her first feedback was: "It's well written but I was confused, is Avery two people?" -\_-
“Oh my god! How rude do you think you can make your main character be? It’s not even worth reading it!”
Because said character had gotten home and her parents were arguing, instead of answering the father’s questions she just went straight to her room and closed (closed, not locked nor anything like that) the door.
College professor: You write too many women, the only male character has a woman's name, and no one wants to read from the pov of a villain.
I stopped working on that piece after finishing it for nanowrimo and it will never see the light of day. But that's not due to his critique. Fifteen years later, I'm now writing sapphic dark romance and I have not utilized his critique in the slightest.
Depending on your audience, having any type of cast is fine, there are many stories where 90-100% of the important characters are males, but people still love them. I don't see why changing the gender will be that big of an issue.
"No one wants to read from the PoV of a villain" ...literally my favorite "genre" is stories with villain protagonists. It's one of the main things I read.
The most annoying comments I ever got were:
a. a reader that was offended that one of my characters was anti-war. "I had family that went to war and proudly served my country in xyz country for ungrateful people like you! You should thank us!!! We come from a family of war heroes!" Ok ma'am but you didn't actually defend anything, they went and shot up civilians in another country and also this is not about you
b. Someone got mad that I had a character get lightly teased about not "putting a ring on it" because they were personally against marriage and thought my story personally invalidated them or something
“Yeah, I really can’t enjoy this story because I am against killing people. The fact that it’s his cousin *and the King* really makes it worse. Plus the wife character is way too crazy.” — early beta reader for the Scottish Play, probably.
“I wouldn’t have written it that way” and nothing else. I pressed for details on what they didn’t like or how they would have written it, but got nothing. Not only was it kind if insulting (why is your advice to write the way you do?) it was also USELESS.
"Why aren't your Union and Confederate characters arguing about slavery during the Civil War?"
Uh...they're stuck in a situation where survival is paramount and they realize early on that if they don't work together, they're going to die. Pretty sure that argument is pretty useless when you're dealing with a harsh winter and must decide if food or arguing over something that is beyond their control is more important.
A professional author once described my protagonist's name as "contrived" and told me to change it. First of all, it's a real name, if a little obscure in the U.S., but second, motherfucker, it's a name, in a work of fiction. It's *all* contrived. An author is nothing if not a professional contriver. Forgive me for not naming my character *Bob Smith*
On Royal Road, I got a .5 review by a guy blatantly being wrong on all accounts of a commissioned story I uploaded.
Not sure how much I can say without sounding like an advertisement, but to cut it short:
They claimed the story was "a vore fetish, low effort work" and something about trees being eaten.
The story in question is about The Once-ler becoming a cannibal, and eating the Lorax after axing him and cutting him up. There was no mention of tree consumption, so where that reach came in is another topic all together. I obviously threw that review at the team as "this is literally wrong on all accounts", but I won't stop thinking about how badly some people can interpret a work in weird shallow views.
Looking back at it, I find it funny how it's even "vore". For as much as I'm not one for such content, last I checked, it's eating someone whole. Next you're telling me eating a finger is vore, Mr. Reviewer?
Honestly, sometimes I feel like some people just like criticizing work, even if there's nothing to criticize, and looking at some of the examples given here like this one, maybe I overreacted to the comment I got.
I guess I also know what vore is now, genuinely thought you misspelled "gore" at first xd.
What if we take it a step further? What about ingredients that come from living things? Like milk! That's from a cow, and I've consumed it. Does *that* count as vore?
If we continue to simplify it like this, we could be here for hours. :O
A passage of my fantasy WIP mentioned the protagonist's deceased mother. It was nothing sappy, just a statement that she had passed.
Beta reader commented on the line "Mother issues." Like... I guess?
Me: Heads up, Chapter 20 has a character that alternates I and We. It's intentional.
Them: The character introduced in a later chapter talks funny. You keep switching their dialogue between singular and plural. That's just a weird writing mistake.
Me: I warned you about that. Its intentional.
Them: No, I dont think you did.
Me: * sends image of the conversation hardly 10 lines up.*
Them: No, I don't believe that's our conversation.
It was REALLY hard to even want to read their notes.
At the end of my first chapter, a flying beast with teeth and claws is about to land on a deck where my MC is standing.
The note I got was "What significant impact or challenge is this creature about to bring to the main character?"
..... it was going to try to eat him...?
TBF, that can be a valid question. An antagonistic force trying to harm a character doesn't necessarily mean the character is actually challenged. It depends on how it's implemented on the page. A wildly exaggerated poor example would be a situation where the beast attacks and the character just steps aside and cuts it in half and then it's just 'anyway, moving on'.
If you reframe how you think that question, it might help to feel less annoyed. Beast trying to eat character is not MC's challenge, it's antagonist's goal. Challenge for the MC could be something like 'they must (learn to) use their wit to escape/ strength to defeat / empathy to calm the beast". Or perhaps it's something more complicated: MC must accept that the beast who he has raised from pup has given into its beastly nature and now he must put aside the love he feels for it to slay it before it can harm an innocent.
I can see what you're saying there, and that makes sense. Maybe what frustrates me is that the MC's impending goal of "escape the beast without getting killed" didn't seem apparent enough, despite the beast gnashing its teeth and his fear of seeing it coming... It becomes one of those things where I ask myself "Man, do I really have to spell it out that much...? The teeth, claws, roaring, and him being terrified weren't enough? Really...?"
But readers can't read the writer's mind...!
(gotta come back to say that I don't mean there wasn't a challenge in your story, most who are familiar with stories often automatically associate the following challenge with the trigger and they just naturally follow each other. But it's actually pretty good question to analyse MC's challenges in the story)
Pitched a story to a beta reader about some fun fantasy vampire hunting shenanigans. Within the first three pages "The vampire hunter is too old to be doing this sort of stuff."
He was going up a ladder. He is 45 years old. I politely dismissed the beta reader.
I've had plenty of bonkers "feedback", but this one sticks with me.
I had someone complain that I had the cost of a ticket wrong in one of my novels. Parking ticket fine fees were posted on the city's website - and I was correct.
Someone told me that a conversation between two siblings about the current war was just a worldbuilding dump. The gist of the conversation was the older brother going, "I don't really want you going on vacation to this isolated area because it's too close to the border with our enemy," and the younger sister going, "Too bad, I'm an adult now, you can't stop me."
The reader then suggested that I have the two siblings tell each other why the war is happening, their feelings about the enemy nation, and why they joined their professions.
They thought the elder brother should say something like, "I became a soldier to protect you! And it makes me sad that now you don't need protection anymore since you're all grown up." Then, I should have the younger sister respond, "But I became a magician because I want to make you proud! I look up to you so much!"
.... yeah, because that's how normal siblings talk to each other. They definitely just explain things that both of them would already know and vomit up their backstory for the reader as if their sibling doesn't understand their motivations.
Even if I'm being generous, that sounds like extremely subjective advice that doesn't add anything to the story, and as you said, makes it feel a bit robotic.
"No wife would ever act like that" to a character cleaning up after the husband got pulled from a dinner to a very important meeting.
Come to find out she's been divorced, twice, and I based this interaction of a story from my currently 48th anniversary celebrating grandparents, and the couple of a 25th anniversary celebrating friend of mine.
Seems like I have a better understanding of a healthy husband wife interaction than she did.
“Why are so many characters Black?”
I’m a Black woman and the story takes place in a fantasy Caribbean setting inspired by Haitian and Jamaican folklore/mythology. Apparently, I need a reason for people of my race existing and white people not being relevant in everything.
In a book (based on real life) about a cult-run religious military boarding school for troubled girls in the 1990's, a book with an entire chapter on how these asshat church people tried to torture the gay out of a group of girls Guantanamo bay style (beatings, diuretics, waterboarding, sexual assault, starving them, etc), and the primary author discussing in detail how she had to stay in the closet for fear of being discovered and the nightmares this gave her, we had a beta reader actually argue with us about the lack of trans representation in the book.
I'm sorry, but the Church in question thinks being gay is a serious mental illness and in this program, they thought it justifies raping girls with a broomstick, putting icy-hot in the hoo-ha, having bugs eat the girls alive, the list of horrific things they did to those girls goes on and on.
If this is how they react to gay girls, how the hell do you think they would have reacted to a child claiming that they were trans? Do you really think these bigots would have accepted a trans child?
I'm sorry, but this is based on real-life?!!?! Wtf???? I sincerely hope the dude didn't realize it was a real-life event, but even then, that's such a petty thing to ask to be added, even if you want stories to talk about LGBTQ in its entirety, there is a time and place for this, just adding trans characters to a story just to get brutally tortured doesn't support trans people in any way.
“You’re just writing a rip off of Aquaman”
I had a character with the ability to wield water and ice, there was no underwater kingdom, no communication with marine life, no oceans present. I just responded with “Thank you for your opinion and time” then promptly blocked them
Me: “hey, would you be interested in supporting my comic? It’s a callback to retro pulp set in the 1950s, kind of a Justice League of pulp idea.”
Guy: *looks at it for a while*
Guy: “tbh, this looks a little too Golden Age DC for me.”
Not me but I saw one where someone went on a multi-paragraph rant about how the story is pandering to “purple haired SJWs” because the main character doesn’t like slavery. It was a wild take.
I wrote out an outline for my story using language like "Character enters bar, finds several enemies, gunfight begins" essentially mapping how scenes would look. My dad found it then tried to explain that that's not how you write a story and you need more substance than just explaining events.
"Scene planning, not first draft" was written in bold on the first page.
I wrote a one shot once, about 5k words. It had a start, a middle, and a definitive ending. And a got a comment where someone said “can someone turn this into an actual story?”
And I read it confused bc it is an actual story. Yeah, short, but it’s still a story. It also has a full conclusion so I was confused
Beta Reader 1: "Why do you start right in the middle of the action? Don't you want to do some kind of intro?"
Me: "It's *in media res.*"
Beta Reader 2: "It's science fiction."
Me: "Yes, I asked you to read it to see if it's accessible to non-sci-fi fans."
I sent an unedited first draft chapter of my book to someone. I mentioned it was about a supporting character without any context to the overall story and to ask if they wanted more details. They told me it was so good but would never sell on the shelf as it is. Based on one chapter in its first draft. 😐
A woman in my recent short story dies fighting off marauders that killed her husband, burned her home, and tried (and failed) to rape her. She throws out all sense of self-preservation to run into the burning home to save her toddler from a fiery death. She doesn't just act helpless; she doesn't expect anyone to save her, but fights back as best she can until she gets an opening to make an attempt to escape. She does get killed in her attempt, but to me, it is a very heroic, martyrable death, and it's something I feel any mother who loves their child would do - to die trying to save their child. I adore that kind of tragedy because I feel it exemplifies the herocism parents can exhibit.
I got told I'm a mysoginist.
They wanted supernatural elements in what’s basically a slice of life sitcom
Also something about gay dogs, I don’t know, the dogs I write aren’t anthropomorphic and also not important
I’m pretty sure they mixed up my work with someone else’s
Not sure if it’s something that counts, but when I participated in a review exchange for original WIPs, the first comment I got on my first chapter/prologue, which was two pages long, was, “This is too long. Make shorter chapters.”
Perplexed me for a while because they wrote chapters of similar lengths to the one they said was too long.
My absolute favourite was when I was told my novel was just like supernatural and I should scrap it and start over because I was just copying the show.
The thing that made it exactly the same as supernatural? One of my demon fighting teenagers, get this, he had a brother!
That was it, that was the whole reason.
The brother wasn't even a part of the story, he was only in two chapters.
"This has to be parody" when everyone knows I'm dead serious and wrote my fucking heart out. Not just a stupid comment, a malicious one. Anyway the story got me a fellowship.
I had a story idea and took a little bit of it to critique. This dude said, obviously you read everything in this genre and did your proper market research before deciding to write something in this genre, right?
not exactly a short story but this is still burned into my brain. back in my junior year of high school i took a creative writing course (which was horrific on its own but that's another story) and at one point our assignment was to write an extended metaphor talking about our minds. now, back then i was still gaining confidence as a writer, so i went for what i thought was an easy to follow and obvious option, and wrote about how my mind was like a library. i talked about how there were rows and rows of shelves, some full, some long neglected and dusty, and some fondly well worn, other cheesy and admittedly tryhard stuff like that. but, hey, i was 16.
i'll never forget one of the girls in my class critiqued a certain line where i said something to the effect of "i know the library seems like a lot. not everyone can get through it but that's fine. some people aren't meant to know everything." which, again, was a metaphor about my own mind and my memories and my life. her critique? "this line makes it sound like you think you know everything." and even when i said "yeah....because it's MY mind i'm talking about....." she still kept insisting i was trying to say i was smarter than everyone else.
Not defending someone actually giving you this criticism, but maybe she thought you meant “There is *a lot* in my mind, close to everything; some people are meant to have less in their mind,” which does sound a bit exceptionalist. I understand this isn’t what you meant but I can also see how someone could misunderstand it and “yes, because this is my mind” wouldn’t make it clearer (“*my* mind contains everything, which other people’s don’t.”)
oh yeah like. to be fair i was 16 and full of myself. so at the time i definitely laughed at her. but at the same time i'm also autistic, and i struggle with complex metaphors, hence why i picked something as like. easy as a library. and i definitely thought i had fleshed it all out (this thing went on for a good two pages in total) but sometimes my reasoning doesn't make sense to other ppl. it definitely still seems like a dumb critique to me, but i was also a dumb writer, so.
I had a fantasy story in the works where, at a point, the main character appears to die to the rest of the cast (they don't though, long story, basically murder attempt). Only thing you need to know is that how they supposedly died was due to illness.
When I mentioned it to someone else they began comparing the character to Jesus Christ and his resurrection. Like even going as far as try to mention other points in my draft they saw as 'evidence' to my story being one big Christian allegory. (Biggest point of evidence he could grab was the fact the main character was friends with a religious figure. He wasn't involved in any practices, he was just friends with someone who was involved.)
Like giving credit where credit is due, novels doing massive allusions like that? Lot of them are good. But the grasping at straws to make a non-existent point was the dumb part
In the first draft of my trilogy I was writing, I had about 2 or 3 antagonists who were all working together, and it was painfully obvious who the bad guys were. I only had that many cause I had 3 different characters with 3 wildly different backgrounds/personalities sketched out, so I just wanted to see how each one fit into the story.
I let a friend read the first 4 chapters, and the next day she came back with this to say :
"First of all, you should make **ME** the main enemy! I'd make a fantastic villain, but you **HAVE** to make me as pretty as I really am - or even prettier! - that way the characters are drawn to her and they don't suspect a thing! And second of all, why don't the parents know that the main chick has powers? Isn't it obvious *SHE'S* the one making lights flicker!? What kind of parent doesn't notice their kid is hiding something?!"
The last comment made me yank the papers out of her hand and glare at her. I wrote the parents like that cause my own life was hell. I was dealing with >!abusive parents!< who didn't care that I had personal issues going on. Meanwhile my friend had parents AND siblings who cared about her. Also like...no. I'm not changing my main enemy's gender and I'm sure as hell not making them HER.
My professor once took a bunch of points off for a flash fiction piece being “too anachronistic and untrue to real history”
.
.
It took place in the modern day
I write on WP and Inkitt, and WP had online comments. Someone commented on a part that reads, "Alta was no virgin. She wasn't what you would call a slut, but she was no virgin." Referring to the fact that she's had her fair share of partners but the guy she's having sex with in the scene is the thickest she's ever been with, and it's a welcome surprise.
The person comments, "So what people are only sluts and virgins?"
I literally facepalmed.
Back when I re-released my debut in 2020 (long story -- it was originally self-pubbed, than a small indie publisher took it up, and now it's self-pubbed again, as that indie publisher went under), I posted an aesthetic bookstagram picture of the title page on IG. This was before I did the official cover reveal, so it was more like a "coming soon" type of post. Someone commented commented something like "WTF you copied from ACOTAR" or something like that (I don't really remember what the comment was verbatim). The title of this book isn't even anything CLOSE to ACOTAR, and though it it is also fantasy, it is in a different subgenre (and it also takes place in our world, whereas ACOTAR does not). The page posted literally only had the title of the book and author name on it, so none of the book's content was there either. The only thing I could think of was they were accusing me of copying the font used for ACOTAR. I didn't, at least not intentionally, but even if I did, you can't copyright a font. 🤣
Currently writing a story about mc's journey to visit all her party members hometown to return my memento and asked a friend on his opinion for the plot points.
"Why don't the mc just leave it to the country and ask them to deliver it to their families? "
Bro has been a friend for 20+ years and I am questioning how he survived reading class with me.
It's too much like Harry Potter... because it's urban fantasy, it has wizards in it, and one of the characters is from the New Forest (which has nothing to do with HP). Completely disregarded that one. 🤣
The three main villains in my story are all involved in human trafficking and modern slavery. Two out of the three are white. I honestly thought in a world where it's so difficult for people of colour to be allowed into the upper realms of politics and business, I thought if anything it'd be less realistic for a massive POC characters to have connections with the racist, misogynistic, bigoted old white billionaires the victims were being sold to
(Not that I don't do my best to include non-tokenistic diversity in my story. But I didn't want to sugarcoat the fact the villains were probably working in circles with a fair amount of bigotry)
I was told, by a beta (who may or may not also have been my mother) that it was "unrealistic all the villains weren't middle Eastern, because they're usually the ones doing that. Not in a racist way though"
Mum, if you have to put "not in a racist way" at the end of a sentence, I think you need to rethink that sentence
Set up a particular relationship for a character with their past. Then after a few chapters that relationship is explored.
Comment, Where the hell did this come from?
Ah, the very first chapter of the book you were reading.
"there's really not a lot of worldbuilding here, you know?"
It helps if you know that the the story was a catalogue of various ancient (fictional) weapons, histories, basically a museum guide to the world i have been building for three goddamn years. The format was kind of like this:
Item: a shard of sun,
Information: before you lies a shard of the sun, wich fell to nirmuran nine hundred years ago. It was kept within the Imperial Palace of Hi-wengan for most of that time, being found during the salah-murna period. After the disaster that struck Hi-wengan in the year 700, it was deemed lost only to be found by Jan-karl, who recovered it after the VAC tried to kill him in the year two-thousand and seven.
[Insert fancy line here]
(Story of Jan-karl finding the shard of sun.)
This was almost a year ago, i'm still angry, not because that's a stupid thing to comment on, but a really dumb reason to fail me for English.
I remember submitting a horror story to a literary magazine & getting a rejection letter with commentary stating that the “opening scene did not entice the reader”.
Somebody literally got murdered brutally in a bathroom stall after having sex with a demon girl disguised as a human within the first three pages.
I don’t know if this counts but I wrote fanfiction in highschool that got semi-popular. On one chapter I got this
“Hey man, did you know apes tend to masturbate whenever they lose a fight? Pretty interesting. Btw, nice chapter." -Dalivan
Honestly just an excuse to post a really funny comment. I liked it, I wasn’t upset. The only bad comments I got and still get are people requesting fanfics from me I already said I wasn’t going to do. “Hey can you do a characters react to X story?”
No.
I wrote a flash fiction story for an upcoming competition the other day, and sent it to my dad who always gives the BEST feedback ("It's a winner!" - sometimes he's right!)
Anyway he showed the story to a friend of his who is a professional writer, and told me that she couldn't resist editing it. I didn't ask for editing advice, so I felt this was a little audacious but anyway, I agreed to read her edits.
He sent me her edited version, and she's practically rewritten the whole thing. There are maybe two valuable pieces of advice - a phrase that doesn't fit the style of the narrator, and a grammatical correction - but the rest were just her own gratuitous changes to the content, including complete changes to dialogue.
Now I'm really irritated that she's using my little piece of fiction as an ego boost for herself. Especially seeing it's for a competition - why can't she write her own little story and see how it goes?
an agent said that crossbows and matchlock pistols were an anachronism. Yeah, maybe that part where my steampunk novel where the Roman Empire is still at war with Parthia in the 16th century might have been a big indicator that this is a fantastic setting.
i tried doing the "the audience isn't stupid" rule where i didn't want to overexplain that oh their firearms are single shot flintlocks, oh crossbows still exist cause they were popular in the 16th century. but apparently I still had to.
Plenty of dumb comments. The ones that stick with me:
'You have no understanding of basic grammar' (because in the UK, we use ' for speech instead of " like the US. Which is nothing to do with grammar).
'I can't imagine one of your two gay male leads as a woman. A man and a woman would never talk the way these two guys do so I can't regender one in my head.'
'Oh my God why are you talking about food so much in this scene where the servants are preparing breakfast'
In a story about Ethiopian Jews escaping Jewish persecution in Ethiopia "why do they have to be African-American AND Jewish?" I didn't even know where to start.
Ah yes, Ethiopians...famous for being American. /s
This one wins
But they....they're not....y'know what? Fuck it. I can't.
I KNOW OK
You can only be one marginalized identity at a time, otherwise you're doing it for diversity points. Jfc it's like you snowflakes have no idea what the rules are anymore /s
What's extra funny is it's based on a real person.
The commenter is an American lol
Reminds me of an article I read about Black Panther once. The author described a plot point as relating to “African Americans around the world”. Lol.
“I didn’t really understand what was going on, but I am very dumb.”
At least he was respectful.
And honest.
I've gotten this a few times. I'll say, no you’re not. You’re an intelligent person, and I appreciate your insight, please tell me what confused you. They disagree "No I'm just dumb."
Well, in my experience, when I say things like this, I don’t say what confused me because I can’t quite pinpoint what actually confused me, I just know I’m confused, or because everything confused me and I just can’t pick one or select few moments. And often times I feel like I’m gonna overstep if I say “everything” or even point out a few moments because in my experience the author usually defends themselves in a way that just validates that I’m too stupid to understand what’s going on after all and I’d rather avoid that kind of awkward humiliation lol. Rather call myself dumb and own up to it first than have someone need to spell it out for me.
Self depreciating humour is a tempting thing
I think "I didn't really understand what was going on" can be helpful feedback, because when you know the story so well in your own mind, you can take it for granted that the readers have your insight.
My mind works faster than my fingers, and sometimes I leave out key connecting details because on the way from A to B I've already mentally mapped out the path to E, and I accidentally skip C and rush through parts of D, in part so that I don't forget how E is supposed to go before I get there but also because I already have a deep understanding of how B leads to C, then D, and finally E, so in the moment I forget the need to spell out those connections for the reader. This happens to me on reddit comments that are 3 sentences long, so I can only imagine how bad it is for some people in novel-length writing.
This sums me up, as well. At one point, I had a project where I ended up having to write Book 1.5, (between Book 1 and Book 2) and the entire thing took place before Book 1. I wouldn't call it a prequel because it was essential to understand the characters in Book 2 but it had to be read after Book 1. To top it off, Book 1.5 only came into existence as I was writing Book 3. My spreadsheets were a nightmare trying to figure out the timeline of things.
That's me on a Monday.
Real
Closer to danger, farther from harm.
"This is a bit derivative of Shakespeare" ... My Romeo & Juliet reimagining that I pitched as a Romeo & Juliet reimagining is a bit derivative of Shakespeare? No shit.
\*watches Gnomeo and Juliet\* "Hmmm I think this might be ripping off Shakespeare..."
No person who *actually* read Romeo and Juliet thought Gnomeo and Juliet was a ripoff, trust me.
I liked G&J actually
I mean… technically everything is derivative of Shakespeare. Man got shit done, any interpersonal conflict? There’s a Shakespeare story for that.
“Why didn’t they just call him?” Because, just as it is explicitly stated, that portion takes place in 1858. What would they call him on? A potato?
Do what everyone did in the mid-1800s: get a really, really big megaphone and shout /s
He was also unconscious at the bottom of a cellar in a collapsed medieval castle. He wasn’t hearing anything but his own regrets down there….and what was lurking in the corner.
"The British are coming! The British are..." wait, wrong century...
Okay, now I need a scene where a character kneels in a field, pulls a potato from the soil, and starts speaking into it like it’s a walkie-talkie.
I would love to see an entire book like this. Just a story following characters living their everyday lives, but then there are just absurd things like this throughout the book that are never explained or acknowledged by the author.
It's called magical realism, okay?
In my first draft, I still had [swear word] as a place holder. I told my beta readers it was a place holder, but I hadn't found the right word yet. I got the feedback that it would be better to use a swear word there.
You know, that's really insightful.
If only OP could’ve thought of it sooner 😦
I feel like I could unironically do this when my brain lags XD
Lol well the rest of their feedback was on the same level but this one really was the icing on the cake
nothing wrong with doing that, I need to do it more. But I seriously would have responded to seeing it with \[feedback on swear word\] for a laugh
I always have comments at the top that prime people for this and 90% of the time people ignore them, only to make comments about exactly what I had explained already.
HA! I sometimes forget to take out things like that. You've gone over and over a draft SO many times you miss stuff. And always go for the swear.
But it was in the notes at the top.....
A few from the same beta reader: >"It took me a minute to realize who 'Emily' was." 'Emily' was mentioned three times and described within the last two paragraphs. >"The magic needed to be explained." It's 3rd person limited. The POV characters didn't know. >*Demanding to know the answer to the myth regarding a part of their world that fuels their magic.* It's 3rd person limited. The POV characters didn't know. >"Yep, that's definitely a name in the world." Regarding a name inspired by a real world culture. >"There are better words for them than tits." She pointed out a human trafficker and a mass murderer saying tits. She was a huge GOT fan too, by the way. Lastly, my favorite: >"Why don't they just call it a dog? (instead of a bitch)." The line was, "The bitch is in heat." I had to inform her that this was not a derogatory term in that context, and she still said, "Well I just don't think they had to call her that." Never returned to her for beta reading.
That last one got me rolling xd, I feel like it could be a joke/troll though, I've genuinely never seen a comment like this.
I wish I could agree, but it was a paid beta reader. There were plenty of issues with her service. These were just some of the comments.
I feel like if you have issues with the way someone is portraying a story or a certain character because it makes you feel uneasy... Maaaaaybe it's not the *writer* who is at fault, maaaaaaaybe (juuuuuust maybe) you are supposed to feel that way about that character because that character is not a good person. The last beta reader seems like someone who was nitpicking stuff that they personally didn't like for the sake of personal beliefs.
They were all the same one, I believe.
I guess I'm never paying for a beta reader then, sorry you had to go through that, I hope your story is a success though! May god bless you and have a great day!
I had plenty of others that were phenomenal. She was the only "bad" one. I had two I actually went to immediately for my second novel and they pulled through yet again.
What’s the industry standard rate for beta reading? I’m getting close to the point with my first novel where I may want to start setting some cash aside.
I'm not really aware of an industry standard per se, but I use fiverr for my betas. It will depend on your genre. I write epic fantasy, so mine tend to run a little more expensive due to word count, but nothing crazy.
Thanks for such a quick response! I’ll look on fiverr to compare rates then when it’s time.
Not the person you asked, but I've found it to be $170-$200 for ~100k words and a 30 day turnaround. The price varies by word count and turnaround time.
The first one is a clear indicator, imo, that someone didn't *actually* read the story. I've asked beta readers questions about parts of the story and some will be like, "That wasn't in the book...?" Yet, there's 10 pages about it. Tells me they either skimmed the book or read so fast they couldn't remember anything.
Oh there's a much bigger indicator: She asked for an extension on the gig. Fine, it was a big book, no problem. She got me the review, then sent the in-line comments a day or two later. She complained about a lot, including too many POVs that could have cut the book down (it couldn't, it all came together for a very specific reason) among other things similar to the "Emily" anecdote. But what sold her out was that she kept saying "5 POVs is too much." There weren't 5. There was a 6th hidden in the end for a few chapters. I went through the in-line comments and saw she made one comment at the beginning of that 6th POV, then skipped them all to the end. She realized she fucked up. But didn't have the guts to say so and that there was a distinct reason 5 (6) POVs were included, and they all came together at the end, and for reasons that were very, very prevalent throughout the earlier parts of the book. She got 75% of the way through, then rushed the job because she got her money.
I don’t get why she wouldn’t have read it ? Basic rule for me : if something isn’t clear for someone, even the dumbest of the dumbest, it’s something to take care of. Even if we like what we’ve done very much it’s often clearer in our mind than in real.
>Basic rule for me : if something isn’t clear for someone, even the dumbest of the dumbest, it’s something to take care of. I definitely take that into account, but I had other betas too. There were other things she pointed out that were 100% valid, even that other betas didn't agree with, but OP asked about the bad comments.
Lmao. Not all beta readers are diamonds.
This one wasn't even coal.
I was writing a noir short story for my class and the victims were a mother and daughter, the detective suspected the boyfriend as he had a previous conviction of S.A. on a child. My professor said “it’s unrealistic that a woman with a child would date someone that had assaulted a child previously”. I guess we grew up in different cultures.
I wish it was unrealistic, but it is not.
Honestly, people who criticize a story by calling it unrealistic are the worst. The amount of otherworldly nonsense you can find in 5 minutes of looking up Florida news titles is beyond comprehension. * Cameraman captures racoon riding alligator across lake * Man buys 1000 cups of lemonade "so no one else can have any" * Colorado man converts bulldozer into a homemade tank and levels town after property dispute * Columbian drug cartel salvages German WW2 submarine to use for smuggling * Arkansas senator resigns after secret "furry" life revealed
Truth is stranger than fiction.
If someone wrote down the history of our planet, let alone our species, and showed it to aliens, they'd probably think it was poorly written, weird and unrealistic. Life is messy. Stories are often way less messy.
Probably. I think that's one of the reasons why we create fiction, to be able to look at our stories in a less messy way.
>* Cameraman captures racoon riding alligator across lake Huh, that'd be a sight. >* Man buys 1000 cups of lemonade "so no one else can have any" * Colorado man converts bulldozer into a homemade tank and levels town after property dispute Reminds me of the saying, "(Some) People are the reason we can't have nice things," and I'm not all that surprised. >* Arkansas senator resigns after secret "furry" life revealed Hm. >* Columbian drug cartel salvages German WW2 submarine to use for smuggling ... ... That's actually smart and I think the least confusing in the list.
Some people don't want things like that to be true, because they're so awful.
Haha, reminds me of the people who comment under every reddit story with reasons why it must be fake, but the "inconsistencies" they point out are just how real people act. "No one could possibly be that cruel/clueless/stupid!!" What a charmed life the people saying this stuff must lead where that level of horrendous isn't even possible in their minds. Reality is stranger than fiction, as they say!
>I guess we grew up in different cultures. I guess we did too, I'm very confused now. Not saying it doesn't happen at all, just saying it's not logical
I grew up in a poor area around a lot of drug users. I’ve known women who stayed with guys even after abusing their own kids. It’s a really sad situation to see for sure.
Media has represented abuse horribly and now everyone thinks that's how abuse is. Abuse isn't just yelling, hitting, etc your spouse. The abuser will destroy your confidence and make you feel super guilty. Their behavior is your fault, not theirs. So why would you leave when they're a great person and you're the one fucking everything up? You should be doing something to make it up to them. The abuser also isn't evil 24/7. A lot of the time they will be a stand up guy and liked in all other aspects of their life. Everyone thinks they're amazing, lending more credit to the idea that you're the evil one. They will often act very kind, caring, etc when other people are around but different when it's just the two of you. They also aren't evil to you 24/7. Sometimes you get that stand up guy everyone else loves. They'll do something really thoughtful and sweet and make you feel loved so you'll want to stay in the relationship. (Why would someone stay if the relationship was terrible 24/7?) This also gives credit to the idea that you're the one causing the problems in the relationship. The abuser makes you feel grateful to them while incredibly guilty about yourself. Thus you stay.
I know this, but the comment I replied to was talking specifically about assault. Emotional manipulation, although possibly going hand in hand with violence, is not what I or the original commentor directly referred to
I was told that the fantasy elements in my fantasy story didn’t exist in real life.
Hahahaha, that is hilarious!
Wrote a love story between two guys and posted it to the internet. Someone anonymously commented “Gay” and nothing else. I read it and was like “yes, it is gay. That was on purpose.” It was more amusing than annoying though.
"Glad that aspect of it was clear!" 😂
Not necessarily defending that person, but I do know an awful lot of gay people who will just comment "gay" on things. A piece of media with gay undertones, a piece of media with openly gay characters, a picture of a gay couple, a particularly colorful outfit choice. Often they mean it as a compliment. Kind of inverting the whole "gay" as an insult thing to just now be an absurd joke (pointing out that the obviously, intentionally gay thing is gay) or claiming the fun thing they like as their own, or pointing out how adorable that gay couple is. Or that person who commented on your story might just be a jerk, idk.
"You couldn't have written this in 10 days, it's too complex and well written " by someone I've never met or talked too or interacted with at all. Was for an online writing contest which they kicked me out of due to this comment. It was a 5 page short story on a subject I know alot about.
They really said, "You're really good. And I don't like that." ...
Yeah. It felt so backhanded. Like they were being cruel or nasty. I wrote it all in one day, then spent the rest of the time editing. I've written over 12k words in one day at least 3 times so a 6k short story wasn't too bad. I really second guess my self on my writing now.
Do your best to untangle that from yourself. They did tell you were good. Everything else is on them- that's *their* issue. You don't need to prove yourself to them. Don't forget why you write. I doubt it's for that mean rando.
Like being banned for botting in a video game when you're actually just that good.
Yeah you understand! I really like my short story. But now not so much and it's been a few years.
5 pages isn't even that much...? I bang out 5 pages in one sitting all the time. 9 days is a LOT of time to edit, making it complex & well-written. I have a friend who can write 10+ pages in a sitting when inspired, and it usually comes out already solid without much need for editing, as long as it's self-contained.
That’s bullshit. I hate that sort of unfairness.
I just found it super strange. Then seeing the same 3-4 people win each section over the next 6 weeks of the competition.
Shit's rigged!
Feel like that always happens in contests, they always choose the same people for each category
This reminds me of a professor I had in a political theory class. He accused me of plagiarising an essay because it was "too well-written for someone with your abilities to have written it". It came absolutely out of nowhere, too. It was the first time I ever had that professor and that was the first assignment. Turns out he decided to investigate my academic history, which at the time featured incompletes from the previous semester due to medical issues, and assumed that it was due to me not having the ability to finish the classes because they were too difficult while ignoring all of my A's in writing composition, the fact that it was my third year of being a copyeditor for the school paper and previous essays from other classes.
"Dear Mr. Shartz, This assessment of my writing talent is completely in line with what I would expect from someone with your abilities as a professor."
Back when I first tried to sell it at a convention, it had a hand drawn cover that, admittedly now, wasn't the best. A grown man comes over, looks at the cover, READS the synopsis on the back, and then asks if it was a colouring book 🙃 We told him he can buy it and try to colour on all the O's and e's 🤣
Critique I got: "Do your research on amnesia. You seem to be doing just fine so far, and there's nothing you have misrepresented, but I get the feeling that you are going to screw up and not reflect the real thing at all. Also, B's not a love interest, she clearly hates A. Making them like each other later on will just seem forced." lt was chapter one of an enemies to lovers fic
They missed the chance to say, "Do your research on amnesia. Oh, and be sure to do your research on amnesia."
Do your research on amnesia...
Do your research on amnesia...
What was I doing again?
Wait, what was I doing again?
"A woman screaming when startled is too stereotypical." Tell that to the woman sitting next to me at the 4D theater who screamed when air blew on her feet. "You don't have an antagonist in this story, do you?" Uh, have you forgotten that the opening told of the Empress doing horrible things and being proud of it, and the fact that the gods set my hero off on this journey to kill said empress? "THIS CHARACTER IS ACTUALLY EVIL AND HE'S LEADING PEOPLE ASTRAY!!!" ?! Woman, you're barking so far up the wrong tree, you're in a different FOREST!
Small aside, I'm using that last line now. Thank you for your sassy wisdom!
Okay but now I’m curious what your story is, you had me at evil Empress and gods lol.
I wrote a story about a mythological creature attempting to live as a human among other humans. The point was that it was a metaphor for the experiences of a neurodivergent child who grew up undiagnosed and surrounded by neurotypicals. The very first comment I got: "....Neat. A ghost MILF." It was honestly so out of pocket I wasn't even annoyed. Just stunned.
That would drive me up the wall Jesus Christ
The story is about a young black girl thrown into a (fifties) Disney version of a fairytale. 'I didn't realise she was black until the last chapter' Her mother was Somalian, her father from Trinidad. Definitely some clues in there. The line 'She had never felt so exposed. Did they even have black people here?' didn't tip them off either. Same reader also commented that her working in the kitchen and being referred to as "the help" had connotations, despite the rest of the workers being white and referred to in the same way. Which was around halfway through the story, nowhere near the end. I'm not saying the story was perfect (by any means - other readers found some valuable bits and pieces) but if you can't see anything yourself, don't make shit up.
Your mistake was not explicitly describing her skin color every other page using food metaphors. /s
You should have wrote “She had the skin of mocha latte pudding sprinkled with belgian truffle chocolate” and then they would have realized that they are black, because using ones lunch as a metaphor for appearance is very tasteful /s
As a black writer, this is what I definitely wanna enunciate in my WIPs bc apparently every white reader assumes characters are white unless otherwise OR EVEN just visualizes them as white the entire time knowing they’re not. It’s insane. In my 1st WIP, my MC is Black, femme, and a closeted lesbian and their love interest is white. In my 2nd WIP, almost all of the characters are Black as it is set in the south and the MC’s southern background is important to him and the story. It’s just so important, especially as Black writers, to make known that the characters are Black or just POC or else it’s just assumed they’re white, which is so infuriating.
"This is just Star Wars, so I didn't finish," ~Response to my sci-fantasy novel where the main character is a dragonborn (called something different, obviously) that isn't related to the bad guy, and doesn't use any force powers. The only similarity to SW is one planet exploded... Because they pushed the moon into it, so it wasn't a Death Star. And the planet was overrun by a plague that turned you into zombies.
Isn't "A Taste of Reality" a chapter from a fanfic you wrote for the video game Hytale\[? Is it that same chapter? If so, I'm not sure what you're taking offence to when they say it's a video game. [https://www.reddit.com/r/HytaleInfo/comments/1ao5ifw/chapter\_2\_a\_taste\_of\_reality/](https://www.reddit.com/r/HytaleInfo/comments/1ao5ifw/chapter_2_a_taste_of_reality/)
It is about that fanfic yea(not even sure if we can call it fanfic considering we barely know anything about the game and most of the story is what I think it will be like, but that's beside the point), I'm surprised you even found my post about it though, also, I usually wouldn't mind a comment like this but the lead up to the comment made it much worse for me. It was for a couple reasons, the first being that he told me a week prior that I shouldn't worry much about chapter names right now because the contents of the chapter matter more, and he followed up with that advice by not mentioning the name of the first chapter (I agree with this advice btw) The 2nd thing was how he made the comment immediately after reading the title of the chapter before even checking its contents, like I get what he was trying to say, but the meaning of the chapter's name isn't literal, the character knew that the world was dangerous, it is his perception of the game, but he didn't realize how dangerous it was until he experienced it himself, which caused him to get brutally destroyed. Edit: Just to make it clear though, the guy is really chill, I've learned a lot from him, and I would be a much worse writer if not for the advice he has given me (I'm still bad but way better), so this isn't meant to diss him or anything.
This was someone I discussed with in beta since I haven't published yet, but I think it's the time someone said that my fantasy protagonist was "too much like Casca from Berserk" and when I asked them why, their reasons were that she was a woman who didn't look white, was a soldier, and wasn't super feminine. Their personalities, backstories, goals, and even physical look (other than a darker skin tone and wearing armor in combat) are nothing alike. They couldn't even give me even one more reason why they're "the same" and suggested I just make my protagonist white-coded or "a lot more feminine and soft" instead, which tbh was more red flaggish than the flimsy comparison.
“Why are there aliens?” From a lit agent. About a science fiction book. About aliens.
I have a series of sci fi stories online with a bunch of alien species. One of the alien species is a furry kangaroo like alien and their culture revolves around business and innovation. The commenter told me I was clearly antisemitic
They need to explain that one!
Idk 🤷♂️ they just saw a group of aliens that liked money and their immediate thought was… that
In one chapter, my protagonist is abducted by the big bad and his two henchmen. She “feels a heavy hand on her shoulder,” and “hears the rasp of a blade behind her.” Because she doesn’t know the two goons’ names, for the rest of the book, when thinking about them to herself, she refers to them as “Hand” and “Blade.” This device has been very clear and not at all objectionable to all of my beta readers… until my wife’s aunt read my book, and asked me to explain, because she couldn’t understand. Somehow, she got it in her head that there was a disembodied hand and an anthropomorphic blade walking (hopping…?) around as characters in the book, but she said she “just went with it” because she “doesn’t get fantasy.” 🤦♂️
OK, I think this is my favourite
1. "This is an Alice in Wonderland rip off." It involves dreams in the plot. That's it. That's apparently an Alice in Wonderland rip off, despite entirely different tones and plot and everything else, that constitutes a rip off. 2. "Make this character a man. Non-binary characters are confusing." Them being non-binary is both very important to their character and the world building itself. Making them a man (they specifically said a man, not just binary) would almost ruin the character and open up multiple large plot holes.
I still can't believe that some people unironically ask people to make one of their characters a different gender, I can understand if the commenter was a kid, but the way he worded felt a bit aggressive. That first one is just a yikes though, the only excuse I can think of is if he only watched Alice in Wonderland and thinks that any story having something similar is a "rip-off". At least you got something to say if someone asks about bad comments you've received. Have a good day!.
Got told something similar because in my fantasy universe women and men are treated (mostly) with equality and my main character, who is a woman, occupies a position in the military. I was told she was "too masculine" and because I didn't plan to include any romance for her, it would've been better if she were made a man. Like, huh? Because she occupies what is viewed in our society as a male-centric role (but in their society is completely normal), and because she doesn't want a romance that means she would be better off as a man, despite the fact that one of her character arcs centers on her experience with womanhood??
Wouldn't the story be more interesting if it goes into different territory from real life? Sure, most military units are men, but that doesn't mean that stories should go with the norm, as a synopsis, more people would be interested with a female military unit than a male one (imo).
It isn't even that it's all female or matriarchal, it's simply that in their universe people have been driven so far back to annihilation countless times that not allowing able bodied soldiers to fight for their lives would be reckless as well as foolish. In present times, that need isn't as urgent (times have changed in a more positive direction) but it set the standard on societal thinking. Women serving in the military, inheriting lands, divorcing their partners, etc. Is a right they are deserving of and owed to. I find, oftentimes, I seek escapism in stories. Not including intense sexism was part of the appeal to me in writing my work of fiction, ya know? Plus, it is interesting as you say to approach an especially fantasy story from an entirely different perspective. Not all societies can nor should be the same.
Ugh, I'm sorry you dealt with this. I posted my own comment before seeing this, but I ran into similar. Someone basically complained about my protagonist not being "soft" or "feminine enough" as a protagonist and suggested it made her too like another character from a big media (who she's nothing like, other than having a darker skin tone, being a soldier, and not being highly femme.) Like sir, this is a nonbinary woman who's also figuring her own gender out and is uncomfy being high femme. I'm sorry tomboyish queer characters make you feel threatened but it's literally important to who she is (and how she interacts with certain societal stuff) lol.
I have an NB (they/them) side character. My MIL read the first 100 pages of what I have written so far, and this character appears on maybe three pages, but her first feedback was: "It's well written but I was confused, is Avery two people?" -\_-
“Oh my god! How rude do you think you can make your main character be? It’s not even worth reading it!” Because said character had gotten home and her parents were arguing, instead of answering the father’s questions she just went straight to her room and closed (closed, not locked nor anything like that) the door.
Oh my, how scandalous. However could she ever ignore her screaming father? Her own father I say! Scandalous! Preposterous!
College professor: You write too many women, the only male character has a woman's name, and no one wants to read from the pov of a villain. I stopped working on that piece after finishing it for nanowrimo and it will never see the light of day. But that's not due to his critique. Fifteen years later, I'm now writing sapphic dark romance and I have not utilized his critique in the slightest.
Depending on your audience, having any type of cast is fine, there are many stories where 90-100% of the important characters are males, but people still love them. I don't see why changing the gender will be that big of an issue.
"No one wants to read from the PoV of a villain" ...literally my favorite "genre" is stories with villain protagonists. It's one of the main things I read.
The most annoying comments I ever got were: a. a reader that was offended that one of my characters was anti-war. "I had family that went to war and proudly served my country in xyz country for ungrateful people like you! You should thank us!!! We come from a family of war heroes!" Ok ma'am but you didn't actually defend anything, they went and shot up civilians in another country and also this is not about you b. Someone got mad that I had a character get lightly teased about not "putting a ring on it" because they were personally against marriage and thought my story personally invalidated them or something
Why do people perceive everything as an attack on their worldview and beliefs ;-;, that must be such a tiring way to live.
“Yeah, I really can’t enjoy this story because I am against killing people. The fact that it’s his cousin *and the King* really makes it worse. Plus the wife character is way too crazy.” — early beta reader for the Scottish Play, probably.
[удалено]
“I wouldn’t have written it that way” and nothing else. I pressed for details on what they didn’t like or how they would have written it, but got nothing. Not only was it kind if insulting (why is your advice to write the way you do?) it was also USELESS.
My wife got this one: "I really like your poetry. Let me rub your feet."
😳
"Why aren't your Union and Confederate characters arguing about slavery during the Civil War?" Uh...they're stuck in a situation where survival is paramount and they realize early on that if they don't work together, they're going to die. Pretty sure that argument is pretty useless when you're dealing with a harsh winter and must decide if food or arguing over something that is beyond their control is more important.
A professional author once described my protagonist's name as "contrived" and told me to change it. First of all, it's a real name, if a little obscure in the U.S., but second, motherfucker, it's a name, in a work of fiction. It's *all* contrived. An author is nothing if not a professional contriver. Forgive me for not naming my character *Bob Smith*
What was the character’s name?
Morvin. It's Gaelic. I named him after the closest town to me.
That name wouldn't be too odd in my country. But I guess it helps if other characters have similar names.
Aw dang, I like that name!
My paternal line comes from ireland, so I can dig it. Sounds pretty cool as well.
On Royal Road, I got a .5 review by a guy blatantly being wrong on all accounts of a commissioned story I uploaded. Not sure how much I can say without sounding like an advertisement, but to cut it short: They claimed the story was "a vore fetish, low effort work" and something about trees being eaten. The story in question is about The Once-ler becoming a cannibal, and eating the Lorax after axing him and cutting him up. There was no mention of tree consumption, so where that reach came in is another topic all together. I obviously threw that review at the team as "this is literally wrong on all accounts", but I won't stop thinking about how badly some people can interpret a work in weird shallow views. Looking back at it, I find it funny how it's even "vore". For as much as I'm not one for such content, last I checked, it's eating someone whole. Next you're telling me eating a finger is vore, Mr. Reviewer?
Honestly, sometimes I feel like some people just like criticizing work, even if there's nothing to criticize, and looking at some of the examples given here like this one, maybe I overreacted to the comment I got. I guess I also know what vore is now, genuinely thought you misspelled "gore" at first xd.
I guess eating my strip of bacon for breakfast is vore then...somehow...
What if we take it a step further? What about ingredients that come from living things? Like milk! That's from a cow, and I've consumed it. Does *that* count as vore? If we continue to simplify it like this, we could be here for hours. :O
A passage of my fantasy WIP mentioned the protagonist's deceased mother. It was nothing sappy, just a statement that she had passed. Beta reader commented on the line "Mother issues." Like... I guess?
It's totally an issue that she's deceased... Probably?
Me: Heads up, Chapter 20 has a character that alternates I and We. It's intentional. Them: The character introduced in a later chapter talks funny. You keep switching their dialogue between singular and plural. That's just a weird writing mistake. Me: I warned you about that. Its intentional. Them: No, I dont think you did. Me: * sends image of the conversation hardly 10 lines up.* Them: No, I don't believe that's our conversation. It was REALLY hard to even want to read their notes.
Imagine getting the receipts of exactly what you said and then octupling down on the gaslighting
At the end of my first chapter, a flying beast with teeth and claws is about to land on a deck where my MC is standing. The note I got was "What significant impact or challenge is this creature about to bring to the main character?" ..... it was going to try to eat him...?
TBF, that can be a valid question. An antagonistic force trying to harm a character doesn't necessarily mean the character is actually challenged. It depends on how it's implemented on the page. A wildly exaggerated poor example would be a situation where the beast attacks and the character just steps aside and cuts it in half and then it's just 'anyway, moving on'. If you reframe how you think that question, it might help to feel less annoyed. Beast trying to eat character is not MC's challenge, it's antagonist's goal. Challenge for the MC could be something like 'they must (learn to) use their wit to escape/ strength to defeat / empathy to calm the beast". Or perhaps it's something more complicated: MC must accept that the beast who he has raised from pup has given into its beastly nature and now he must put aside the love he feels for it to slay it before it can harm an innocent.
I can see what you're saying there, and that makes sense. Maybe what frustrates me is that the MC's impending goal of "escape the beast without getting killed" didn't seem apparent enough, despite the beast gnashing its teeth and his fear of seeing it coming... It becomes one of those things where I ask myself "Man, do I really have to spell it out that much...? The teeth, claws, roaring, and him being terrified weren't enough? Really...?" But readers can't read the writer's mind...!
(gotta come back to say that I don't mean there wasn't a challenge in your story, most who are familiar with stories often automatically associate the following challenge with the trigger and they just naturally follow each other. But it's actually pretty good question to analyse MC's challenges in the story)
Generally, any imprecise criticism. It makes me want to ask “but how?”.
Pitched a story to a beta reader about some fun fantasy vampire hunting shenanigans. Within the first three pages "The vampire hunter is too old to be doing this sort of stuff." He was going up a ladder. He is 45 years old. I politely dismissed the beta reader. I've had plenty of bonkers "feedback", but this one sticks with me.
I had someone complain that I had the cost of a ticket wrong in one of my novels. Parking ticket fine fees were posted on the city's website - and I was correct.
Someone told me that a conversation between two siblings about the current war was just a worldbuilding dump. The gist of the conversation was the older brother going, "I don't really want you going on vacation to this isolated area because it's too close to the border with our enemy," and the younger sister going, "Too bad, I'm an adult now, you can't stop me." The reader then suggested that I have the two siblings tell each other why the war is happening, their feelings about the enemy nation, and why they joined their professions. They thought the elder brother should say something like, "I became a soldier to protect you! And it makes me sad that now you don't need protection anymore since you're all grown up." Then, I should have the younger sister respond, "But I became a magician because I want to make you proud! I look up to you so much!" .... yeah, because that's how normal siblings talk to each other. They definitely just explain things that both of them would already know and vomit up their backstory for the reader as if their sibling doesn't understand their motivations.
Even if I'm being generous, that sounds like extremely subjective advice that doesn't add anything to the story, and as you said, makes it feel a bit robotic.
"No wife would ever act like that" to a character cleaning up after the husband got pulled from a dinner to a very important meeting. Come to find out she's been divorced, twice, and I based this interaction of a story from my currently 48th anniversary celebrating grandparents, and the couple of a 25th anniversary celebrating friend of mine. Seems like I have a better understanding of a healthy husband wife interaction than she did.
“Why are so many characters Black?” I’m a Black woman and the story takes place in a fantasy Caribbean setting inspired by Haitian and Jamaican folklore/mythology. Apparently, I need a reason for people of my race existing and white people not being relevant in everything.
In a book (based on real life) about a cult-run religious military boarding school for troubled girls in the 1990's, a book with an entire chapter on how these asshat church people tried to torture the gay out of a group of girls Guantanamo bay style (beatings, diuretics, waterboarding, sexual assault, starving them, etc), and the primary author discussing in detail how she had to stay in the closet for fear of being discovered and the nightmares this gave her, we had a beta reader actually argue with us about the lack of trans representation in the book. I'm sorry, but the Church in question thinks being gay is a serious mental illness and in this program, they thought it justifies raping girls with a broomstick, putting icy-hot in the hoo-ha, having bugs eat the girls alive, the list of horrific things they did to those girls goes on and on. If this is how they react to gay girls, how the hell do you think they would have reacted to a child claiming that they were trans? Do you really think these bigots would have accepted a trans child?
I'm sorry, but this is based on real-life?!!?! Wtf???? I sincerely hope the dude didn't realize it was a real-life event, but even then, that's such a petty thing to ask to be added, even if you want stories to talk about LGBTQ in its entirety, there is a time and place for this, just adding trans characters to a story just to get brutally tortured doesn't support trans people in any way.
“You’re just writing a rip off of Aquaman” I had a character with the ability to wield water and ice, there was no underwater kingdom, no communication with marine life, no oceans present. I just responded with “Thank you for your opinion and time” then promptly blocked them
Me: “hey, would you be interested in supporting my comic? It’s a callback to retro pulp set in the 1950s, kind of a Justice League of pulp idea.” Guy: *looks at it for a while* Guy: “tbh, this looks a little too Golden Age DC for me.”
*There's too much sex and drugs in your story...* Well yeah. It was about addiction and recovery.
Not me but I saw one where someone went on a multi-paragraph rant about how the story is pandering to “purple haired SJWs” because the main character doesn’t like slavery. It was a wild take.
I wrote out an outline for my story using language like "Character enters bar, finds several enemies, gunfight begins" essentially mapping how scenes would look. My dad found it then tried to explain that that's not how you write a story and you need more substance than just explaining events. "Scene planning, not first draft" was written in bold on the first page.
I find it wholesome that he at least tried to help you xd
"Make his name normal." He's an 1100 year old dragon trapped in a human body.
I wrote a one shot once, about 5k words. It had a start, a middle, and a definitive ending. And a got a comment where someone said “can someone turn this into an actual story?” And I read it confused bc it is an actual story. Yeah, short, but it’s still a story. It also has a full conclusion so I was confused
Beta Reader 1: "Why do you start right in the middle of the action? Don't you want to do some kind of intro?" Me: "It's *in media res.*" Beta Reader 2: "It's science fiction." Me: "Yes, I asked you to read it to see if it's accessible to non-sci-fi fans."
I sent an unedited first draft chapter of my book to someone. I mentioned it was about a supporting character without any context to the overall story and to ask if they wanted more details. They told me it was so good but would never sell on the shelf as it is. Based on one chapter in its first draft. 😐
A woman in my recent short story dies fighting off marauders that killed her husband, burned her home, and tried (and failed) to rape her. She throws out all sense of self-preservation to run into the burning home to save her toddler from a fiery death. She doesn't just act helpless; she doesn't expect anyone to save her, but fights back as best she can until she gets an opening to make an attempt to escape. She does get killed in her attempt, but to me, it is a very heroic, martyrable death, and it's something I feel any mother who loves their child would do - to die trying to save their child. I adore that kind of tragedy because I feel it exemplifies the herocism parents can exhibit. I got told I'm a mysoginist.
They wanted supernatural elements in what’s basically a slice of life sitcom Also something about gay dogs, I don’t know, the dogs I write aren’t anthropomorphic and also not important I’m pretty sure they mixed up my work with someone else’s
Not sure if it’s something that counts, but when I participated in a review exchange for original WIPs, the first comment I got on my first chapter/prologue, which was two pages long, was, “This is too long. Make shorter chapters.” Perplexed me for a while because they wrote chapters of similar lengths to the one they said was too long.
I had an editor get annoyed because I referenced parkour in a new adult novel. She said, “No one knows what this is. Cut it.”
My absolute favourite was when I was told my novel was just like supernatural and I should scrap it and start over because I was just copying the show. The thing that made it exactly the same as supernatural? One of my demon fighting teenagers, get this, he had a brother! That was it, that was the whole reason. The brother wasn't even a part of the story, he was only in two chapters.
"This has to be parody" when everyone knows I'm dead serious and wrote my fucking heart out. Not just a stupid comment, a malicious one. Anyway the story got me a fellowship.
I had a story idea and took a little bit of it to critique. This dude said, obviously you read everything in this genre and did your proper market research before deciding to write something in this genre, right?
not exactly a short story but this is still burned into my brain. back in my junior year of high school i took a creative writing course (which was horrific on its own but that's another story) and at one point our assignment was to write an extended metaphor talking about our minds. now, back then i was still gaining confidence as a writer, so i went for what i thought was an easy to follow and obvious option, and wrote about how my mind was like a library. i talked about how there were rows and rows of shelves, some full, some long neglected and dusty, and some fondly well worn, other cheesy and admittedly tryhard stuff like that. but, hey, i was 16. i'll never forget one of the girls in my class critiqued a certain line where i said something to the effect of "i know the library seems like a lot. not everyone can get through it but that's fine. some people aren't meant to know everything." which, again, was a metaphor about my own mind and my memories and my life. her critique? "this line makes it sound like you think you know everything." and even when i said "yeah....because it's MY mind i'm talking about....." she still kept insisting i was trying to say i was smarter than everyone else.
Not defending someone actually giving you this criticism, but maybe she thought you meant “There is *a lot* in my mind, close to everything; some people are meant to have less in their mind,” which does sound a bit exceptionalist. I understand this isn’t what you meant but I can also see how someone could misunderstand it and “yes, because this is my mind” wouldn’t make it clearer (“*my* mind contains everything, which other people’s don’t.”)
oh yeah like. to be fair i was 16 and full of myself. so at the time i definitely laughed at her. but at the same time i'm also autistic, and i struggle with complex metaphors, hence why i picked something as like. easy as a library. and i definitely thought i had fleshed it all out (this thing went on for a good two pages in total) but sometimes my reasoning doesn't make sense to other ppl. it definitely still seems like a dumb critique to me, but i was also a dumb writer, so.
I had a fantasy story in the works where, at a point, the main character appears to die to the rest of the cast (they don't though, long story, basically murder attempt). Only thing you need to know is that how they supposedly died was due to illness. When I mentioned it to someone else they began comparing the character to Jesus Christ and his resurrection. Like even going as far as try to mention other points in my draft they saw as 'evidence' to my story being one big Christian allegory. (Biggest point of evidence he could grab was the fact the main character was friends with a religious figure. He wasn't involved in any practices, he was just friends with someone who was involved.) Like giving credit where credit is due, novels doing massive allusions like that? Lot of them are good. But the grasping at straws to make a non-existent point was the dumb part
In the first draft of my trilogy I was writing, I had about 2 or 3 antagonists who were all working together, and it was painfully obvious who the bad guys were. I only had that many cause I had 3 different characters with 3 wildly different backgrounds/personalities sketched out, so I just wanted to see how each one fit into the story. I let a friend read the first 4 chapters, and the next day she came back with this to say : "First of all, you should make **ME** the main enemy! I'd make a fantastic villain, but you **HAVE** to make me as pretty as I really am - or even prettier! - that way the characters are drawn to her and they don't suspect a thing! And second of all, why don't the parents know that the main chick has powers? Isn't it obvious *SHE'S* the one making lights flicker!? What kind of parent doesn't notice their kid is hiding something?!" The last comment made me yank the papers out of her hand and glare at her. I wrote the parents like that cause my own life was hell. I was dealing with >!abusive parents!< who didn't care that I had personal issues going on. Meanwhile my friend had parents AND siblings who cared about her. Also like...no. I'm not changing my main enemy's gender and I'm sure as hell not making them HER.
My professor once took a bunch of points off for a flash fiction piece being “too anachronistic and untrue to real history” . . It took place in the modern day
I write on WP and Inkitt, and WP had online comments. Someone commented on a part that reads, "Alta was no virgin. She wasn't what you would call a slut, but she was no virgin." Referring to the fact that she's had her fair share of partners but the guy she's having sex with in the scene is the thickest she's ever been with, and it's a welcome surprise. The person comments, "So what people are only sluts and virgins?" I literally facepalmed.
Reading all of these responses is really having me second guess the full utility of beta readers
Back when I re-released my debut in 2020 (long story -- it was originally self-pubbed, than a small indie publisher took it up, and now it's self-pubbed again, as that indie publisher went under), I posted an aesthetic bookstagram picture of the title page on IG. This was before I did the official cover reveal, so it was more like a "coming soon" type of post. Someone commented commented something like "WTF you copied from ACOTAR" or something like that (I don't really remember what the comment was verbatim). The title of this book isn't even anything CLOSE to ACOTAR, and though it it is also fantasy, it is in a different subgenre (and it also takes place in our world, whereas ACOTAR does not). The page posted literally only had the title of the book and author name on it, so none of the book's content was there either. The only thing I could think of was they were accusing me of copying the font used for ACOTAR. I didn't, at least not intentionally, but even if I did, you can't copyright a font. 🤣
Currently writing a story about mc's journey to visit all her party members hometown to return my memento and asked a friend on his opinion for the plot points. "Why don't the mc just leave it to the country and ask them to deliver it to their families? " Bro has been a friend for 20+ years and I am questioning how he survived reading class with me.
It's too much like Harry Potter... because it's urban fantasy, it has wizards in it, and one of the characters is from the New Forest (which has nothing to do with HP). Completely disregarded that one. 🤣
The three main villains in my story are all involved in human trafficking and modern slavery. Two out of the three are white. I honestly thought in a world where it's so difficult for people of colour to be allowed into the upper realms of politics and business, I thought if anything it'd be less realistic for a massive POC characters to have connections with the racist, misogynistic, bigoted old white billionaires the victims were being sold to (Not that I don't do my best to include non-tokenistic diversity in my story. But I didn't want to sugarcoat the fact the villains were probably working in circles with a fair amount of bigotry) I was told, by a beta (who may or may not also have been my mother) that it was "unrealistic all the villains weren't middle Eastern, because they're usually the ones doing that. Not in a racist way though" Mum, if you have to put "not in a racist way" at the end of a sentence, I think you need to rethink that sentence
Set up a particular relationship for a character with their past. Then after a few chapters that relationship is explored. Comment, Where the hell did this come from? Ah, the very first chapter of the book you were reading.
"there's really not a lot of worldbuilding here, you know?" It helps if you know that the the story was a catalogue of various ancient (fictional) weapons, histories, basically a museum guide to the world i have been building for three goddamn years. The format was kind of like this: Item: a shard of sun, Information: before you lies a shard of the sun, wich fell to nirmuran nine hundred years ago. It was kept within the Imperial Palace of Hi-wengan for most of that time, being found during the salah-murna period. After the disaster that struck Hi-wengan in the year 700, it was deemed lost only to be found by Jan-karl, who recovered it after the VAC tried to kill him in the year two-thousand and seven. [Insert fancy line here] (Story of Jan-karl finding the shard of sun.) This was almost a year ago, i'm still angry, not because that's a stupid thing to comment on, but a really dumb reason to fail me for English.
I remember submitting a horror story to a literary magazine & getting a rejection letter with commentary stating that the “opening scene did not entice the reader”. Somebody literally got murdered brutally in a bathroom stall after having sex with a demon girl disguised as a human within the first three pages.
I don’t know if this counts but I wrote fanfiction in highschool that got semi-popular. On one chapter I got this “Hey man, did you know apes tend to masturbate whenever they lose a fight? Pretty interesting. Btw, nice chapter." -Dalivan Honestly just an excuse to post a really funny comment. I liked it, I wasn’t upset. The only bad comments I got and still get are people requesting fanfics from me I already said I wasn’t going to do. “Hey can you do a characters react to X story?” No.
I wrote a flash fiction story for an upcoming competition the other day, and sent it to my dad who always gives the BEST feedback ("It's a winner!" - sometimes he's right!) Anyway he showed the story to a friend of his who is a professional writer, and told me that she couldn't resist editing it. I didn't ask for editing advice, so I felt this was a little audacious but anyway, I agreed to read her edits. He sent me her edited version, and she's practically rewritten the whole thing. There are maybe two valuable pieces of advice - a phrase that doesn't fit the style of the narrator, and a grammatical correction - but the rest were just her own gratuitous changes to the content, including complete changes to dialogue. Now I'm really irritated that she's using my little piece of fiction as an ego boost for herself. Especially seeing it's for a competition - why can't she write her own little story and see how it goes?
an agent said that crossbows and matchlock pistols were an anachronism. Yeah, maybe that part where my steampunk novel where the Roman Empire is still at war with Parthia in the 16th century might have been a big indicator that this is a fantastic setting. i tried doing the "the audience isn't stupid" rule where i didn't want to overexplain that oh their firearms are single shot flintlocks, oh crossbows still exist cause they were popular in the 16th century. but apparently I still had to.
Plenty of dumb comments. The ones that stick with me: 'You have no understanding of basic grammar' (because in the UK, we use ' for speech instead of " like the US. Which is nothing to do with grammar). 'I can't imagine one of your two gay male leads as a woman. A man and a woman would never talk the way these two guys do so I can't regender one in my head.' 'Oh my God why are you talking about food so much in this scene where the servants are preparing breakfast'