Accepting Criticism
by Samantha Niemeyer

      Every writer has a love-hate relationship with criticism. They want it, but they hate it, so they don’t want it, but they get angry when they don’t receive any. The reasons why people hate criticism are pretty obvious; it hurts feelings and crushes souls. It would seem as if loving criticism would be better but neither is necessarily true.

      Telling someone that they need improvement, and worse, giving some ideas on how they might go about improving is often received as a threat. It is the same for many as telling them their personality and philosophy needs improvement and trying to show them how to go about fixing themselves. This is the wrong attitude, because a person’s writing is not necessarily a complete extension of their personality. Being overly defensive about criticism will show a lot more about a person than the writing itself will.

      Why would it be bad if a person loves criticism? Doesn’t that mean they’re open to improving themselves and acknowledging their own weaknesses as a writer? Mostly it’s a matter of loyalty and inner voice. What does it say about a person’s style who just loves having people dissect their work so they can begin making changes based on other’s opinions? Does that person actually feel the words that they’ve chosen and see the scenes that they’re depicting? Is what they’re writing actually important to them? Probably not.

      It’s important for everyone to have pride in their writing: pride over their own natural ability as a writer, and also pride enough to allow themselves to improve with other’s help, without loosing their voice. Once that is understood, the next part is to know how to graciously accept criticism from different sources and how seriously it should really be taken.

      There are roughly two groups of people one might receive criticism from: people the writer respects and the rest of the peanut gallery. Although neither group’s input should be disregarded it is important to know what is viable criticism and what isn’t.

      Fellow writers, professors, or anyone worthy of respect who is somewhat on the upside of being literate, are the kinds of people a writer will really want to listen to when they’re receiving criticism. It’s a pretty safe bet that they’re not maliciously trying to ruin the piece when they review it and really are interested in helping the writer improve. Even if the criticism is coming from a respected person a writer has to decide if the person understands the goals of the piece as well as its intended audience before deciding if his or her advice should be taken.

      There are other people, less interested people, whose idea of constructive criticism is trying to make other people’s writing style look just like their own. That is not constructive criticism, even though it’s finding weaknesses and offering solutions, it’s sabotage. Those people probably do not understand or care about the piece or the voice of the writer.

      The last, and most important, thing to remember about criticism is that people wont always say bad things. The right person will also point out what is good about a piece of writing, and encourage the author to utilize those strengths. If a writer allows it to be, receiving constructive criticism can be a very helpful and inspiring process. It isn’t as if anyone has to change their style or content, but it’s good to at least be aware of what others think. And another little hint, anyone can still hate criticism on the inside while graciously accepting it on the outside.