The Five Kinds of Trolls You Meet

Whether you’re on Wattpad or somewhere else, you know you’re succeeding when you start to attract trolls.  Trolls whom, it must be said, never see themselves as trolls.  They are, rather, bringers of important wisdom.  Or, at the very least, a (naturally valuable) perspective that you haven’t considered before.  They have only your best interests at heart.  How to repel each of these trolls–or, at least, keep your sanity while they make like the proverbial chess playing pigeon–depends on what specific type of troll they are.  So without further ado…

The “I can fix your story” troll lives for pointing out what’s–supposedly–wrong with nearly every paragraph in your story.  Sometimes every sentence.  That they haven’t, themselves, completed a single paragraph of a single story isn’t relevant; should they try, they’d be a better writer than you.  What they gain from criticizing others’ work is a false sense of superiority.  They can tell themselves that they’re literary experts, and therefore don’t need to have put in the hard work of learning how to write in order to have any special insight into the process.  You can spot them most easily criticizing things like the grammar in your dialogue, because to them “good” writing is everyone talking like they’re declaiming in a play.
The “I hate you” troll lives to tell you that your story’s stupid and so are you.  Their goal is to undermine your efforts, because then you won’t be in competition with them.  For what, they don’t know.  Not really.  They just can’t stand the idea that someone else has the courage to create.  The best way to handle this troll, like the “I can fix your story” troll, is to ignore them.
The “I’ve seen it all before” troll wants to tell you that literally every single person, place and thing in your story is derivative.  You can spot them most easily by how they don’t actually know what they’re talking about.  They’ll rage against your supposed Twilight references when you’re actually referencing Dracula, or claim that any name you choose for any character is secretly a reference to something you’ve never heard of.  To them, nothing is new under the sun and nothing–save their own powers of observation–is truly worth celebrating.  The best thing to do, when you encounter one of these, is to be charitable.  Thank them sincerely for their observation and move on.  They aren’t educated, even though they think they are, and we all know what Oscar Wilde said about going into battle with an unarmed man.
The “I’m here to promote myself” troll doesn’t actually read your stories, or posts, or whatever you’ve got going on.  They see your creative space as an opportunity to plant flags.  Becasue natch, anyone who’s there is really looking for something even better.  I don’t personally delete these comments, but a lot of people do.  The best response, in terms of ignore versus ignore and delete, is whatever feels least confrontational to you.
The “I’m more socially conscious than you” troll wants you to know that your historical characters aren’t sufficiently modern and their ideas aren’t sufficiently correct.  How dare you suggest that a man born in the 19th century might find corsets sexy?  Doesn’t he know that [insert thoughts about the subjugation of women here]?  I’m not sure if it’s that they lack an appreciation for historical fiction, or simply can’t tell the difference between fact and fiction.  In any case, to them, nothing you write is just a story.  They’re going to treat every sentence like it comes straight from yesterday’s newspaper, and react accordingly.  So unless you feel like explaining the purpose of fiction, the best response here is also to ignore them.

What do you think?

Did I miss one?