Criticism is always right; Advice is always wrong

[Daniel]

Hi all. Just joined (I've introduced myself in the Hello thread and linked to my book in the New Books section so you can check them out if you like) and thought I might as well give more of an impression of myself by starting a more general topic.

So here it is: over the years I've done a fair bit of creative work in various forms and I've come to a conclusion which I've summed up in the motto you will see in the subject line: Criticism is always right; Advice is always wrong.

So let me unpack it and you other writers can tell me if you agree.

Part 1: Criticism is always right. And here by 'criticism' I mean it in the generic sense, positive and negative. My feeling is that criticism is always an expression of the experience of the reader. It says how they felt about the book while reading it, and the impression it left on them. And as such it can't possibly be wrong. How it felt to them is just a fact, a piece of objective data that as an author I have to accept.

Of course it's only one piece of data - they are only one person and there will almost certainly be others who disagree with them. But still, people are not islands and if one person finds chapter 5 boring, then almost certainly there will be thousands of others who would feel the same way. So as an author I have to decide whether the opinion of those people matters to me and whether I should do something about it.

Part 2: Advice is always wrong. This one is more controversial (and actually, I only say 'always' for brevity - 'nearly always' would probably be better). What I mean by it is that the author is always the ultimate authority on their own work. So when someone else says that the best way to fix a problem is to remove a scene or merge two characters or whatever, ultimately the actual work is in the hands of the author and no one knows better than them what they are trying to say or how they should say it.

I've had this motto for a long while and I'm pretty pleased with it; I think it makes the perfect balance between accepting criticism and maintaining my own position as the guardian of my own work.

So - anyone have any thoughts? Any mottoes of your own to share?

[T4bsF (Call me Flo)]

...the truth sometimes hurts??

[Jim]

I'd recommend Chandler's law.

When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.

Obviously it needs tweaking for fantasy, romance, erotic etc :-) (in the latter two cases perhaps not, who am I to judge)

[Michael]

What you say makes sense but I don't really have any mottos of my own. That would require some kind of plan and I don't ever bother with that silliness.

[Patti (baconater)]

Mike's motto is 'no mottos'. :)

[Jim]

That would make a great T shirt

[David]

It seems that mottoes, 'inspirational' quotes, motivational messages and other such missives could mostly be replaced with: 'Try not to be a twat.'

[Andrew]

I think Neil Gaiman said something along the lines of:

"When someone has a problem with your writing but can't quite put their finger on it, they're almost always right. When someone has a problem with your writing and knows just how to fix it, they're almost always wrong."

[Darren]

Mark Kermode, the noted film critic noted of a film in a recent show "I don't what it is that's wrong, but it's wrong. I couldn't tell you how to fix it, but then I'd be the film-maker and not the critic' or words to that effect.

[Marc]

Spot on. I'd put the second one slightly differently, in that you get plenty of writing advice, the problem is that much of it is contradictory. Therefore trust to your own artistic vision