I’ve pretty much stopped offering writing advice because there are already so many people better qualified to give it. But as a reader, I’d like to pose a question to writers. When you publicly insult and ridicule other authors’ works, do you realize that you are, in effect, insulting the taste and intelligence of those authors’ readers? And that when you do that, you are possibly alienating a potential audience for your own work? If you do realize it, why does that seem like a good idea to you? Are your efforts to limit your audience intentional?
Seriously, if you can answer me, please do, because I don’t get it.
I know the question was posed to writers, but here’s my view as a reader and wannabe writer: I guess it depends on what constitutes ‘public’? If my journal constitutes public, for instance (though it is friends only), I consider that to be a space where I can air my thoughts (otherwise what’s the point?). With regard to airing my thoughts on the writers I read, I tend to say so if form a positive opinion of a book and keep my own counsel if I wonder how the hell the thing got published in the first place. I guess that, in itself, is rather limiting? I would never be a good critic for that reason. Sometimes I read journals where a book is praised to the hilt and I think “Really?”- but I don’t say it, not least if the author on is on the blogsite themselves. I believe in honesty, but I don’t believe in putting people down, especially if someone has sweated blood and tears to create the object in question. I might not like the end result, but I can respect the effort that went into creating it. I regard theatre in the same way. Many people, however, would argue that if they have paid for something they have the right to praise or criticise it. I can see their point of view, but it’s not one I hold. For a writer to criticise another writer’s work, especially in a public arena, I feel, is very dangerous ground and opens up oneself to attack. In that respect, I stand by my current policy and keeping my own counsel.
Thank you for your answer. I know that over the years, I’ve become less inclined to criticize anyone for their creative endeavors (not just writers), because I do admire the stamina and guts it takes to put one’s work out there for judgment, and I respect their efforts at self-expression. I know I sometimes openly speak of public figures’ behaviors, although even that I seem increasingly reluctant to do. It’s not like I’m without flaws, after all.
I do think critics have their place, especially when they help put things in context (noting trends, or how a work is part of a genre’s evolving, or speaks for or to society, for example). And consumers certainly have every right to react with their pocketbooks and their voices.
But for as long as I can remember, when I’d read a Rolling Stone article, say, and some musician would tear down another one’s work, or I heard an author belittle another writer’s novels, or an actor insult one of his own, I saw it as so self-defeating and small. And when I happen to enjoy the work being torn down, I feel that I’m being insulted, too, so why would I buy the insulters’ music, books, art, or see their movies or TV shows?