What advice to listen to
From a forum discussion,
"How do you filter through all the seemingly useful crits to find the ones that are actually worth taking note of? I just find myself doubting my own opinion AND that of the critiquers after a while!"
My reply:
You can tell which advice to take and which not to take by being well read in the genre you write in and aware of the various writing composition theories floating around.
For example, there is a theory that says you should avoid adverbs. I think, for some genres, that may be good advice, but I write humor and humor is hard to do without adverbs. Thus, I use adverbs in my writing.
Ultimately, you are the writer of your story and you must know who your target audience is. You cannot expect everyone to like your writing, but you can tailor your writing for a specific group of people. Doing that will improve your chances of being successful with your target audience.
"How do you filter through all the seemingly useful crits to find the ones that are actually worth taking note of? I just find myself doubting my own opinion AND that of the critiquers after a while!"
My reply:
You can tell which advice to take and which not to take by being well read in the genre you write in and aware of the various writing composition theories floating around.
For example, there is a theory that says you should avoid adverbs. I think, for some genres, that may be good advice, but I write humor and humor is hard to do without adverbs. Thus, I use adverbs in my writing.
Ultimately, you are the writer of your story and you must know who your target audience is. You cannot expect everyone to like your writing, but you can tailor your writing for a specific group of people. Doing that will improve your chances of being successful with your target audience.