The Importance of Constructive Criticism remix

Instructions

“An audience is a writer’s greatest asset.” Do you agree with the above statement? “of course, not.” I can hear a lot of you say. “A writer writes for himself, not for his audience.” Then, whyever do some writers publish their books? Why do poets publish their poems? Don’t you think publication is a strange way of keeping one’s work private? Writers hand in their pieces for publication because they’d like to spread joy and awareness in some way or the other. “What of all those famous writers?” you might ask, “They write for a living. They can’t possibly be thinking about ‘spreading joy’; they might as well be thinking about pigs spouting wings!” Notwithstanding their motives, however, the majority of famous writers write both for themselves and their audience. Hence, we conclude that the opinion of the audience matters just as much as the opinion of the writer. However, the word ‘audience’ is a collective noun (as you’ve probably noticed) and this is where the issue arises. How does one know whose opinions to consider? “The ones who know what they’re talking about. The experienced ones.”, you’ll probably say, without giving the matter a second thought. What about the rest of the audience, though? What of the ones whose opinions “don’t really count”? Despite their efforts to help, they remain ignored solely because of writers' ego and prejudice. We’re here to say that their opinions matter too. Every single opinion counts. We’re not saying that everyone’s suggestions ought to be implemented. We’re merely stating that they ought to be seriously considered before they’re pushed away with disdain. Any writer is apt to become defensive when their work is criticized. There’s nothing wrong with being defensive provided that one does not let outrage cloud their judgment. Let’s get a couple of things straight. None of us are perfect. It’s not a crime to err. Being criticized in no way demeans one’s position or tarnishes one’s reputation. What does tarnish one’s reputation is the inability to take feedback positively and act upon it. Let’s give you an example that hits close to home. A lot of writers on Scratch (including us) feel compelled to state that they’ll accept constructive criticism when they don’t really want it. As a result, when an unsuspecting Scratcher critiques our work, we tend to become overly defensive without so much as glancing at our work to check the validity of their points. This is something we have to change. It was also the reason behind ’s apparently abrupt departure. As you might have guessed, left because ego seemed to cloud the perception of some of the writers on Scratch (we shall not name names) whose work critiqued. Perhaps her decision to leave Scratch was a tad dramatic, but we shan’t dwell on what ought or ought not to have been done. It’s over. We’re not blaming anyone for doing what they did; let bygones be bygones. has left Scratch for good and no matter what her motives were, we shall make the best of it. We’ll take feedback seriously and even though we mightn’t modify our pieces, we shall keep the criticism in mind and shall strive to be the best we can be. As a testimony to our earnestly, both Elf and I shall be posting a new project wherein we’ll be posting links to all our pieces. Feel free to critique our work there. We shall read every one of your comments and shall take your feedback into serious consideration. We might not change our pieces right away, but we shall keep all your little pieces of advice in mind and promise to act upon them in the future. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Signed, Here is the link to the project: