Reflection and Analysis

Entitled Readers (4/15/21)

"Keep it simple," someone advised me.

Sounds like reasonable feedback for one's writing, right?

Except this advice wasn't about keeping my writing simple but keeping my profile on another site I post to, that as a casual reader they felt profiles should be about what the writer wants to tell the reader about their stories.

Doesn't sound bad, right?

I mean, the rest of the stuff on my profile must be useless. I couldn't possibly include some basic writing tips for writers, let alone explain the differences between different types of reviews for newbie writers who are highly susceptible to being affected by flamers and thus need to know that they're not worth one's time, not to mention the list of excuses I've seen repeated over and over again.

"Keep it simple," this person said in response to my reply, telling me that I was wrong for giving them the reasons why my profile is the way it is, that I should have simply said my profile is the way it is for a reason – one simple sentence, but me listing said reasons is me reacting negatively to their feedback rather than me calling them out for being biased against writers with longer profiles.

I mean, after all, they openly admitted to me that the only reason they were thinking about giving my a stories a second chance was because another person recommended me, but that there were other writers they completely passed over because they couldn't be bothered to hide the profile, scroll past the stuff that was obviously not meant for them, or have the attention span to at least bother to read the story summaries.

After all, in order to sell my stories to them...

The real reason they told me to keep it simple is because I took the time to call them out for being biased in how they decided to give a writer a pass or not, for it certainly had nothing to do with the quality of the work. They also insisted the problem was the writer, not them, which infuriated me, and rightly so. There's no telling how many writers they did this to.

Of course, I didn't hold back in telling them that they're not the type of reader I want. After all, they admitted the only reason they were giving me a second chance was because someone else recommended my stories, but I found this unfair to the writers they weren't willing to give a second chance to.

My response, it wasn't about me.

Their response, even their initial feedback, it was all about them.

Also, this person started off their feedback by pretty much stating said feedback wasn't intended as a flame, but honestly, if someone ever feels the need to say something like that they should really think about what they are going to say. Sure, there are writers I've let know that they might take what I have to say well, or that I hated saying what I was going to say. I might explain what a flame actually is if there are author's notes that indicate a writer doesn't know, thought this is rare.

I've never once told someone that the feedback I'm giving isn't a flame, but let my feedback speak for itself. I find it interesting that they felt the need to tell me that it wasn't a flame when one of the sections on my profile is as I said explaining the different kinds of reviews, including what a flame happens to be. They also claimed they didn't know my profile was this way when I clearly started my profile off with listing the sections, but these two things told me THEY DIDN'T ACTUALLY READ MY PROFILE.

Yet, that's another thing I'm not allowed to call them on, or at least that was the implication of their reply back. That, or they didn't bother reading my response and was hoping for someone to nod their head in agreement. In fact, WHY would any writer want a reader who doesn't bother to actually read what they are reading? Sure, there are readers who read and miss things, but this reader missed something that was clearly stated at the BEGINNING of my profile.

Yes, we writers love our readers. Each one is a unique individual who interacts with the work differently. No writer wants a reader who makes demands of the writer as if they are the writers only reader, though some may not feel they can afford to just ignore these readers. More importantly, if your feedback is "this isn't my cup of tea, so make it my cup of tea" you the reader are in the wrong.