Wattpad 101: Your guide to the world of Wattpad

It's Like, My Opinion, Man

This is a chapter that targets a growing issue I've found permeates the internet lately. It's one that has led to some problems in this very Wattpad 101 book, and I know it can be found in just about every comments section in every active website. That problem, of course, is accepting opinions for what they are... opinions.

I really started to notice this issue when I started looking at societies increasing misuse of the word 'fact'. I could write another chapter simply on how misused and abused this word is. Fact doesn't mean what people think fact means and the way they present statistics as 'facts' is wrong.

While this writing will try to focus on talking about the alternative to facts (not to be confused with alternative facts) that is opinions. Before I can do that, let's get some things straight on facts. Too many people have started to treat opinions as facts, and it has caused a misrepresentation of information. It causes people unearned confidence that they are right. It leads to the spread of misinformation. It leads to unfounded and sometimes unnecessary rage and anger. It leads to internet bullying and attacks. It's a mess, is what I'm trying to get at.

In the way the internet uses it, a fact is a piece of information. A number from a census, for example, would be considered a fact. However, statistics are not facts. They are an interpretation of facts. When someone makes an interpretation of facts, they can be wrong. There are many many ways to interpret the same data, which is why statistics is a massive field of mathematics, instead of a toss-away activity we learned when we were in elementary school.

So, you have someone interpreting the data, and then drawing their conclusions. A conclusion is also not a fact. A conclusion is an opinion based on a person's interpretation of the facts. This is lost on most people. Too many people jump the shark and decided a conclusion is actually a fact, since it's based on data.

Ergo... people sometimes start treating opinions as facts. Then you have the next step in this logical crapstorm. Some people, upon deciding an opinion is a fact, will decide said opinion is indisputable. Naturally, this is much more likely when they actually agree with said opinion. Then another grouping of people will decide that 'fact' is wrong, and then try to argue with it.

Opinions are not facts, and guess what, opinions can't be wrong. The internet has long since forgotten this as a thing. Now, opinions are whatever someone wants them to be. Opinions can be bigoted, but considering the definition of bigotry literally is "intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself", it seems like the ones that discard opinions on grounds of bigotry are the biggest bigots of all. A bigot is not a substitute for racist, or homophobe, sorry guys.

But this particular chapter isn't going to go into the concept of "bad opinions", "flawed opinions" or "opinions ground in prejudice". Everyone has opinions, and that doesn't necessarily make those opinions good. Some people base their opinions on incomplete information or no actual viable data at all. Some base their opinions of biased data. Some people base their opinions on their interpretation of the "facts"... Although I can go into arguments about how MOST people treat statistics as facts, which means MOST people base their opinions on someone else's interpretation of data. And worst, those people most likely interpreted the data specifically to align with their own opinion... but let's leave this talk for another place.

Here on Wattpad, let's talk about opinions, and how an opinion isn't wrong. So, maybe you asked for a critique, maybe you didn't. Maybe you just have the kind of noisy readers who likes to provide you feedback. That's great. It's always great to have someone proactively invested in your story. However, in their provided feedback, they state an opinion, and you get mad because you disagree with said opinion.

Feel free to read my chapters on accepting criticism so you can understand that it's probably not a good idea to get furious and argue with people who provide advice to you freely. In the past, I've always promoted defending your work, and I still want to remind you that that is a fair thing to do. You have the right to hold and defend your opinions. However, you need to consider when defending your opinions that they are just that, opinions. That means that no matter how much you explain things, create arguments, or fight... your belief doesn't become any more "right"... and their belief doesn't become any more "wrong".

Maybe you can change their mind, especially if they hold an opinion that was based on a misinterpretation. Let's say that they accuse this character in your writing as ugly, and you feel you need to remind them that you wrote a whole paragraph two pages ago about how beautiful that character was.

But when you face these kinds of opinions, you need to consider several possibilities. Why did they think a character that you described as beautiful was ugly? Maybe... they were just lazy, and weren't really focused on your story, and then they skipped the part where you described the character. Or maybe... your story bored them at that point, and they skimmed it more than read it. Maybe... even though you have a paragraph where you describe your character as beautiful, every other adverb, adjective, and subtle "descriptive cue" gave people the impression your character was ugly.

I recently wrote another chapter in my "Every Book Ever Written" called the baddest boy. One of the points I made in this satire was the seeming disconnect between what you tell and what you show. You can say someone is beautiful all day and night, but if you describe them as having a long warted nose, a hump, and eight scars... your audience isn't going to buy it.

It doesn't always have to be that transparent, maybe the cues that mislead your commenter's opinion are more subtle than that... but that doesn't mean your commenter is "wrong". There is potential for you to learn on every comment, with every opinion. What set people off? What caused their opinion?

I've mentioned before that every story you write has no limit on how you write it other than the need to communicate with others. So when you face an opinion in which someone interpreted your work incorrectly, you need to find out where the failure of communication lies. Once in a while, it can simply be an inattentive reader. Sometimes, people just misread something and get confused. It happens. Other times though, it could be something in your writing that is failing to communicate the scene/emotion/characters you wanted to get across.

So I've told you to accept criticism... but this chapter adds that you need to accept it as someone else's opinion. You won't always learn from those opinions, you don't have to USE those opinions. However, at the very least, you need to think about them and try to understand their source.

But perhaps the biggest thing I want people to understand from this chapter comes from the aforementioned problem with this very book. I write opinions. Very few of my chapters are written with anything approaching facts, and almost everything written is either my opinion or my interpretation of other people's opinions.

I'm not a hardcore writer (although I did publish recently), and I have no English degree... but even if I did have those qualifications, everything I wrote is still just an opinion. You don't have to take the things in this book as gospel. The things in this book are not right. They are suggestions. Sometimes, they are just observations.

I've seen a few people argue with me in the past... try to catch me contradicting myself. They'll write comments about how they tried the opposite of what I recommended in the book, and for them and their particular experience that worked. I'll admit I have contradicted myself a few times because I'm providing different viewpoints. My advice is not a guarantee. If I truly held the secrets to becoming rich and successful, I would already be rich and successful. All this book is trying to do is load you up with possibilities, so that you can take your writing and form your own style, your own opinions.

Everyone writes differently. I hate parenthesis and em dash... that's an opinion, and I'm sure there are people who love them and use them to great effect. I'm sure there are people out there who hate ellipsis, and if you haven't noticed, I use them way too much in my writing.

You're going to develop and become your own writer and your own person. You're going to have your own opinions, and they don't HAVE to align with me, or this book for that matter. So take this book for what it is, an opinion. Accept that people have opinions, but don't treat those opinions as immutable fact or a challenge of right and wrong. If you can just accept them for what they are, maybe you will learn something more from them.