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The Ten Worst Comments On Wattpad

The main take away is that anyone who says this line is committing a logical fallacy. That's to say it's a hole in critical thinking that an inexperienced writer fills full of their own steaming pile of confirmation bias. Particularly, they're selecting a single example or set of examples that disagrees with the argument provided, say a book that is popular despite being a literary mess, and use that as definitive proof that their literary mess can be just as successful.

It's the same kind of thinking that leads to people who argue the world is flat (yes, there are still flat-earthers out there), that global warming is a myth, and that vaccines are bad. Now, nothing I personally say is stemmed from science here. The observations I give you are hardly hardcore proven facts. I've felt that at the very least I've been pretty transparent about the fact that these are opinions stemmed from age and experience, not from any particular studies I've done or research I've performed.

I could mention how opinions aren't right or wrong... they're opinions. I could also mention how a story likely isn't popular because of a mistake or downfall in the story. I doubt people read 'After' because of its editing mistakes. They read it in spite of its mistakes. It's popular, but if it was more refined it might be even more popular.

Or it might not. I've said before there are a lot of factors involved in popularity, including your "target" audience. What one person finds tasteful another person might not. Anna Todd was so scared that editing her story would ruin whatever made it so popular in the first place that she didn't even try. But in the end, that was still her choice.

I list writing pitfalls, but I've never said never... I've only said, "think about it and come up with reasons".

"You're stifling my creativity / expressive style."

Which makes it all the more maddening when I hear things like this next one. How does telling you that something is often perceived as bad and may affect your reader base telling you not to do it? Speaking from my own personal experience, I've frequently gone out of my way to remind people that they can write whatever they want. I've only ever asked people to come up with reasons for why they do things and to understand why the pitfalls may annoy their readers enough that they should consider using them with care.

Somehow, the words I actually say seem to get lost in the tone of how I said it because too many readers have read something I said and decided that I must be banning it completely. That strengthens their resolve that if something achieves popularity while having something I "forbid", I must be wrong. Except that I've never said in this book you can't do something. Sure, in certain cases, I've strongly implied it, especially when it comes to things like Mirror scenes, but I've even conceded that mirror scenes can be done well from time to time.

But I'm talking about comments anyone gets on Wattpad, and not everyone tries to leave a way to backpedal out of what they say like the BS extraordinaire Dorian T. Chase! Some things seem pretty obvious and some critics put their foot down on certain annoyances.

"Hey, you must use there, their, and they're properly."

"Don't stifle my creativity! It's a thing I'm doing. It means something! Don't cramp my style, you fogey!"

How do you respond to that? Well, my response is simple. Creativity and style don't come from having free reign to do whatever you want. The most creative things generated are often the things that were restricted. That's why every now and then you'll run into this really awesome low budget movie that just kills it, and then Hollywood dumps a ton of money on the next one and it has unlimited resources and it just sucks.

Do I even need to give you examples? Star Wars was a film on a budget. The prequels lacked all creative restriction. Deadpool was a film on the budget. Every other recent superhero slugfest was not. Poetry is beautiful, and the defining characteristic of poetry is usually restraining how you write in some way or another, with rhymes, patterns, or syllable counts.