One of my ongoing mantra's in Wattpad 101 has been to say that you shouldn't argue or fight with your critics. However, I simultaneously state that I think it's a good idea to defend yourself and your work. If you wrote something, likely you feel proud of it, and I don't think there is any problem defending your work to people who comment on it. This is a website about learning to perfect your craft of writing, and while every negative comment/criticism can be a learning opportunity for the writer, it can also be a learning opportunity for the readers as well.
I can certainly say that through the course of writing this book, I've occasionally made some claims and arguments that seem outrageous. I've even written a chapter stepping back and admitting some of the things I've felt I've gotten wrong over the years I've written this book. I'm not always right, and I don't write this self-help guide to give you the impression my ideas are the "right" ideas. However, I've also found there is not a single thing that I've written that I disagree with on a fundamental level. I support most of the points I've made over the years, even if, on occasion, I might be less emotional about some of the finer details within those messages.
Anyway, the point is that many of my arguments face challengers. After any controversial chapter where I call out a certain group, whether it be critiques, younger writers, readers, or editors... I always wait to see who is going to disagree with me and take up the challenge to refute what I say. When they do make arguments against my writing, I'm happy to jump right in and respond back, looking to explain my position better and clearer.
For someone who encourages people to not "argue", I know there are a couple of readers who probably see me as a complete hypocrite. After all, I'm responding, often point for point against someone who has negative things to say about what I wrote. Is that not just "arguing" with the critic?
This chapter is here hopefully to clear up the discrepancies between when someone is arguing with you, and when someone is defending their work. At least, these are the discrepancies I see, and what I mean when I condemn arguing with your reader while condoning defending yourself. Remember, defending yourself is healthy. You should have confidence in your work, and there are readers that may have just missed something and jumped to an emotional reaction. By defending my work, I've learned a lot of things about writing, and I think you can too.
So, this chapter is for readers and writers. When you're taking heat from a pissed off author whose book you may have just called "crap", it's a good idea to recognize the difference between the person just defending their work, and the person who is going after you to start an argument. And for writers, it's a good idea to know the difference between just trying to take pride in your work, and being petty and vindictive. Here is a list of five ways you know a writer has gone passed defending and started arguing.
Making it Personal
You've all heard this kind of response before. I think it even makes it into my list of things you've heard on Wattpad.
"This isn't as easy as it looks, why don't you try writing before you criticize me!"
Or if you DO write
"Your writing is shiet, what do you know? How dare you say negative things about my work."
This is the point of someone not being able to take criticism properly. It should be stated that not taking criticism properly is the primary reason someone jumps from defending into arguing. The telltale sign this jump has occurred is when the writer starts making it personal.
Everyone has a right to provide their feedback and criticism. If you don't want people to have an opinion about something you wrote, stop showing people what you wrote. They owe you absolutely no expectation to like and/or hate anything that you share with them. Therefore, what they do on the side has nothing to do with their criticism towards you.
I suppose you could come up with a situation where someone is intentionally trying to sabotage you. If you see someone you were communicating within another forum come to Wattpad to slander you, I'm not saying you have to ignore it. However, that's kind of a once in a blue moon situation. For most circumstances, you're facing a genuine emotional reaction from a genuine reader who is just reacting with their gut.
For the most part, the fact their writing is or is not as good, as popular, or as successful probably plays no place in the criticism they leveled at your story. So, by trying to deflect and make it about them, their skill as an author, or their private life choices, you've already dived deep into argument territory, and couldn't possibly be trying to protect your work.
Making it About Yourself
I also must mention a sort of trap that comes with these kinds of conversations. It's a trap I, myself have fallen into a few times. It's the circumstance where it is the reader who brings up their success first, effectively bringing their personal life into your conversation. The lines might be something like...
"Oh, this story's characterization really sucks, I mean, if you look at MY story, you'd see that I did it way better than YOU."
It's certainly tempting to go to their story, read their characterization, and then respond back how much it sucks (it likely does, let's not fool ourselves here, few people with that sort of temperament are actually good writers).
Other cases include them referring to their "success" on Wattpad, having completed "x" amount of books, or having "x" amount of followers. Some readers will cite having earned 100 followers as reasons some of the advice in this very book should be ignored. Because if they can get #10 in badboy and claim 100 followers, why would they need to listen to anything I say? Others have flaunted their education, they're a "COLLEGE" student after all, so they know what's up.
To me, with 1k+ followers and in my last year of the doctoral program, the temptation to point out my credentials is high, and I must admit I've fallen into the trap more than once. There is no winning once you fall into this kind of argument because you'll instantly seem like the bully "showing off" your success and "talking down" to the commenters.
And the worst part of it is that how many followers I have and what my education level is are both pointless when deciding whether I am worth listening to or not. You've listened to be people with higher educations and lower educations. You've listened to people with 50k followers, and 0 followers. Celebrities get people's ears just as much as skilled scientists. You either listen to me because you think some of my stories were good or a I make good points... or you don't, and any criticisms I receive likely have nothing to do with my doctorate.
Point being, don't make it personal. Just as you don't make it about them, also don't make it about yourself. Details about you as a person should not affect how your defend your story unless it has to do with explaining why the story went the direction it did. In which case, you're acknowledging that the story went in a weird direction and hopefully have thoughts on fixing it.
Attacking the Reader
This should come as a no-brainer, but it's exactly for that reason it has a place on this list. You shouldn't verbally attack the commenter. This comes in many forms, such as making comments on how much the commenters or their writing sucks. However, simply put, don't name call. Don't insult people. Even if those people are insulting you, try to keep your own response civil.
It's a tough thing to do. I can't say I 100% succeed when I feel insulted by keeping my tone completely respectful. It becomes even more difficult because let's face it, the tone is very difficult to keep in general when having a conversation. The internet destroys any sense of inflection, and sarcastic remarks meant to be funny can be taken as insults. Humor that was supposed to make you laugh only pisses you off. So, the tone is already difficult to show.
That's why it never hurts to try to include flowery language and keep your words from being too brisk or sharp. Being crystal clear what you're saying and what they're supposed to get out of it. For every negative comment a reader receives, I'm betting 75% of them never intended it to sound negative and the commenter genuinely thought they were trying to help.
Either way, the end of the day, don't be sarcastic. Don't be rude. Don't resort to personal attacks. Don't resort to name calling. You can defend your work, but as soon as it degrades to sticking it to the other guy, you're no longer doing that.
Don't Seek Retaliation
This one comes in all shapes in sizes. For a while, I did a lot of critiques on Wattpad. When I did these critiques, I'd usually need to provide payment. Payment usually took the form of comments, and comments were basically another critique. So basically, it was a critique for a critique where I critiqued first.
I've said it in previous chapters, but most critiques give you back the critique you give them. It'd be nice to say that writers on here are "better than that", but very few are. If you give them a flowery critique, they'll give you one back. All kindness gets reflected back on you, and all criticism also gets reflected back.
I had one or two times where after writing a fairly in-depth critique, the writer flew into a rage. They then started to critique every chapter of my story relentlessly, slamming it for even the smallest of grievances. I knew this was pure retaliation because many of their criticisms showed they had barely read the story, and when I asked them to stop critiquing like that, they further insulted me and claimed I "can't take criticisms that I dish out". It was all very childish, and it was definitely a form of retaliation.
When a writer, right after receiving your criticism, suddenly shows up on your profile and starts writing their own harsh criticism, clearly it's gone way past defending their own work. This is the stage of an "argument" I hope no one ever gets, and if you ever plan to go to someone's profile and start trashing them because they said some mean things to you... stop... just stop right now. In fact...
Conversation Should Stay In The Place It Started
Never take your argument outside of the discussion thread it started in. If this happens in a forum, it stays within that thread of that forum. If it happens over PMs, you don't then go make a comment on their book or start a thread in a forum calling them out. Most of the time, it's best to leave all of that in one place.
They might not... they might, in their rage, carry out numerous comments all over your book slamming it for one reason or another. I argue that you, as a responder, should keep your responses in one place. Keep track of your conversation, and don't allow it to go all over the place. If they follow you into other conversations, trying to start stuff, ignore that comments in that thread, and carry them all out in the original instigating thread.
I also say if you are getting into this situation, make sure to be clear on what you actually said. This is a big problem I've had in the past. People will subtlety change the words that came out of your thread, putting meaning to them you didn't originally intend. Ten comments later, suddenly you're defending a point you actually don't even agree with, all because the commenter put that argument into your mind.
I also must put an aside "defending" myself here. The chapters written in this very book are often brought about by experiences I have with commenters. Sometimes, it's just a commenter asking a question that gets me really thinking about the answer. Other times, it comes up when someone levels a criticism for me. I can fully say I've had people accuse me of passive-aggressively attacking them by taking comments they've made and forming entire chapters of conversation out of it.
Personally, I feel if a subject is important and widespread enough, it's important to share it publicly and see how people feel/respond to my thoughts. I've never singled out an individual reader in any writing, let alone provide any details on any conversations I've had. I've also never written a chapter based on a single event/conversation. They're usually based on countless conversations, with the latest one being the one that motivated me or gave me the idea to make a chapter about it.
That said, it's up to you to decide how you feel about it, and I recognize that this could be considered "attacking" as well as taking the conversation to another place (even though both places are within my Wattpad 101 book). What can I say? I don't always follow my own advice, and I'm hardly perfect at it.
Know When To End The Conversation
Humans are emotional beings prone to making mistakes. I am one, you probably are too, unless you're a robot. You're not a robot, are you? Well, let's just keep assuming you are a human. Since you're a human, and you have emotions, you're bound to sometimes make it personal, sometimes attack when you should defend, and sometimes seek retaliation. However, the thing that keeps all those pesky emotions in control the best (other than a thick skin and a healthy skill in accepting criticism) is to know when to end a conversation.
They make a comment and say something about your work you consider untrue. You correct them. They respond with another comment, being somewhat rude now. You rudely correct them. They respond with an even ruder comment. Now you're pissed!
If this sounds familiar to you, this is an example of the millions of instances where a harmless defense turns into a full-blown argument. I think it's great you want to defend yourself, but rather few people are going to find themselves "moved" by what you have to say. In that case, once you've made your response clearly, even if the commenter is showing signs of escalating it, you need to swallow your pride and back down.
"I appreciate your criticisms, thank you for your suggestions and I'll take it into consideration."
If you can't end things any other way, end them cordially. I've had people both surprised and thankful because, at the end of 3-4 comments back and forth, I step back, thank them, and end it. I've also had people turn around, delete all their comments, and block me before we even got to that point.
The main point is, whether you defend or argue, being able to end the conversation politely and not devolve into animosity is important. Try your best to read when the conversation is only going south, and do your best to back our as politely as you can, even if that means swallowing a chunk full of pride. It goes down hard, but I guarantee that lump in your throat is a lot easier to swallow than the night you stay up screaming at your computer screen in a white-hot rage. That's advice I think everyone on the internet can use.
Good Luck, and Happy Writing.