I know this is a tricky subject. When I post something for critique (haven't done that here yet) I never want to seem like I'm not receptive to someone's criticism or input. But there are times when even allegedly published writes give advice that makes me go, what story were you reading exactly?
For my part, the most annoying bit of advice was something I'd call a lost in translation moment. A person who had been paid for a short story read my work at my request. I appreciated his time but after reading some of his critiques it was clear to me that he wasn't that experienced.
For example, the story I had written was in first person and we, the reader, did not know what was going on until the main character did. This is not new, but the reviewer kept acting like I should have somehow told readers everything that was going on in the first paragraph. You know, info dumping.
The kicker however, was when one of the characters in my story answers a question as to how he died. He says, "It might have been the Buick or the heroin. There was a place along the highway where I went to shoot up."
The reviewer gave me this comment and I remember it clearly ten years later. "You might want to clarify that bit. I very much doubt he (the character) went somewhere to teleport."
I realize "shooting up" might not mean the same thing in other countries, or that people not familiar with terms related to drug use might not understand that particular phrase. But it still kind of annoyed me, because the fact that the reader didn't understand it was no more my fault than if an American reading a story written by an English person didn't understand that a pound was currency.
For my part, the most annoying bit of advice was something I'd call a lost in translation moment. A person who had been paid for a short story read my work at my request. I appreciated his time but after reading some of his critiques it was clear to me that he wasn't that experienced.
For example, the story I had written was in first person and we, the reader, did not know what was going on until the main character did. This is not new, but the reviewer kept acting like I should have somehow told readers everything that was going on in the first paragraph. You know, info dumping.
The kicker however, was when one of the characters in my story answers a question as to how he died. He says, "It might have been the Buick or the heroin. There was a place along the highway where I went to shoot up."
The reviewer gave me this comment and I remember it clearly ten years later. "You might want to clarify that bit. I very much doubt he (the character) went somewhere to teleport."
I realize "shooting up" might not mean the same thing in other countries, or that people not familiar with terms related to drug use might not understand that particular phrase. But it still kind of annoyed me, because the fact that the reader didn't understand it was no more my fault than if an American reading a story written by an English person didn't understand that a pound was currency.
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face.
