(no subject)

[feotakahari]

On writing sites, the worst trolls you’ll meet don’t tell you you’re a bad writer. They tell you there’s no way to change or influence how much people like your writing. Ask any question about how to improve in any way, and they’ll show up to insist it’s not possible. Which makes me wonder what the hell they’re doing on sites that are meant to improve your writing . . .

Comments

[flamingsword]

The purpose of trolls is to obstruct and raise engagement costs. If you want to get different advice, advice not meant for the straight white men that all the "normal" advice is written for, then you must be kept from doing so, to preserve the dominance of those narratives.

[feotakahari]

Pardon? I don’t recall them specifically targeting people who weren’t straight white men, or all advertising themselves as straight white men.

[flamingsword]

Not all trolls are straight white men, but trolls will come out in droves to maintain a status quo that is white, male dominated, and straight. Most of the writing advice available comes from already accepted authors, and since writing has been, for hundreds of years, dominated by a particular sort of person, most of the advice is by and for those people's viewpoints.

Take Star Wars. For years, fans have been desperately hoping for new movies that are not focused solely on the child and teen markets like the prequels were. Then we get some, and the white dude parts of the fandom immediately start complaining that they are not centered in the narrative. It's SJW bullshit, they say. Its political correctness run amok, they say. But what they mean is that the only person in a major role who looks like them is a bad guy. (And as a queer person, I would like to welcome them to the club I have always belonged to.)

Even when you give trolls what they claim to want, they will be unhappy with it unless it reifies their own beliefs and prejudices in *your* narrative. Not all of the people who do this are straight white dudes. But that is who it benefits, and it's a majority of trolls.

[feotakahari]

I don't think we're talking about the same issue. People who think your writing is bad are at least theoretically different from people who think some folks are inherently good writers, other folks are inherently bad writers, and talking about how to make your writing better is pointless.

[lb_lee]

With those folks, my knee-jerk wondering is whether it's not so much that they think the proverbial YOU can't improve, it's that they think THEY (or the world, or whatever) can't improve, and anything that challenges this idea makes them angry.

I don't necessarily think this is a CONSCIOUS belief, that they actually out loud think, "those assholes, how DARE they think we live in a world that can improve with work and training? I'LL SHOW THEM." But god knows, I have encountered real life people who seem to believe you are either a Writer or you are not, and if you don't just magically come out of the box a brilliant prodigy, you will NEVER be a writer. They were... kinda scary, no lie, but also some of the saddest, most self-defeating people I've ever seen.

--Rogan