I just got off a discussion loop where I had almost the same thing happen. It takes strong people to really want to engage and discuss and agree to disagree. Most of the time, people want to be told they are awesome–Hey, I like hearing that I’m awesome. Don’t you?

What is true maturity is when people criticize or disagree and we can set aside emotions and see it for what it is…an opinion.

Either your friend will grow or not. You can’t control that. All you can control is did YOU grow?

Best of luck and continue to be encouraged.

I recently had a situation when I critiqued a “friends” writing.
I’d been running a writing group in town, where some of the writers were very good but wanted to be better, and the poorer writers were thirsty to learn.
But this friend did not want to join in, no way, she was having NOTHING to do with writing groups and other writers. Fair enough, I thought. With the quality of her writing it was only really a hobby anyway.
So she submits this story to something and asks me what I think of it. It’s terrible. I mean really really bad. I say I’ve not had time to read it, as I don’t want to lie (she has decided she is now a “professional writer” and quite the expert!). Her work is basically like this:

“They walked up this street and then they were by this place and then they turned left and they were here and…”

So after a week of her asking me for comments I gave in. Tip of the iceberg stuff. “the storyline is strong but it’s too much for a shortstory. The action needs to be developed over a longer time rather than reporting on a series of events” and “the description of her falling needs to be less physical- think about when you have fallen, are you aware that your leg is here and arm is there, or more of the sensation that you are moving without being in control of your body?” and “at the beginning of the story your sentences are very short- 1 to 3 words- by the end they’re very long, try and make them more consistent”.

I actually mixed in a lot of praise with, what I called, “ideas for how to develop the piece”. I knew she wouldn’t take critiquing well so I got as much cotton wool as I could, took most of my comments out again (thinking, I can save them for another time)and left her with a couple of easy quick fixes.
A few days later all the books etc I had leant her had been posted through my door, I was defriended on facebook and twitter, and she was setting up a writing group for “serious” critiquing?! I also got nasty text messages from her sister telling me that the people in her office liked it so I obviously didn’t know what I was talking about. Right. Ok then.

What a waste of my time. I
Now I refuse to critique peoples work unless they say the magic words “i want to improve”. If they say they want to know what I think I keep quiet. There’s no point in my wasting my time just to let someone know what I think.

At least you have the satisfaction of knowing that you helped a fellow writer. That he acknowledged it shows that he’s ready to advance to a new level in his writing. Too bad he hasn’t thanked you properly. I’ve found that his type will use others to advance his agenda and then move on. He probably feels he doesn’t need you any longer, that he’s taken what he needed. I heard an old Chinese or Russian saying, “It is hard to pay for bread that has already been eaten.” or something like that.

Re: taking critique. I love, love the advice to pay attention to what makes you most emotional about a critique – because it’s likely that’s your problem.

My experience from the POV of giving an unappreciated critique:
Several years ago I was part of a forum which had a really good back-end allowing for anonymous critiques of people’s work, as long as you did your part and critiqued a certain number yourself, then yours could be in circulation. Being trained in script-editing, I approached my critiques as I would had I been paid. One script had a potentially good story but needed lots of work for it to be clear, and I liked the story enough to give detailed notes A & B the C of D. Suffice to say, the writer did not appreciate the critique, and began to eviscerate someone else in the forum who he believed had done it. I worked out from a couple of quotes, that it was in fact my crit, so, me being me, I put my hand up. I had to leave the forum. Mid last year, I received an email, forwarded via a friend who stayed in the forum, from this writer. He had been submitting the script for a few years and getting requests based on his logline and query (which he was constantly working on lol) but consistently getting the same feedback that I had given him all those years ago. He apologized profusely, and asked if I would read the attached re-write that he had finally broken down and done. Again, me being me, I read it (before I emailed him to say I would) and he had taken much of the advice and improved it. It still needed work, but it was much better, and I emailed him back (from my anon gmail account lol) saying so, with a few more notes. I haven’t heard anything (at all) back – but I like to think he finally got the message and maybe his story will get out there some day…

huh. Learn something new every day. And I see on Wikipedia Alice is the oldest daughter of Theodore Roosevelt and that she was unconventional and controversial. The only child in her marriage was the result of an affair she had. And she temporarily changed to a Democrat during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Who’d a thunk it? No wonder Parker borrowed her quips. Sounds like an interesting person. I’d never heard of her before.

A thank you letter should be sent since the demoralized writer will no longer sit in solitude and worry about every word, sentence, paragraph and story idea that comes their way. They will no longer miss important family and social functions because they have a editing schedule or because a new character is demanding more page time. Their professional career should also flourished since they will not have these little voices in their heads telling them how to up the drama in a scene during the normal work day.

Wonderful blog, keep them coming…