I use critiquecircle.com to improve my writing, but occasionally I encounter someone that I find rude. I don’t tolerate rudeness from strangers on the internet; life is too short for that nonsense. My answering a few of the questions one critiquer gave on my submission resulted in the reply that they weren’t looking for answers in an email, the questions were supposed to be answered in the chapter submitted. The reply struck me as rude and condescending, especially when they compared their amateur comments to a professional editor.
I took another look at the critique. All the comments were phrased as questions. Now, normally on critiquecircle.com, if someone asks a question in a critique, they are trying to increase their own understanding of a situation. I don’t answer them all, just ones where I think they may have misread something or forgot something that was in an earlier chapter which can happen since there can be a several week gap between chapters appearing on the website. I wrote that “often when someone asks a direct question in a critique, they want an answer. I’ll try to avoid answering you in the future.” I was tempted to block this person from doing future critiques on my writing, since I don’t have patience for rudeness from anyone.
When I suggested she reword her questions as comments, she accused me of wanting to change her regionalism. No, I just wanted her to stop being rude. When offering critique to a fellow writer, it’s a good idea to be extra polite.
Oh, and not only were her comments rude, they were about a scene where she obviously didn’t understand family dynamics. She seemed to think that an adult who was afraid of his brother’s bullying actually feared being assaulted by the brother, but that wasn’t what the scene said at all. So her questions about cops and assault were ridiculous in any region, not just the midwest.
