First published on the
Complaints Board (along with many other complaints about Absolute Write):
STAY AWAY FROM THESE GUYS!
The advice is
juvenile and hardly critical or informed...incompetent in many ways.
I was a member of AW for a while, and I find myself going back every few
months to check up on some of the horrible discussions. The advice is
juvenile and hardly critical or informed, incompetent in many ways... Any opinion given as advice that challenges this
status quo in any way is immediately dismissed, as though there were one
way in which fiction must be undertaken, and one way only.
I have also
gotten into EXTREMELY passive aggressive debates with other users and
mods on several occasions, and, although that is the lay of the land
when it comes to internet forums, there tends to be causes to incite
such exchanges. On AW, no such causes are needed. It is also important
to note that the vast majority of advice being given is coming from
fellow amateur/unpublished writers, many who are far too inexperienced
in both life and actual writing to possibly have the perspective to form
good critical advice, and many of whom clearly don't read books--how
are they expected to write?!?
I would put good money on 75% of the users not even knowing who Borges
is, and these are people who are supposed to be giving legitimate
advice?
Their credibility isn't helped by the fact that several of the
published authors on the site are self-published (not inherently bad),
and most of the published works (both self and not) are horrible
supernatural romance/horror romance/fantasy romance (notice a trend?),
the kind with well built white vampire dudes on the cover.
Again,
nothing inherently bad about this fact, except that, to me, the trendy
YA/teenage audience these cookie-cutter works cater to is further
evidence that they actively perpetuate and defend a kind of status quo,
in which anything that challenges the fiction they write is
artsy/pointless/breaking nonexistent rules/evil.
Thankfully, I
can say in the few years I was with them back in the day, I gained a
few pointers on how NOT to teach someone, and, now that I'm an English
tutor at my college, I hope to do what AW can only dream of
doing--actually helping someone improve their work with thoughtful
criticism.
Further proof that many of the users are incapable of reading
critically, including mods: I tend to word my posts very carefully,
using very specific vocabulary and always prefacing and qualifying what I
am saying with caveats and so forth, so as to allow for the possibility
of my opinion on said writing subject not meshing well with others, so
anyone who puts a smallest amount of effort into reading it will be able
to understand I am offering a single perspective on an otherwise
all-encompassing issue.
Yet I would get post after post, some from mods
themselves, dismissing and attacking points I made, almost always ones I
prefaced with something like "to NEEDLESSLY do this is bad", as if I
did not go out of my way to state clearly that I did not mean what I
said as an "absolute" truth. If the people meant to be giving advice
cannot even read an internet post carefully enough to grasp what was
actually said, I doubt their ability to truly help anyone.
Thankfully, I
can say in the few years I was with them back in the day, I gained a
few pointers on how NOT to teach someone, and, now that I'm an English
tutor at my college, I hope to do what AW can only dream of
doing--actually helping someone improve their work with thoughtful
criticism.
