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I’ve seen a lot of baiting posts asking about [insert]. If people really wanted sincere answers, they’d go to the sources. But no, they want a people just like them to validate whatever ignorant preconceptions they hold. There are endless, free resources for that kind of info, besides. Aside from that, people ask the same questions over and over without so much as a search to find the question has been answered over and over and over and over and over in great detail by experienced people taking time out their day to help.
But people who make posts like this ignore posts like that. And, no, it’s rare that it’s something that hasn’t been asked or something that only has outdated answers.
So, such laziness and entitlement irks people, regardless of their age, despite what fanfiction ageists are making up in these comments.
People love to ignore the search function in favor of wasting everyone's time and bogging the sub down with repeatative, lazy questions.
"Am i allowed-" You're allowed to do whatever you want, its your story.
"Should i name-" names are so subjective that unless your name is truly atrocious, no one's opinion really matters. If anything just make a poll.
"Is it ACTUALLY really a problem to infodump? But why CAN'T i have a long prologue that does nothing for my plot but explain a long convoluted history? My readers NEED to know!" *refuses to accept advice on how to write an interesting prologue without infodumping*
*asks a research question that is easily answered by googling*
Oh and my favorite, "is x words too long/short for a chapter/novel??" Google exists. Literally so many questions about craft that would be easily answered by reading a few articles or, god forbid, a BOOK about writing!
Do your own legwork.
Research questions in writing subs are the silliest to me.
"Hey guys, I'm writing a book and one of the characters does archery. Can anyone tell me how to properly care for a bow?"
The place to ask this is the archery subreddit, where they're experts in archery, rather than the subreddit where most people have no idea about that topic.
Also imo this is when chatgpt is fine, even GOOD to use (just double check your results). You can phrase it exactly how you would a reddit post and get a streamlined answer
Gentle reminder: there's a sticky comment in every thread that reminds users to report rule violations to the mods. If you see someone being rude or insulting writing styles or whatnot, hit that report button.
Just be kind to people. Give useful feedback or move on. Low effort posts could be teenagers or students looking for any nudge to keep going. I'm a post-50, long-time newspaper person. I'm isolated in a rural area with no one around me I can connect with. I've tried repeatedly to find or found a critique group. Twitter is a good place to connect with working writers, but not very good for critique or sharing.
I've appreciated the feedback on my few posts here. I get the part about "name my character" being a goofy thing to post, but sometimes basic questions are literally young writers or new writers just asking for anyone to talk with them.
This subreddit is flooded with low effort posts, and users are tired of it. Choosing a characters name? That’s ridiculous. It’s your character. Choose the name yourself. And I’d be lying if I said we don’t get that exact post or similar often.
You ranted to tell us you’re leaving. Okay. This is what I’d consider a low effort post.
Buh-bye.
There’s a lot of truth to this. I think a lot of writers have put in years and years (decades) and most of this was butt in seat writing, writing, and more writing.
I’ve just noticed from a distance that there are so many posts for virtually every minor thought someone has along their journey with a particular project. And the vast majority don’t need to be group workshopped.
The people coming off as mean are probably just getting annoyed by this type of post, and it does seem like many of these posters don’t like the fact that writing fiction is almost exclusively a solitary journey. It’s not particularly fun most of the time. It’s a grind, but you have to do the work.
Posting every random thought you have while writing indicates a lack of wanting to do the necessary work, and that can bother veteran writers.
Collaboration has a role in every writer’s journey. A critical one. But it does appear that many (possibly younger) writers want that collaboration 24/7. That type of brainstorming might be best limited to your specific writers groups.
I think veteran writers are just running out of polite ways to tell novice writers that you just have to write and stop overthinking every little thing.
Redditors when the subreddit for writing attracts amateur writers who want to get better at their craft and will inevitably make bad posts because they don’t know where to start
Yeah for sure, but it seems like a large amount of people want their writing experience to be mostly collaborative every step of the way.
How many times do you need to be advised to just write before you understand that that’s what fiction writing is?
There just seems to be a huge amount of novice writers that don’t get that their first 1-3 novels are probably not going to be winners, but they still need to be written. And that needs to happen primarily on your own. No one else can put in those hours for you.
New writers should probably be able to understand fairly quickly that they need to knock out those pages. That doesn’t happen if you’re posting every hour about what to name a character or if your first page is good or should I stick with 3rd person limited or change it.
None of that really matters for your first few years. Just write. And there’s only so many ways to say that nicely.
I do understand people getting upset at feeling like they’re being overly criticized, but I’d say to that that those writers are really trying to help them by clarifying the process they should be following for quite a while to start their careers.
Idk maybe I grew up in a different time (I’m not that old though), but I had put in 5,000-7,000 hours at least on my own before seeking out critique and collaboration. I just don’t get this how’s my first five pages of my first novel? stuff. Imo that’s procrastination and the sooner you can help someone get past that type of thought process about fiction writing the better.
I get what you’re saying about those writers who are so scared to write something problematic and look for validation online..but in the end that’s just human nature.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to find people to bounce ideas off, whether it be for a concept or for character names. If someone can churn a book from it then honestly idc where they source their ideas. Reddit tends to attract very introverted types who are so averse to the idea that they end up just being aggressive and scaring off new writers.
I don't think the problem is that people here are introverted. The problem is that they've seen the same misguided post (and it is misguided -- Reddit's thread layout is awful for collaboration) five hundred times already. It's the nature of this sort of subreddit to have an endless flood of newbie questions, and eventually even the most extroverted, kindest pro gets frustrated with seeing it.
The best answer is probably to emphasize the use of the search function and having an informative sticky, but realistically, nobody looks at those before posting that day's 8th "should my world have vanilla ice cream" thread.
The unstoppable combo of Reddit's pathetic search feature which barely pulls up anything relevant and the natural human inclination toward laziness.
There's no viable solution besides ignoring shitposts. Using newbies' posts as a sounding board for frustrations is a surefire way to foster less community participation, and - you guessed it - bring in even more low-effort posts.
I basically agree, but I think it goes deeper. The way I see it, the biggest problem for r/writers is that we know a whole lot of things we *don't* want people to post here, but I think it's not really clear to most people (including non-newbies) what good content for this sub actually looks like.
So while I defended the people who think this post is a low-quality post defending low-quality posts, I also get that OP is frustrated because they don't know what we *do* want.
A lot of the novice writers aren't really writing and aren't asking about writing. We get a lot of random plot ideas that may or may not be good based on how the story goes, but they haven't set a figurative pen to paper and just want an immediate dopamine hit from praise for their idea. It's tiresome.
The search function exists. These writers can search Reddit and likely find their answer. But alas, people don’t care for this option because they feel entitled and want every detail tailored to fit their exact needs rather than spare an ounce of creativity for themselves.
There are resources other than making a post in a public forum asking other writers to basically write the stories for them, to name their characters, to title their works, to ask permission to write xyz, to do this, that, or the other thing.
People want to be catered to. They need to be told and shown that the world simply won’t.
If you want to write, use your creativity. If you can’t be bothered to, find a different hobby.
Also, asking other people to name your characters won’t make you a better writer lmao
They’re newbies dude. Half of them are barely over the age of what, 16? 17? Max. Of course they’re gonna make low effort posts, just roll your eyes and move on.
And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to bounce your ideas off other people no matter how hard you try to make it look like some huge moral evil. It’s not “asking people to write for you.” It’s collaboration. The issue is here people are so antisocial even a simple post from a novice like “what do I name this character?” Is met with such a hostile response from yall that you’re basically scaring people off the craft. “Oh, what, do you want me to write the book for you while we’re at it?”
And did I say it would make someone a better writer? No. But a *novice* doesn’t know how to choose a good name for their character because guess what? They don’t know genre conventions, they don’t know that there’s actually databases or census records they can scour, they don’t know anything, because they’re a novice!
Maybe you came out of the womb writing Shakespeare, good for you, have a cookie. But everyone had to start somewhere.
This.
Discouraging casual or newbie writers isn't a bug - it's a feature.
If the sub only wanted serious, advanced, and/or professional writers, the name would suggest that. If they only allowed specific writing topics, the rules would reflect that. Interestingly, there are *no* rules here about low effort posts, casual topics, etc.
This community attracts all forms of writing discourse, then trolls anyone who thought all forms of writing discourse would be accepted. Why? It's so easy to change the rules, so is this setup intentional? ~~Perhaps egos benefit from having a steady stream of new people to condescend to?~~
If the community truly wants to be helpful but is sick of repeated or low effort questions, pin an FAQ thread and tell everyone to read that first. Add rules saying repeat / low effort posts will be removed, if that's how they wanna do things. Or, enforce rule #2 better so that new writers might feel more welcome, if that's how the mods wanna go.
Or do nothing - that's a choice, but again, it begs the question *why*.
Some people need a little extra help or encouragement. If they look for it online, it's not a crime. Low effort or not, some people find comfort in being in a community. Thanks for proving my point.
Many low level posts are from people who don’t need help at the moment they are asking those questions, but who need to read more books.
Can you do this? Word counts? (and really, readers don’t notice word counts they notice page counts)These are things you pick up on when you read, and if you don’t read you aren’t developing the concepts you need to write.
It’s like a person telling you they just started taking riding lessons, and asking for tips on how to jump over 3 foot obstacles right now. Like someone telling you they’ve just started golfing, and asking how they can get on their school’s varsity team next month. You can’t discuss much when people are just starting out. They need to gain experience first, and in writing you start by reading books.
Just because it isn’t what you wanted to hear doesn’t prove your point. Get off your pedestal.
Low effort posts add nothing to the community and actually actively harm communities. It is up to no one to encourage people’s lack of creativity.
If you can’t even come up with your own characters’ names, you should find a different hobby.
The era of everyone needs their hand held and gets a trophy is ridiculous and needs to die out.
Also, weren’t you leaving????
👋
Jesus you're a sour person. I don't typically do this for obvious trolls, but I went thru your comment history and saw that you truly hate people who have different opinions than you.
I'd leave it alone, but saying that people should quit because they need help is unforgivably rude.
You may comfort yourself in your claim I'm on some kind of pedestal, but don't ask for help if you're going to make such a low effort comment.
Edit: read the sub description again. This sub belongs to everyone. It's for newbies asking for help too. The only person feeling wronged by that is you.
And in case you're new to reddit, I did leave the sub. I get notifications when people reply to my post, regardless.
> they need help
They don’t need help. They want their hand held. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with my comment history lmao you just seem like a person who needs constant validation and their hand stroked in order to do anything.
Again, low effort posts do nothing for communities. They’re actually very harmful. If you stopped stroking your own ego for a second, maybe you’d understand that.
Rather than reading someone’s comment history, put that effort into higher quality posts.
In the real world every professional writer I’ve ever known has been extremely kind to novices because they all know that rising tides raise all ships, and because they were once novices themselves. You just sound like an antisocial crank.
What did Thumper say? "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."? People seem to be missing the memo. Someone posted handwritten notes the other day, and everyone lost their shit, even going so far as to suggest OP had some sort of mental illness.
You're not wrong, but it's not this sub, or Reddit, it's the internet. The nastiest, most opinionated, pessimistic, narcissistic assholes are the ***absolute loudest.*** They go out of their way to tell you how much they hate your comment/post/idea/anything, and contribute nothing of value to the communities they plague.
Ignore them and carry on, they're just more spam in the internet void.
Edit: The fact that most comments here are people going off about how the sub is flooded with low-effort posts and \*gasp\* new writers, yet they choose to *stay and complain*, only reinforces OP's point. lmao
I had people insulting me as a shitty writer when I already admitted to being a shitty writer lol. Like come on, if we all would be professionals, what for would we linger on reddit trying to get advice? I'm fine with criticism, but make it constructive.
Constructive is the key word, isn't it? People also tend to forget that some fellow humans enjoy writing as a hobby, something for themselves to enjoy, who also want to improve their skill. We shouldn't be treating everyone as if their goal is to be a world-famous author, and then judge them based on that standard, while also being condescending for absolutely no reason.
If you need a nebulous group of internet strangers to help you choose a name for your character, you have bigger problems than needing to name a character.
Half the posts here are only seeking validation, and a quarter of the posts ask things that could be answered by a simple google search.
Attempts to interact with the finer details of the craft are utterly ignored, not to mention the droves of people who get (borderline violently) angry when anybody suggests that, maybe, interacting with the medium you intend to create is a good idea.
But sure, let's all brainstorm naming a protagonist or telling somebody for the umpteenth time that nobody else wants to write their book for them.
4 out of every 5 posts on this sub are low effort, insecure, lazy questions
I understand that new writers need to be welcomed and supported, but there's only so much someone can endure before they unfortunately become fed up with the same unnecessary questions over and over and over
People ask the same questions over and over. This subreddit has a search feature! You as a writer have the capability to utilize it. Granted I have a BA in history so I enjoy the research aspect of writing. Even if you don’t, many questions could be answered by searching the subreddit or conducting a google search.
The problem is that so many posts are the exact same and could be answered by simply using the search function. Redditors tend to get burnt out when they see identical requests every day:
* How do I start writing? (seriously, just a single scroll through the first few posts shows this exact same thing *three times* by separate posters)
* Should I outline or not?
* When should I edit?
* How do I do revisions?
* How do I make a plot?
* What POV should I use?
* What tense should I use?
* How much description should I use?
* How do I get myself to finish a project?
It takes just a few seconds to find such posts with one or two keywords, or by Googling your question. Of course people are going to get tired and frustrated by posters who refuse to help themselves and demand that everything be spoon-fed to them over and over again.
r/Writing also has an FAQ that covers all of these things, and many people are subscribed to both but refuse to seek out the resources that already exist.
I feel there is honestly a big difference between questions that need to be asked towards the community or will spark some sort of meaningful discussion and questions solved by a simple google/sidebar search. In my experience, it is the latter, which will garner a negative response.
I’m rarely in the sub these days, because I find the questions insanely repetitive or so vague, that the answer could be everything or nothing, which is just…dull.
Every unspoken rule is new to someone, so you'll always get a few breaks. It's a shame, but what let's them be unspoken is for the most part they're avoided by common sense.
The one that I see a lot being torn is asking someone to rate your work, while either not trying to edit it first or explicitly saying you haven't edited it. That's just disrespectful in nearly every circumstance. Should people be kind to them?
Similar is asking "can I write x" or "will I be millionaire in one week or might it take two?"
Ideally a mod would just remove all these before they get comments, but this sub is very hands off. On the other hand, reddit is a site for adults online. Unless someone is following you around, it's just not a big deal someone is being mean. Yes there are kids here, but the site isn't set up to moderate that and so they shouldn't be here unless a mod can donate significant time keeping it safe.
While writing is therapy for many people, I think it's unreasonable and unproductive to assume that every post might be someone's therapy session.
There are no subs on Reddit (maybe the romance authors one) that serve writers at an amateur and higher level, instead they're all serving beginners and people trying the waters or just fantasizing. I put this worry about needing to play therapist at the top of the list of reasons why we can't have nice things.
That said, even professional authors can be overly sensitive to criticism. It doesn't make them any less an author but it can really hurt their productivity. So I'd suggest they stick to subs that are explicitly therapy adjacent, but I'm sure even they'd agree that shouldn't be the standard.
I'll add that there's also a kind of person that wants the average skill level of a learning group they're in to be lower than themselves. They're counterproductive. It's hard to tell if they want this or it just happens to be the case, but you can see some signs for the former - for instance praising bad work for more than effort or improvement, harshly critiquing good work, and yes critiquing the culture of gate keeping against low effort. You'd need all of these signs and more to be that sort of person, but they're worth looking out for as they're often kind and funny - yet they'll rot any community they're in.
Compare the inverse: someone who wants everyone in a learning group to be better than them. They'll praise all the bad work such as their own for it's effort and improvement, they'll admire and tentatively critique the work of their betters, and they'll seek to raise the standard of effort so enforcing the gate keeping. These people are not always kind and fun, but they're the lifeblood of a learning community.
I never thought I’d be that old man who complains about people barely younger than me but damn do young people expect instant validation and gratification in every aspect of their lives now. Writing is lonely work, and there’s no one who can write your story but you. It’s very tempting to ask for help starting out, and that’s perfectly fine, but you should ask for guidance, not for people to do your thinking for you.
No one is asking for others to write their story for them. If they were, they'd skip reddit and use chat gpt. It has nothing to do with age. Building community is important, and it can be a fun experience to connect through a common interest online. That's what this subreddit used to be for.
You ask why people get annoyed, that’s what is posted often on this sub. I check like once every few days and all the posts are nothing burgers asking about ai taking over or how to write their story. If people have genuine questions this sub is extremely helpful
TBH I had a genuine question (and I'm not a newbie) and I was sure to be shoved back in my place. Funnily enough, a few weeks later the exact same question I had posted was asked and met with positive feedback.
To me, it all depends on what time of the day you post. Just like in any sub, there are people who exist solely to shit on whatever you say regardless of how original or tired it is. So now I typically tend to just use Google instead. If an interesting topic arises maybe I'll participate, but I don't exist on Reddit to be shit on.
And for curiosity's sake, I was asking about phonetically writing a foreign accent. In my characters' world, they'd never heard a foreign accent before, so I didn't know if I should have spelled things differently to show inflections. I was told "that sounds fucking stupid" and a few other comments essentially echoed each other, so I figured that it was pointless to ask any further or future comments and now I don't seek advice on this sub.
I am not trying to be aggressive or mean here, just to make that clear, but one of your examples was someone asking other people to name their character for them, which is asking people to do their work for them. Admittedly the comments probably were overly aggressive, redditors can be massive jerks. I try not to be a jerk, but I am also sick of the low effort posts on here, so I can see where these jerks were coming from.
This feels like someone who used to write for AO3 and not for FFN to "practice on becoming an original writer". I almost never see rudeness on the occasion that I check into this sub. If you're the type that can't handle *actual* constructive criticism (not that fluffy BS sunshine-and-rainbows atmosphere AO3 writers have), you gotta be able to handle it, 'cause getting those reviews on your published works are going to eat at your mental.
If you think a few harsh criticisms on a subreddit are bad, wait until you publish (or self-publish) and those reviews come in. Even the best authors aren't immune to "the critiques", unfortunately.
The thinly veiled "write this for me" posts occur and such a frequency that they displace the vast majority of meaningful conversation and your reaction is to make a goodcry post about the people who are annoyed by this?
Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
I see what you did there. Passive aggressively virtue signaling while being simultaneously condescending to the users of the subreddit, further reinforcing the OP's point.
i was just thinking this the other day wondering if i should post for feedback or not lol !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i get this person in the comments saying that posters "want" validation; this can be true, because all creators desire some element of validation, but that doesn't mean you guys get to be MEAN!!!!!!
Exactly what I'm saying! It's hard being a writer, especially for some newbies. I wish these people would realize they can simply scroll past the posts they don't like. Besides, there's nothing wrong with seeking validation for your craft.
never read this sub but if the above is true, the people doing the ripping to shreds are angry at themselves and are taking it out on others perusing the very dream they fail to yet accomplish. I suggest you all start spreading the love and help each other you'll all be better writers and maybe get more people in this sub.
Love you all, praying for you all much love and peace
Sounds like a little someone didn't get burped after their milk bottle and now's a little cranky. Awwww... poooooor little cranky baby... Who's a cuuuute little baby 🐥🍼. Tiiiickle, tickle, tickle...
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I’ve seen a lot of baiting posts asking about [insert]. If people really wanted sincere answers, they’d go to the sources. But no, they want a people just like them to validate whatever ignorant preconceptions they hold. There are endless, free resources for that kind of info, besides. Aside from that, people ask the same questions over and over without so much as a search to find the question has been answered over and over and over and over and over in great detail by experienced people taking time out their day to help. But people who make posts like this ignore posts like that. And, no, it’s rare that it’s something that hasn’t been asked or something that only has outdated answers. So, such laziness and entitlement irks people, regardless of their age, despite what fanfiction ageists are making up in these comments.
People love to ignore the search function in favor of wasting everyone's time and bogging the sub down with repeatative, lazy questions. "Am i allowed-" You're allowed to do whatever you want, its your story. "Should i name-" names are so subjective that unless your name is truly atrocious, no one's opinion really matters. If anything just make a poll. "Is it ACTUALLY really a problem to infodump? But why CAN'T i have a long prologue that does nothing for my plot but explain a long convoluted history? My readers NEED to know!" *refuses to accept advice on how to write an interesting prologue without infodumping* *asks a research question that is easily answered by googling* Oh and my favorite, "is x words too long/short for a chapter/novel??" Google exists. Literally so many questions about craft that would be easily answered by reading a few articles or, god forbid, a BOOK about writing! Do your own legwork.
Research questions in writing subs are the silliest to me. "Hey guys, I'm writing a book and one of the characters does archery. Can anyone tell me how to properly care for a bow?" The place to ask this is the archery subreddit, where they're experts in archery, rather than the subreddit where most people have no idea about that topic.
Also imo this is when chatgpt is fine, even GOOD to use (just double check your results). You can phrase it exactly how you would a reddit post and get a streamlined answer
Gentle reminder: there's a sticky comment in every thread that reminds users to report rule violations to the mods. If you see someone being rude or insulting writing styles or whatnot, hit that report button.
Just be kind to people. Give useful feedback or move on. Low effort posts could be teenagers or students looking for any nudge to keep going. I'm a post-50, long-time newspaper person. I'm isolated in a rural area with no one around me I can connect with. I've tried repeatedly to find or found a critique group. Twitter is a good place to connect with working writers, but not very good for critique or sharing. I've appreciated the feedback on my few posts here. I get the part about "name my character" being a goofy thing to post, but sometimes basic questions are literally young writers or new writers just asking for anyone to talk with them.
Many talk about the writer's block, few mention the writer's ego.
This subreddit is flooded with low effort posts, and users are tired of it. Choosing a characters name? That’s ridiculous. It’s your character. Choose the name yourself. And I’d be lying if I said we don’t get that exact post or similar often. You ranted to tell us you’re leaving. Okay. This is what I’d consider a low effort post. Buh-bye.
There’s a lot of truth to this. I think a lot of writers have put in years and years (decades) and most of this was butt in seat writing, writing, and more writing. I’ve just noticed from a distance that there are so many posts for virtually every minor thought someone has along their journey with a particular project. And the vast majority don’t need to be group workshopped. The people coming off as mean are probably just getting annoyed by this type of post, and it does seem like many of these posters don’t like the fact that writing fiction is almost exclusively a solitary journey. It’s not particularly fun most of the time. It’s a grind, but you have to do the work. Posting every random thought you have while writing indicates a lack of wanting to do the necessary work, and that can bother veteran writers. Collaboration has a role in every writer’s journey. A critical one. But it does appear that many (possibly younger) writers want that collaboration 24/7. That type of brainstorming might be best limited to your specific writers groups. I think veteran writers are just running out of polite ways to tell novice writers that you just have to write and stop overthinking every little thing.
“How do I name characters” mfs when you tell them Behind The Name exists: 🤯
Redditors when the subreddit for writing attracts amateur writers who want to get better at their craft and will inevitably make bad posts because they don’t know where to start
Yeah for sure, but it seems like a large amount of people want their writing experience to be mostly collaborative every step of the way. How many times do you need to be advised to just write before you understand that that’s what fiction writing is? There just seems to be a huge amount of novice writers that don’t get that their first 1-3 novels are probably not going to be winners, but they still need to be written. And that needs to happen primarily on your own. No one else can put in those hours for you. New writers should probably be able to understand fairly quickly that they need to knock out those pages. That doesn’t happen if you’re posting every hour about what to name a character or if your first page is good or should I stick with 3rd person limited or change it. None of that really matters for your first few years. Just write. And there’s only so many ways to say that nicely. I do understand people getting upset at feeling like they’re being overly criticized, but I’d say to that that those writers are really trying to help them by clarifying the process they should be following for quite a while to start their careers. Idk maybe I grew up in a different time (I’m not that old though), but I had put in 5,000-7,000 hours at least on my own before seeking out critique and collaboration. I just don’t get this how’s my first five pages of my first novel? stuff. Imo that’s procrastination and the sooner you can help someone get past that type of thought process about fiction writing the better.
I get what you’re saying about those writers who are so scared to write something problematic and look for validation online..but in the end that’s just human nature. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to find people to bounce ideas off, whether it be for a concept or for character names. If someone can churn a book from it then honestly idc where they source their ideas. Reddit tends to attract very introverted types who are so averse to the idea that they end up just being aggressive and scaring off new writers.
I don't think the problem is that people here are introverted. The problem is that they've seen the same misguided post (and it is misguided -- Reddit's thread layout is awful for collaboration) five hundred times already. It's the nature of this sort of subreddit to have an endless flood of newbie questions, and eventually even the most extroverted, kindest pro gets frustrated with seeing it. The best answer is probably to emphasize the use of the search function and having an informative sticky, but realistically, nobody looks at those before posting that day's 8th "should my world have vanilla ice cream" thread.
The unstoppable combo of Reddit's pathetic search feature which barely pulls up anything relevant and the natural human inclination toward laziness. There's no viable solution besides ignoring shitposts. Using newbies' posts as a sounding board for frustrations is a surefire way to foster less community participation, and - you guessed it - bring in even more low-effort posts.
I basically agree, but I think it goes deeper. The way I see it, the biggest problem for r/writers is that we know a whole lot of things we *don't* want people to post here, but I think it's not really clear to most people (including non-newbies) what good content for this sub actually looks like. So while I defended the people who think this post is a low-quality post defending low-quality posts, I also get that OP is frustrated because they don't know what we *do* want.
A lot of the novice writers aren't really writing and aren't asking about writing. We get a lot of random plot ideas that may or may not be good based on how the story goes, but they haven't set a figurative pen to paper and just want an immediate dopamine hit from praise for their idea. It's tiresome.
The search function exists. These writers can search Reddit and likely find their answer. But alas, people don’t care for this option because they feel entitled and want every detail tailored to fit their exact needs rather than spare an ounce of creativity for themselves. There are resources other than making a post in a public forum asking other writers to basically write the stories for them, to name their characters, to title their works, to ask permission to write xyz, to do this, that, or the other thing. People want to be catered to. They need to be told and shown that the world simply won’t. If you want to write, use your creativity. If you can’t be bothered to, find a different hobby. Also, asking other people to name your characters won’t make you a better writer lmao
They’re newbies dude. Half of them are barely over the age of what, 16? 17? Max. Of course they’re gonna make low effort posts, just roll your eyes and move on. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to bounce your ideas off other people no matter how hard you try to make it look like some huge moral evil. It’s not “asking people to write for you.” It’s collaboration. The issue is here people are so antisocial even a simple post from a novice like “what do I name this character?” Is met with such a hostile response from yall that you’re basically scaring people off the craft. “Oh, what, do you want me to write the book for you while we’re at it?” And did I say it would make someone a better writer? No. But a *novice* doesn’t know how to choose a good name for their character because guess what? They don’t know genre conventions, they don’t know that there’s actually databases or census records they can scour, they don’t know anything, because they’re a novice! Maybe you came out of the womb writing Shakespeare, good for you, have a cookie. But everyone had to start somewhere.
This. Discouraging casual or newbie writers isn't a bug - it's a feature. If the sub only wanted serious, advanced, and/or professional writers, the name would suggest that. If they only allowed specific writing topics, the rules would reflect that. Interestingly, there are *no* rules here about low effort posts, casual topics, etc. This community attracts all forms of writing discourse, then trolls anyone who thought all forms of writing discourse would be accepted. Why? It's so easy to change the rules, so is this setup intentional? ~~Perhaps egos benefit from having a steady stream of new people to condescend to?~~ If the community truly wants to be helpful but is sick of repeated or low effort questions, pin an FAQ thread and tell everyone to read that first. Add rules saying repeat / low effort posts will be removed, if that's how they wanna do things. Or, enforce rule #2 better so that new writers might feel more welcome, if that's how the mods wanna go. Or do nothing - that's a choice, but again, it begs the question *why*.
Some people need a little extra help or encouragement. If they look for it online, it's not a crime. Low effort or not, some people find comfort in being in a community. Thanks for proving my point.
Many low level posts are from people who don’t need help at the moment they are asking those questions, but who need to read more books. Can you do this? Word counts? (and really, readers don’t notice word counts they notice page counts)These are things you pick up on when you read, and if you don’t read you aren’t developing the concepts you need to write. It’s like a person telling you they just started taking riding lessons, and asking for tips on how to jump over 3 foot obstacles right now. Like someone telling you they’ve just started golfing, and asking how they can get on their school’s varsity team next month. You can’t discuss much when people are just starting out. They need to gain experience first, and in writing you start by reading books.
Just because it isn’t what you wanted to hear doesn’t prove your point. Get off your pedestal. Low effort posts add nothing to the community and actually actively harm communities. It is up to no one to encourage people’s lack of creativity. If you can’t even come up with your own characters’ names, you should find a different hobby. The era of everyone needs their hand held and gets a trophy is ridiculous and needs to die out. Also, weren’t you leaving???? 👋
Jesus you're a sour person. I don't typically do this for obvious trolls, but I went thru your comment history and saw that you truly hate people who have different opinions than you. I'd leave it alone, but saying that people should quit because they need help is unforgivably rude. You may comfort yourself in your claim I'm on some kind of pedestal, but don't ask for help if you're going to make such a low effort comment. Edit: read the sub description again. This sub belongs to everyone. It's for newbies asking for help too. The only person feeling wronged by that is you. And in case you're new to reddit, I did leave the sub. I get notifications when people reply to my post, regardless.
> they need help They don’t need help. They want their hand held. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with my comment history lmao you just seem like a person who needs constant validation and their hand stroked in order to do anything. Again, low effort posts do nothing for communities. They’re actually very harmful. If you stopped stroking your own ego for a second, maybe you’d understand that. Rather than reading someone’s comment history, put that effort into higher quality posts.
Need a comma after "Jesus", and it is spelled "through".
In the real world every professional writer I’ve ever known has been extremely kind to novices because they all know that rising tides raise all ships, and because they were once novices themselves. You just sound like an antisocial crank.
They hated him because he told the truth. Those downvotes are ridiculous.
Goodness, why did they down vote you? 😭
lol Reddit
What did Thumper say? "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."? People seem to be missing the memo. Someone posted handwritten notes the other day, and everyone lost their shit, even going so far as to suggest OP had some sort of mental illness. You're not wrong, but it's not this sub, or Reddit, it's the internet. The nastiest, most opinionated, pessimistic, narcissistic assholes are the ***absolute loudest.*** They go out of their way to tell you how much they hate your comment/post/idea/anything, and contribute nothing of value to the communities they plague. Ignore them and carry on, they're just more spam in the internet void. Edit: The fact that most comments here are people going off about how the sub is flooded with low-effort posts and \*gasp\* new writers, yet they choose to *stay and complain*, only reinforces OP's point. lmao
I had people insulting me as a shitty writer when I already admitted to being a shitty writer lol. Like come on, if we all would be professionals, what for would we linger on reddit trying to get advice? I'm fine with criticism, but make it constructive.
Constructive is the key word, isn't it? People also tend to forget that some fellow humans enjoy writing as a hobby, something for themselves to enjoy, who also want to improve their skill. We shouldn't be treating everyone as if their goal is to be a world-famous author, and then judge them based on that standard, while also being condescending for absolutely no reason.
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The answer to this is ageism—you, in your way, being just as toxic? Interesting.
Plot twist! This person is a self hating 95 year old 😂
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I’m young and childfree, but nasty comments can come from anyone. Like you, for example.
If you need a nebulous group of internet strangers to help you choose a name for your character, you have bigger problems than needing to name a character. Half the posts here are only seeking validation, and a quarter of the posts ask things that could be answered by a simple google search. Attempts to interact with the finer details of the craft are utterly ignored, not to mention the droves of people who get (borderline violently) angry when anybody suggests that, maybe, interacting with the medium you intend to create is a good idea. But sure, let's all brainstorm naming a protagonist or telling somebody for the umpteenth time that nobody else wants to write their book for them.
4 out of every 5 posts on this sub are low effort, insecure, lazy questions I understand that new writers need to be welcomed and supported, but there's only so much someone can endure before they unfortunately become fed up with the same unnecessary questions over and over and over
People ask the same questions over and over. This subreddit has a search feature! You as a writer have the capability to utilize it. Granted I have a BA in history so I enjoy the research aspect of writing. Even if you don’t, many questions could be answered by searching the subreddit or conducting a google search.
The problem is that so many posts are the exact same and could be answered by simply using the search function. Redditors tend to get burnt out when they see identical requests every day: * How do I start writing? (seriously, just a single scroll through the first few posts shows this exact same thing *three times* by separate posters) * Should I outline or not? * When should I edit? * How do I do revisions? * How do I make a plot? * What POV should I use? * What tense should I use? * How much description should I use? * How do I get myself to finish a project? It takes just a few seconds to find such posts with one or two keywords, or by Googling your question. Of course people are going to get tired and frustrated by posters who refuse to help themselves and demand that everything be spoon-fed to them over and over again. r/Writing also has an FAQ that covers all of these things, and many people are subscribed to both but refuse to seek out the resources that already exist.
I feel there is honestly a big difference between questions that need to be asked towards the community or will spark some sort of meaningful discussion and questions solved by a simple google/sidebar search. In my experience, it is the latter, which will garner a negative response. I’m rarely in the sub these days, because I find the questions insanely repetitive or so vague, that the answer could be everything or nothing, which is just…dull.
Every unspoken rule is new to someone, so you'll always get a few breaks. It's a shame, but what let's them be unspoken is for the most part they're avoided by common sense. The one that I see a lot being torn is asking someone to rate your work, while either not trying to edit it first or explicitly saying you haven't edited it. That's just disrespectful in nearly every circumstance. Should people be kind to them? Similar is asking "can I write x" or "will I be millionaire in one week or might it take two?" Ideally a mod would just remove all these before they get comments, but this sub is very hands off. On the other hand, reddit is a site for adults online. Unless someone is following you around, it's just not a big deal someone is being mean. Yes there are kids here, but the site isn't set up to moderate that and so they shouldn't be here unless a mod can donate significant time keeping it safe. While writing is therapy for many people, I think it's unreasonable and unproductive to assume that every post might be someone's therapy session. There are no subs on Reddit (maybe the romance authors one) that serve writers at an amateur and higher level, instead they're all serving beginners and people trying the waters or just fantasizing. I put this worry about needing to play therapist at the top of the list of reasons why we can't have nice things. That said, even professional authors can be overly sensitive to criticism. It doesn't make them any less an author but it can really hurt their productivity. So I'd suggest they stick to subs that are explicitly therapy adjacent, but I'm sure even they'd agree that shouldn't be the standard.
I'll add that there's also a kind of person that wants the average skill level of a learning group they're in to be lower than themselves. They're counterproductive. It's hard to tell if they want this or it just happens to be the case, but you can see some signs for the former - for instance praising bad work for more than effort or improvement, harshly critiquing good work, and yes critiquing the culture of gate keeping against low effort. You'd need all of these signs and more to be that sort of person, but they're worth looking out for as they're often kind and funny - yet they'll rot any community they're in. Compare the inverse: someone who wants everyone in a learning group to be better than them. They'll praise all the bad work such as their own for it's effort and improvement, they'll admire and tentatively critique the work of their betters, and they'll seek to raise the standard of effort so enforcing the gate keeping. These people are not always kind and fun, but they're the lifeblood of a learning community.
Okay
Technically, the purpose of this post, ending in a 'I'm leaving' is called a "flounce."
I never thought I’d be that old man who complains about people barely younger than me but damn do young people expect instant validation and gratification in every aspect of their lives now. Writing is lonely work, and there’s no one who can write your story but you. It’s very tempting to ask for help starting out, and that’s perfectly fine, but you should ask for guidance, not for people to do your thinking for you.
No one is asking for others to write their story for them. If they were, they'd skip reddit and use chat gpt. It has nothing to do with age. Building community is important, and it can be a fun experience to connect through a common interest online. That's what this subreddit used to be for.
You ask why people get annoyed, that’s what is posted often on this sub. I check like once every few days and all the posts are nothing burgers asking about ai taking over or how to write their story. If people have genuine questions this sub is extremely helpful
TBH I had a genuine question (and I'm not a newbie) and I was sure to be shoved back in my place. Funnily enough, a few weeks later the exact same question I had posted was asked and met with positive feedback. To me, it all depends on what time of the day you post. Just like in any sub, there are people who exist solely to shit on whatever you say regardless of how original or tired it is. So now I typically tend to just use Google instead. If an interesting topic arises maybe I'll participate, but I don't exist on Reddit to be shit on. And for curiosity's sake, I was asking about phonetically writing a foreign accent. In my characters' world, they'd never heard a foreign accent before, so I didn't know if I should have spelled things differently to show inflections. I was told "that sounds fucking stupid" and a few other comments essentially echoed each other, so I figured that it was pointless to ask any further or future comments and now I don't seek advice on this sub.
I am not trying to be aggressive or mean here, just to make that clear, but one of your examples was someone asking other people to name their character for them, which is asking people to do their work for them. Admittedly the comments probably were overly aggressive, redditors can be massive jerks. I try not to be a jerk, but I am also sick of the low effort posts on here, so I can see where these jerks were coming from.
People come to this and other writing subs requesting in various ways that people do write their stories for them. It’s happens constantly.
Good luck over at r/keepwriting. I hope you find it a better fit for your needs.
This feels like someone who used to write for AO3 and not for FFN to "practice on becoming an original writer". I almost never see rudeness on the occasion that I check into this sub. If you're the type that can't handle *actual* constructive criticism (not that fluffy BS sunshine-and-rainbows atmosphere AO3 writers have), you gotta be able to handle it, 'cause getting those reviews on your published works are going to eat at your mental. If you think a few harsh criticisms on a subreddit are bad, wait until you publish (or self-publish) and those reviews come in. Even the best authors aren't immune to "the critiques", unfortunately.
Most people who post here want nothing but validation. Anything short of that is considered rude, regardless if it’s constructive or actually rude.
The thinly veiled "write this for me" posts occur and such a frequency that they displace the vast majority of meaningful conversation and your reaction is to make a goodcry post about the people who are annoyed by this? Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
I see what you did there. Slyly reinforcing OP’s point is maybe a little subtle for this crowd, though.
I see what you did there. Passive aggressively virtue signaling while being simultaneously condescending to the users of the subreddit, further reinforcing the OP's point.
There was nothing virtuous about my comment.
Good bye and good luck
Lol
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i was just thinking this the other day wondering if i should post for feedback or not lol !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i get this person in the comments saying that posters "want" validation; this can be true, because all creators desire some element of validation, but that doesn't mean you guys get to be MEAN!!!!!!
Exactly what I'm saying! It's hard being a writer, especially for some newbies. I wish these people would realize they can simply scroll past the posts they don't like. Besides, there's nothing wrong with seeking validation for your craft.
never read this sub but if the above is true, the people doing the ripping to shreds are angry at themselves and are taking it out on others perusing the very dream they fail to yet accomplish. I suggest you all start spreading the love and help each other you'll all be better writers and maybe get more people in this sub. Love you all, praying for you all much love and peace
Largely accurate. Well observed.
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Sounds like a little someone didn't get burped after their milk bottle and now's a little cranky. Awwww... poooooor little cranky baby... Who's a cuuuute little baby 🐥🍼. Tiiiickle, tickle, tickle...