Although, in that situation, it just might be stating the obvious...

"Gosh... you SUCK!"
"Ig Knofwg!"

/surprisingly serious response.
 

I have mixed feelings on this.

On one hand, sometimes I look back at my art from even my senior year in high school, and some of it/a lot of it was REALLY BAD. Let's not even speak of back in 7th grade when I first started to really get into art. Even now, I feel pretty much like my stuff sucks in comparison to a lot of other people. Heck, today I ripped a drawing from earlier this year out of my sketchbook and threw it away because I couldn't stand to look at it anymore. I don't do that often, because I think it's important to learn from your screw ups.

Anyway, I'm glad that even when I suck, I've had people who have been both encouraging and willing to help me improve(not just sugarcoat everything). Art is discouraging enough without other people basically telling you to stop because you suck. Even if they DO suck, it's possible to improve. In animation, in the space of a few weeks alone, I saw one of my classmates models improve dramatically because something just clicked finally.

At the same time, I think it's important to have a realistic idea of your skill level. You would hopefully not let your tone-deaf friend go out for open mic night without explaining that maybe he'd like some voice lessons.

That being said, I don't have a lot of patience for people who can't deal with constructive criticism. In which case, they probably wouldn't listen to you if you told them they suck anyway. They're probably never going to finish their novel anyway so just let them have their fun. Sometimes, as terrible as it sounds, it's not worth it to bother.

everyone saying "be nice or they'll hate you" needs to get their shit slapped.

a hugbox never made anyone get better, rip them apart and they'll either thank you for it or they weren't ever really all that important a friend to begin with.

I think it's rather silly to portray it as only being two choices. There are lots of different kinds of people and the ideal ways of handling a situation vary depending.

If they're absolutely terrible and not getting better and you know they don't take constructive criticism well, it's actually probably best to avoid the subject. Why lose a friend you presumably like for unrelated reasons over the fact that they draw poorly or can't write well.

If they're terrible and take constructive criticism well, there's no need to rip into them and be a dick about it, because there's perfectly decent ways of criticizing something without being an asshole about it.

These seem the two main possibilities relevant the thread, in my opinion.

When Sevenshot starts a ne-

ffffffffffffffff

see, this is the shit I am talking about.

And then you go home and get drunk.
 

On the topic of it not being worth it, I'm in a class right now that I get the pleasure of critiquing terrible fine art, and one night we critiqued a series of bad meat-flower-vagina paintings and you can critique them all day but in the end, you realize you've wasted a half an hour of your life talking about meat-flower-vaginas. No amount of polishing will make it not terrible.

There comes a time when telling them they suck is okay to an extent.

So long as they are strong, they handle it just fine. Just don't ripped them a new fuck hole and be sure to explain why they suck. They may hate you at first but in time they'll thank you.

No. Not in this case. You've pretty much indicated that the sole reason you want to do this is because they're bad at writing, and it sounds like you basically just want to tell them they're shit and should quit. It'd be one thing if they were pursuing it to the extent that they hurt themselves while aggressively rejecting all criticism and refusing to evolve. However, even then I'm not sure I think you really have the right to decide they should just quit. It's your perogative to be personally frustrated and angry with them, and to to tell them about it, but that's less about telling them they're shit and more about telling them to stop being an ass. As far as you've indicated though, this isn't even that kind of situation.

If you want to tell them they're shit and should stop being shit, then by all means, provided you've got some constructive criticism. If you think their expectations of writing and of their writing ability are wrong, then that's something too. Just telling them to quit though, is shallow advice, and just being a dick.

It takes a long time to be even decent at anything as complex as writing. Look at all the crap that actually gets published; probably like one percent of it is something you could call "good" writing. If that.

Liz has already brought up the false dichotomy here, but I wanted to say that sometimes, even a lot of times, this is exactly what people need. It just depends on the situation. A lot of the time all you can do is take a guess at what will work and say what you believe.

Hell, I've known mindlessly agreeing with people just because they're your friend to be the thing that got them to take a second look at what they were saying and think about it more clearly.

This just seems like glorifying TOUGH LOVE to me. I also hate the idea that you get to blame the other person for not magically seeing the light when you tell them they're shit. It's like some weird kind of victim blaming.

Yes writers and artists and etc need to be told the truth if they're going to improve, but you also need to accept that they're not just going to automatically change because you know exactly what they need. And really, a friend probably shouldn't make their friendship contingent on getting thanked for their brilliant criticism. It's entirely likely that someone will come around to your way of thinking without ever giving you the credit, and really you have no way of really knowing if it was YOU that was instrumental in changing them anyway - that's ego talking. Fortunately, you didn't help them so that they would thank you - you did it because you were their friend, so I'm sure that's not a problem.

Hey it helped me realize that Mischief Knights and everything about it was a steaming piece of shit and that my only fan was just some pervert who may have just been in it for the tits anyway. Hugbox works bro, not all the time but it can get some results with the right timing. :cool:

And now to freak the fuck out over spending 5 years of my life plotting up over 200+ chapters of something that ultimately was a peice of shit with bad drawings all the way.


The sooner you tell them they are bad at writing the sooner you can pervent them from becoming me. A homeless loser who ruined his life on a false belief that he was talented at writing/art.

As I am attempting to be a writer myself, I can offer some insight.
 

So long as you don't go all Fifth about it and tell the person you're critiquing* that their work sucks more balls than a ball-suck-o-matic** and offer some intelligent, reasoned arguments about the weak points in their work and how they could improve it, then 9 times out of 10, they should listen and calmly and rationally accept your advice.***

Of course, when you run into the 1 that doesn't, feel free to go all Fifth about it. It's better in the long run that you shock them out of their comfort zone and make them understand, through any means possible, that their work is not as good as they think it is.

Of course, if you can't offer any tips on how they could improve, leave it to someone else. Or maybe reading is just not your thing. I could suggest this wonderful site where they have moving pictures that might be more your speed. I believe it is called 'the youtubes'.

*That is what w- they call it, instead of criticism.
**No, I don't know where you'd get one, stop asking.
***Dear GODS what a run-on sentence!