When Negativity Screams at You!

You might or might not remember that Dr. Lovely Daughter is a psychologist. We have interesting conversations on human behavior. Lucky for me she hasn't written her bestseller, The 500 Ways My Mother Warped Me, yet. Let's hope she doesn’t get around to it because it might prompt my son to bring up his own list of 500 favorite ways I warped him. I mean none of that will be pretty for me. Right?

One of our conversations included Internet Trolls and what makes them tick. Why are those people so inclined to be mean behind (mostly) fake names? Are they evil? Do they have a mental illness? Do they have idle time on their hands? Why are they vicious and cruel, sometimes telling others to kill themselves? It's a real thing.

And more importantly, why do we give them worth in our lives?

No matter how good or accomplished a writer (artist, actor, dancer, musician, etc.) that you are, you will most likely have people reviewing your work in both constructive and destructive ways. We all have room to grow. Constructive criticism is helpful if we use it for what it is. Negative critiques, used for the power of just being mean, are far from helpful.

Need help dealing with negative reviews?

Debbie Young talks about it here. She writes about perspective. Is the review relative to the book or is it about the store where it was purchased. She wants the writer to consider the reader’s perspective and also focus on the positive while learning from the negative.  

One thing she does not say to do is give the reviewer a good tongue lashing. Darn it!

Pamela Jane for Writer’s Digest writes here about Making the Most of Bad Book Reviews. She offers five tips on fighting back which includes laughing, forgetting it and writing and other things.

None of her methods include an internet tongue lashing either, but they’re good points.

Here's one more by Michael Alvear at The Write Life. He writes that it is okay to get bad reviews and why he thinks so.

If we review  a service, a product, a book or anything, we need to consider the place from which we pull the review. It should not originate out of  jealousy, personal dislike of a person or based on a mood. Reviews, like all sentences from our brain, should be well thought out, helpful and inspiring. I've said it before and will say it again, not everything we think needs to be said.

T.