Do you tell people only what they want to hear?

a critic is good, it points out what is good about the work if there is anything good about it, it also points out what needs to be fixed up. And it offers suggestions, I am very good at what I do, but there are some people who just do not want to hear that there work is not perfect. I am a professional writer, I get edits on my work all the time, anyone serious about writing will have to learn to accept it as well it is part of the process, I once told someone in school, who gave me their work to edit that it was not good, it was not clear, very hard to understand, they looked at me like I was crazy, instead of taking my advise on how to improve the piece they thought it was perfect and sent it in to the professor that way. He send it back without even reading it gave them an F and said he would look at it again if the fixed it up, but he was not going to look at page after page of mistakes. When my friend asked me to edit her papers I told before I started that I will not sugar coat anything, if it is wrong it is wrong, I am looking at grammar and the building of a good scholastic argument, her point of view is her point of view, that does not change but how she presents her work will have to. The first paper I could make any sense out of it, but she had a wonderful conclusion which was so well done and I told her that. She told me that was funny because her professors always told her the same thing, they had no idea what she was talking about but she had a wonderful conclusion. Well I took her from a c- paper writer, to an A paper writer in the course of the year. But you know what, she accepts criticism and improved her work. After the year was over, I told her she was on her own now she no longer needed my help, she knew what she was doing. I read some of her work after that and told her that I felt she had become a better writer than even me.

Thanks for sharing, winterose. You know well that there are people.. and there are people. I have met people like that too. I sometimes edit articles for friends (free) and after spending time and effort on the task, I receive no reply or acknowledgment. Quite often, the person just chucks what I said aside, begging the question "why come to me if you are not interested?"

I was fortunate to be trained by a writer and historian and that was sometimes brutal because she expected only the best from me. I will never be as good a writer as she, but she knows she got the best I had to offer and it was satisfied. it is a pay it forward kind of thing, she told me her first paper she wrote in university was handed back to her as well. She was given a mark of C+ put the professor told her to rewrite it if she wanted a grade recorded. Dorothy was annoyed she said it is a C+ it is a pass you have to record it. Her professor looked at her and said, from other students in my class that is a respected grade but from you it is only mediocre and I am not going to accept it. This was one of Dorothy's major lessons in life. She rewrote her paper and received an A and received A from that class and every other one after that. That teacher taught her that being average was not good enough when you are just wasting your true potential. I knew my friend Anita had that potential as well. Whereas some other students I have had, I helped them to less rigorous training because they were not meant to be great writers, not meaning to say that they were not intelligent people but writing would never be their forte and they knew it as well. They were more into math, science, computers that sort of stuff.

I don't bother with people who ask and then get nasty because they don't like the answers, I will not lie, or say things just to make them feel good, I tell the truth as I see it, sometimes that truth is that they are too hard on themselves, it does happen

I will not do that in a public forum like this one, but if you send it to me personally, I can see what I can do. If you want to write to practice please come join my newsletter, and write for me. You will meet many english writers, I have over 400 of them.

Your English seems much better than most of what we see translated from Chinese. Winterose is right for you - once you reach a level of striving for improvement (rather than assuming your work is perfect), you will benefit greatly from working with someone who will be honest with you about your deficiencies as well as about your strengths. Winterose, perhaps you could share some of those 25-hour days you seem to have floating aobut . . .

absolutely, I do not grade a piece negatively because I do not like the subject matter that is totally unfair. I know once a piece asked me to critic a western they were writing, I declined, the reason being, personally I don't care for westerns but more importantly I am not familiar with that genre and I felt that I was not qualified to give the piece as much justice as it deserved. Sure I could tell her if the was a spelling error etc, but I did not know the format that the publishing houses were using for westerns.

the question is a simple one do you tell the truth or lie to the person so they can hear what they want to here? of course because you tell someone the truth you use diplomacy, you don't have to be mean and nasty to tell the truth, but if the question is should I marry bobby, and all that person wants to hear is yes, and you don't think the person should because bobby is mean and nasty whether she is in love with him or not do you tell her to go for it because that is what she wants to hear because she loves him, or do you say in your opinion since she asked, no she shouldn't because she may be hurt, not only physically but emotionally as well. Do you tell her the truth, you don't have to call her a stupid idiot for even considering it just do you tell her the truth or just what she wants to hear