WAC: Reading others
A challenge will mean there's a lot of people writing similar stuff. What's there to learn?
When participating in a community event, you’ll encounter other authors. While it can be difficult to read other's content without feeling overwhelmed or intimidated, you can learn from them and meet new people! So, how do we read other people's works, taking in the positive aspects while simultaneously keeping our brain goblins in check?
This is the fourth article of my “Worldbuilding & Challenges” series, where I will talk about worldbuilding events, why you should take part in them, and share some tips for them.
Reading time: 5 minutes.
Table of contents
Comparison
One thing that often occupies our minds when we read content (sometimes unconsciously) is comparing our content with the one we read. This frequently can lead to us thinking that our content is bad, not satisfactory or conveys other, equally bad thoughts.
Of course, saying "Just don't compare yourself to others" never works. So, why don't we try to redirect these thoughts to understand where they come from and how we can silence them?
These bad feelings stem from us thinking what we create is not good enough or that we can do better, but often don’t know how to, and we see the content we consider better in the works of others.
I’m not going to say it’s necessarily an easy exercise, it can be easier or harder depending on yourself and how you feel about the content you are writing. While you read the content, pay attention to what parts draw you in, what makes you think “holy hell, this is the good stuff”. After you read it, try to think what parts impressed you most, and why you think it’s good.
Then…
Learning
With all these small notes (mental or written, that’s on you), think of how you can improve your content based on them. Do not simply copy the other author, that’s bad etiquette and should be avoided (except for cases where the author explicitly stated that it's ok).
Think of what details they speak about, the questions they answer that you didn’t even think of, how the format you enjoy could be applied to your content and if you really think you need it.
Once you’ve decided what might fit your content and what you’d like to try in it, make it unique to your content, don’t just steal as it is, but find ways to make it unique to your world, whether in format, visualization, or other shenanigans.
Sharing Love
While reading content, not everything should be used to learn, improve, and beat the bad thoughts, you should also enjoy the reading and entertain yourself. If you read things that you enjoy, that make you laugh, cry, be happy, etc, let the writer know!
Give it a like, follow the author/world to get more, and, the most amazing thing a writer can ask for (that’s free, we all would love to be paid for our writing): leave a comment saying what you enjoyed most and/or ask any question that might have come to mind.
Giving/Getting Feedback
Sometimes while reading, we would like to offer some feedback on a couple of things we might have seen as wrong, or the author asked for feedback on their work. While feedback is a great way to improve content, it's also a very delicate thing to approach.
When you are leaving feedback, one important thing to have in mind is that you should be leaving constructive feedback and be nice. Telling someone their content sucks and not explaining why you think so, or that their content is awesome and not explaining what you liked most is not helpful and if it's negative, you run the risk of coming across as a bit of a jerk.
If you want to leave feedback but the author hasn’t mentioned that they want feedback, a quick question, if you could send them some feedback, is more than appreciated. Not everyone is happy to get feedback and there are simply times when it’s not wanted or needed.
If you want to receive feedback, you should specify somewhere that you want some and what kind of feedback you’d like. If you just tell people to give you feedback without specifying what kind, you’ll end up with feedback of things you didn’t even think about (which can be good or bad). If you specify what kind of feedback you want, people will pay more attention to it and are also more likely to leave a comment.
If you are the one receiving feedback, you should always remember that all feedback is optional. You are under no obligation to implement all suggestions you are given by other people's feedback. It is also important to remember that different people have different tastes and that you can get contradictory feedback, so you should follow the ones that fit your style and/or vision better.
Tell me
What do you feel about reading other people’s articles? Do they often help you or give you some enjoyable reading? Or do they usually bring insecurities and doubts? If it’s the latter, will you try redirecting the bad thoughts of comparison to improve yourself?
Keep reading the series
Reading others (this article!)
Burning out (to be written)