: Re: Critique vs nitpicking During an in-class activity for my AP Lang class, each student did a cold read of a piece they chose, then all the students provided critique out loud and written on

@Odierno164

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Ignore It.
The anonymous person in question didn't understand the task. The objective is to criticize your writing, not to psychoanalyze you and recommend a therapy.
It doesn't make a difference if your piece is dark, light, or gray, funny or somber. It makes no difference what sexual orientation you express, or political orientation, or anything else your piece might reveal or be about.
The job of critique is to improve the writing for clarity and consistency. To help get the point across regardless of what the point is. To point out confusions, contradictions, or bland writing, problems in sentence formation, a lack of variety in sentence length, clichés, unnecessary repetitiveness, an overuse of adjectives, pacing problems.
Critique is about the writing, not the topic. Ignore the idiots, friend, they out-number us 3 to 1 and pretty much run the world, it's pointless to fight them.
Ignore people that don't understand the job or know how to do it. And, don't be afraid to ask for critique of your writing, though you might explain the above to anybody that might not know what "critique" means.
Valid critique (like from an agent or publisher or editor) can be legitimately brutal (notes like "cut all this, it is boring," "far too long", "confused and ineffective", etc), but that is not about your personal life, that is about crafting beautiful writing that works, it is about craft, and it can be taken in the spirit of tough love to help you improve.

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