: Re: How to stick to your vision when you’re highly suggestible? As a person, I'm a bit of a people-pleaser. I tend to bend over backward to avoid conflict and make people happy. I've reached

@Cofer669

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I'm fond of the following quote from Neil Gaiman:

Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for
them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what
they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.

You're the cook, they're the diner. If they don't like the taste of the omelet, you can't tell them they're wrong. But it's up to you to figure out what's wrong and how to fix it.
The tester/editor does not have the required perspective to tell you how to fix the problem. They don't know what the story is supposed to be, and until the story works, they will guess what it's supposed to be and guess wrong.
They don't know what your motivations are for writing it. They don't know all the blind alleys you tried and crawled out of. All they know is whether it works or not. The best they can do is point to a specific part that doesn't seem to work, but just because that's where the symptoms show, doesn't mean that that's where the problem is.
Their job is to say if it works, your job is to find the problem. If you keep these two concerns separate, you can have a very healthy relation with any tester or editor.

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