Tips for Young Writers 22: Accept criticism, but don’t agree with everything.

Accept criticism, but don’t agree with everything. There’s a fantastic saying that goes, ‘To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.’ Anytime you do, say or be anything there will be people around who want to criticise you – sometimes because they want to put you in your place, and other times because they want to help you. Learn to know the difference between those two types of criticism, then learn to know which ‘helpful’ criticism is good for your story and which you should ignore. But whatever you do, accept criticism as an interesting and sometimes very useful part of writing – and life.