...about the original point; while I've been accused of writing my own story in the comments section, IMO at least, it's been years since I was antagonistic about the author's version in a public comment, and I don't think this is about me.

But the assertion that a person isn't qualified to raise an objection to something unless they've done it is absurd. There's a legitimate argument as to whether they know the degree of difficulty involved in avoiding the problem. But they certainly know what they've read (or listened to, or seen, or tasted, or experienced), and the reason they think it's not as good as it could or should be.

I don't have to write a 50,000 word story to know that when a character is trying to hide his or her return to a town, opening up a restaurant there under their real name isn't a good idea.

Or that it's a major copout to announce in the final chapter that the reason a real-world story doesn't reconcile the points we've been waiting for is because it was all a dream. (That author: "Well, you liked the first 95% of the story, right?")

Or even that there's something anticlimactic when the ultimate confrontation between the protagonist and his enemy that we've been awaiting occurs after both their vehicles tumble off a cliff in a third-party car accident, so they can both die with the satisfaction of knowing their adversary is dying too, but no interaction occurs. (That certainly doesn't invalidate the story. But it can leave a reader with the feeling that the author got tired of writing it and decided to clear the stage, even if that's not true. And I think a reader is qualified to point that out, though it's certainly less confrontational on that commenter's part to say that it could leave that impression, as opposed to accusing the author of having done so.)

Anyway, if (as you seem to be saying here) a reader feels that a story should be either sweeter or more raw than the one the author is providing, that's the reader's "fault" and not the author's. But I can't see how it makes any difference at all whether or not the commenter has written stories. Violating Erin's "friendly place" rule, or the "It's not about you" rule, creates the same problem no matter how often the commenter also posts stories here; the two factors have nothing in common.

Eric

His Essay on Criticism begins:

'Tis hard to say, if greater want of skill
Appear in writing or in judging ill;
But, of the two, less dang'rous is th' offence
To tire our patience, than mislead our sense.
Some few in that, but numbers err in this,
Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss;
A fool might once himself alone expose,
Now one in verse makes many more in prose.

I recommend it.

I try never to be negative to a writer; I know how writers bare their soul online/in print. Try to find something positive to say; even if it is along the lines "I hated your ending, but it was so powerful it moved me. I wish it could have been different, but I know it is your story and has to be true to your spirit(s)."

I once told JF Gonzalez (a horror writer) that I hated HIM for writing one of his extreme books [Maternal Instinct]. He asked my why, and I told him it was so strong that I was immersed in the book's evil. He said that was ok: getting a strong visceral response form readers was what he wanted to get. I also had read it 3 times, when he asked me to proof different editions....