Carly's Ramblings Blog - Style

Unsolicitied Advise

30 Day Blogging Challenge

Prompt: Discuss a time in your life when someone has tried to "fix" or "solve" a problem for you - but you didn't see it as a problem in the first place.
How do you generally handle unsolicited opinions/advice?
The most recent of this kind of thing was at own of my writing groups. A young woman had much to say about my story when I made the mistake of mentioning what I was trying to work out... some advise is welcomed, but this woman seemed to think she was quite the authority and that is what rubbed me the wrong way. I let her talk, smiled and nodded and knowing what I know about my story, I knew her advise would not cut it. I did not want to burst her bubble and tell her so. But I have seen her do much the same thing to other writers in our group and many of them tend not to agree with her advise either. One very vocal writer in our group just looked at her blankly when she was giving someone else advise and then spoke her mind later when we were heading home. It was quite funny really.

She is a lovely young woman, but.... she just doesn't know the full story.

From her, I have learned you can't take everyone's advise. You have to frame it with your own thoughts as the story is ultimately yours. Had she read the whole thing, maybe I would think differently, but she seems to be talking from a general place of what needs to happen in a story to make it good. I get that, but I also know their are intricacies that make a story work and she is not privy to that information.

I think this is true of much advise we get from others. We need to take an objective look at what they have to offer and either accept it or dismiss it depending on the merits of the advise as it pertains to our life. It is our life after all.