One of the hardest parts of writing is turning off the voices in your head – not your characters but the rotten voices telling you a myriad of lies. They might tell you to avoid writing about certain subjects or that you have to include some genre element in your story to satisfy readers. They might tell you that you’re not good enough, that you’ll never succeed, and that you better not let your mother read that. They can be nastier than Twitter users.
In a post on Writer Unboxed, Kellsey Allagood offers comments for silencing your inner comments section. Worse than your inner critic, your inner comments section mirrors the worse part of the internet, where people can respond directly to anything, usually in the nastiest way possible.
“Mine resembles the sort of commenter that takes every sentence in bad faith,” Allagood writes. “Unintentionally, I’ve started couching the words I write in clarifications against arguments that no one has made, almost as if I’m trying to anticipate every bad-faith reading someone could have.”
If you listen to your inner comments section, you might never write at all. Worse, you might try to write in such a way that eliminates every possible bad-faith reading of your work. “That is, of course, impossible,” Allagood says. “Attempting to write a perfectly watertight article or a novel without plot holes is a great way to A) go insane, and B) play the world’s worst game of Whack-A-Mole as you chase every possible misreading of your words off the edge of a cliff.”
To quiet those commenters, Allagood suggests:
- Understanding that your brain is trying to protect you. Your brain may interpret writing as a risk that should be mitigated or not taken at all. Fortunately, the rest of your brain knows how to handle those risks and doesn’t have to listen. Even in you read something nasty in a real-life comments section, you can deal.
- Recognize the difference between your inner critic and your inner comments section. Your inner critic attacks your skills, but in a weird way, it wants you to be a better writer. However, internet commenters – in and out of your brain – aren’t there to help. Theoretically, they exist to let people interact. In reality, they draw users who enjoy finding this to tear apart. “They are not our colleagues or our friends: they are background chatter,” Allagood says. “Why would you listen to someone who’s just being mean to you out of spite?”
- Actually face the bad voices. The best defense is a good offense. Listen to what the inner comments section is saying and you’ll soon realize how ridiculous it sounds.
- Take external actions for internal comfort. Sometimes writers are subjected to harassment or actual threats to their physical safety. If you feel this is a real risk for you, Allagood suggests you consider real-life ways to make yourself feel safer. Those steps can include using a pseudonym, scrubbing the internet for your personal information, and making active use of the block function on social media. Some concrete actions might make it easier for you to handle your internal commenters.
