Robbi Holman asked Lois McMaster Bujold:

I have a small readership of some very narrow work (callback to our discussion of Mark & Kareen), and some of my readers are very pushy. Sometimes they try to bully me into making my characters become a certain way or do certain things. Does anyone ever try to get into your head to try to direct your characters and if so, do you ignore them or think about what they've asked/demanded?

Lois McMaster Bujold Well, I always listen to commentary with interest, because it's a source of endless fascination to me the wildly varied ways people read and process the same text. But that's just a kind of mildly masochistic self-indulgence. Otherwise, I pretty much ignore them. My story, my characters; if they want to be in charge, they can write their own. If they want someone to take dictation, they can hire a stenographer.

Exceptions are readers with technical expertise in some element that has come up in the story -- medicine, for example -- who can give me advice or ideas or prevent me from making gaffes in matters of fact. Technical expertise can extend to certain characterization issues sometimes, so as almost always in writing, the boundaries are fuzzy and the true answer is, It Depends.

Note that there is also a difference between solicited critique, before a work is published with the explicit goal of test-driving it and uncovering flaws, and later commentary, after it's entirely too late to change anything and anyway the writer has already moved on to the next project. (If writers treat the latter with the same attention as the former, they will drive themselves crazy.)

Ta, L.

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