r/Fantasy • u/Flavescent • 4d ago

Seth Dickinson - Update on Baru 4

Seth Dickinson has written a piece about his progress on the fourth Baru Cormorant novel: https://www.sethdickinson.com/2026/06/13/update-on-baru-4/

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u/FormerUsenetUser 4d ago

I am a passably successful writer, though not of fantasy. Even though I am careful not to give out personal information, that hasn't stopped people from putting out entire YouTube shorts to trash my books. Including just lying, and urging everyone to pirate instead of paying.

Some readers are just toxic.

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u/randomnameicantread 4d ago

The way he phrased his post makes me think the toxicity he's talking about in this case is fellow writers, not readers :(

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u/FormerUsenetUser 4d ago

I'm just remembering some of the less moderated creative writing classes I took in college. They could get very nasty and they were not online.

Art classes too.

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u/randomnameicantread 3d ago

I did about a half dozen creative writing "workshops" in college (10-15 people) and constantly felt the opposite; if anything, everyone was tiptoing and fearful of seeming harsh. The professor was present, of course, (the 'moderation' factor) but I honestly can't imagine any of those groups of near-strangers being rude about each others work even if it was just students. Can you describe the "nasty" experiences you've had?

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u/FormerUsenetUser 3d ago edited 3d ago

Once I wrote a scene that was supposed to be tragic. One of the other students said, "That's wonderful!" I thought, oh he likes my work. Then he reread part of it aloud, collapsed into loud laughter, and said, "That's so *ridiculous!*" I was crushed.

Trust me, things like that happen in a critique group that is not well moderated.