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I think people should not be allowed to call themselves a 'writer' until they've learned to make the distinction between themselves and their stories, and between a critique and a flame.
I don't care how harshly a critique is phrased, or how hurt you are by it, if it's the truth, it had to be said. I don't really care if you're only 14 and this is your first story. If you're so sensitive about your story that you'd quit writing, or fandom altogether, because you're being told the truth, then maybe you shouldn't make the story public, or at least not ask for feedback. Feedback does not equal praise.
Joanne made the anology between writing and painting, and I think it's a good one. I'm goin to run with it now.
Assume your hobby is painting. Assume you're somewhat average at it. Not really bad, but not really all that good, either. So you paint happily away, in the privacy of your own home. Maybe every once in a while you'll show something to your friends. Your friends, being the polite, good friends that they are, will nod and say "Good, very good."
Now, say you're gaining confidence, and you're doing an exhibition. People come and watch your paintings. Maybe one of them'll be a professional critic. Chaces are at least some of them will be amateur critics, or people who just generally know about painting. Exhibition ends, people go home, and a few days later, there's a report in a local newspaper.
Imagine that tis report is a page-long, detailed explanation of everything you're doing wrong in your paintings. What do you do? You can call the reporter a bitch/bastard, or you can seriously consider the critique, but you can't claim the reporter shouldn't have said all that in public, that [s]he should've been nicer about it, bla bla bla. Well, you can, of course, but you're going to make a fool of yourself.
I don't see any difference between a writer and a painter, other than their medium. Writers are not porcelain dolls, people. We don't break from public critique. [And aside from that, the more public critique we see, the less mistakes we make to be critiqued.] I'm sick and tired of people treating writers like we're something spayshul, something to be revered above all else. For fuck's sake! Everybody's got a talent. Ours happens to be writing. That doesn't make us God's Chosen Ones or something.
Get over it. And all you writers who casually throw temper-tantrums because you're not getting enough feedback, or the wrong kind, and threaten to stop writing if people don't play nice, get over yourselves!
