As a pratical lens on this advice: people are excellent at giving feedback on their problems. They are terrible at identifying how to fix it.

"It felt too long" was right. The solution was not to make the story shorter. The solution was to look at the parts that felt long, and believe that feedback.

If you're building something, and your users tell you it's complicated or it's slow or it's not useful, they're right! The fix may or may not be to make it simpler, faster, or more useful. Maybe it needs to be organized better, or to create deliberate moments of action, or to be used at a different time. The problems are real, but the obvious solutions are not always right.

▲

justonceokay 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I’ve heard exactly the same advice re: focus groups. A focus group can give excellent feedback but terrible advice. Probably applies to comment sections in the modern day too.

So if they didn’t like your movie the movie probably is bad. But don’t listen to them about what they would change about the movie. They don’t know anything about the creative process.

▲

theluketaylor 2 hours ago | parent [-]

A phrase I heard from a tv writer on a podcast was "note behind the note".

The gist of the conversation was about TV execs giving all sorts of bonkers notes all the time that are usually terrible. This writer tried to think about what might have triggered the exec to make a note. Maybe the characters are not engrossing enough, or the plot is too complex, or the dialogue isn't snappy enough. If the exec had been engrossed in the story they wouldn't have made a note. This writer rarely implemented any note from an exec, but did make all sorts of changes in and around noted sections.

▲

twoodfin 35 minutes ago | parent [-]

This reminds me of the infamous Sid Sheinberg memo to Steven Speilberg and Bob Zemeckis on changing the title of “Back to the Future”.

https://imgur.com/gallery/producers-memo-to-speilberg-during...

“Behind the note”, it’s about emphasizing the goofy fun of the film, rather than the genre elements, and in that it’s right on.

	▲	NordStreamYacht 23 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I would never have gone to see a spaceman from Pluto.

▲

TulliusCicero an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is true for casual users, but if you're getting feedback from enthusiasts or even experts, their solutions are often -- not always, but often -- quite good.

▲

dorksquad an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> "It felt too long" was right. The solution was not to make the story shorter. The solution was to look at the parts that felt long, and believe that feedback.

smells like LLM