1. Tell them that Creative Writing is a useless major and that they’ll never get a job.
2. Complain that their characters need more physical descriptions. You know you’re overthinking a story when you ask what a character’s foot size is.
3. Call them an awful person for killing off one of their characters.
4. Whine about how you didn’t like the ending of their story because, “OMG how could you???”
5. Get mad at them for writing instead of doing something “productive.”
6, Always use improper grammar and never punctuate your sentences.
7. Never use paragraphs in your stories.
8. Ask why periods are important (the punctuation kind, obviously).
9. Use “lay” when you actually mean, “lie.” Yes, they do have different meanings.
10. Call all writers antisocial, depressed, alcoholics (Hey, only some of us are!).
11. Constantly remind them of how bookstores are at risk of extinction.
12. Share this joke with them: “What’s the difference between a writer and a park bench? A park bench can support a family.”
13. Dissuade a writer from cursing in their work—even if it fits the character—because you can’t handle that kind of language.
14. Give this as constructive criticism: “I super duper hate the name you used for a character.”
15. Say: “But anyone can write.”
16. Constantly ask them to share their work with you. You might as well ask them to publicly strip—but at least one of those options might be paid, right?
17. Comment on social media with an obnoxious amount of spelling mistakes and then act like what you’re saying is intelligent and well-thought-out.
18. Read their work after they’ve asked for your opinion and then hardly give a response afterwards.
19. Throw the word “cliché” around so much when discussing stories that the word itself becomes a cliché.
20. Claim that you know more about writing than they do. Unless you’re in a professional writing field or have a passion for language, then you probably don’t. However, bad writers do exist…