Okay... as many of you know, I went to this tutoring seminar and I got this wonderful wealth of information. One of the topics that was discussed was the difference between praise and encouragement. You see, praise was discouraged. At first, that whole concept was like "WTF?" to me. I mean, I always thought praise was supposed to be good. But they made sure to explain it.
Praise would be complimenting the person. So if you said, "Wow, Snoink, you're the best!" you would be praising me. And this is bad. For one, you're not being specific. As writers, we should strive to be specific, and you telling me I'm great is either disregarded by me as false information, or regarded and then dismissed as something nice, but not particularly relevent.
Encouragement, on the other hand, is complimenting the work. So if I say, "You're great at organizing your stories," then that would be encouragement. Why? Because it confirms that, yes, I am good at something and it makes me want proud of organizing my stories. So, even if my story is absolute crap, I know at least I did something right, which will make me happy.
So remember: praise = bad. Be encouraging instead.
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