I posted earlier on the subject of Honesty vs Tact in critiquing. The problem with the Honesty vs Tact argument is that the two are not mutually exclusive. Tact is not dishonesty. Tact is the ability to communicate our ideas without giving offense. Naturally, we can only do so much to avoid giving offense–especially if we want to honestly express …

A topic recently came up on the Scribophile forums, posing the question: When critiquing someone else’s work, is it better to be honest or tactful?  The overwhelming response seemed to be “Brutal honesty is the only way to learn”, but I had a big problem with the original premise. Honesty and tact are not on opposite sides of a spectrum, …