Good advice....

Dammit.

//Thinking of oneself as a virtuoso is a great part of the appeal, on top of simple human cruelty. You’re exercising your craft and you’re doing it well, and to applause from readers — admittedly those who enjoy watching blood sports, but still, they’re happy and you’re doing something for them few others can do. And your targets: They’re big boys, they can take it, and anyway if they can’t stand the heat they shouldn’t have gone into the kitchen in the first place. They deserve what you give them, and heck, maybe they’ll learn from the experience.

The thinking runs along those lines: I’m doing what I’m supposed to and it’s a fair fight and, if you must talk about the good, what I’m doing is really an act of charity to reader and target too. Which is an entirely worldly way of thinking. The Christian should be asking: What specific and concrete good does this do? Who does it help? If it helps anyone, how does it help them? Does it edify the reader or tempt him to uncharity? Does it correct the target or hurt him? Will it make reader and target better men? The writer has to be a kind of virtuoso of kindness.//