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Honestly.

I've noticed a lot of people who claim to have any kind of writing talent giving a lot of advice to people who have little or none.

Or, as I like to think of it, the one eyed, leading the blind.

Now, this is a serious question someone of substance should ask themselves:

"Why should anyone take writing advice from me?"

So, before anyone gets offended and defensive, ask yourself, why is your writing advice worth listening to?

You throw out a bunch of answers to a person who asks a question, one or more may be applicable enough for the asker to relate to and possibly follow. Therefore I'm going to throw my s**t in there too. May not do anything at all, but it's nice to think it may help someone some day.

Now what gives me or anybody any authority to be giving advice? Well, I don't know. Don't really care, either. I figure if you got something to say, then just say it. If it's useless to someone, it'll be rightfully ignored.

Not too big on the idea of getting advice, myself. I think firm criticism should be as embraced as friendly advice.

So many things to comment on...

1] I haven't seen the claim "I have a lot of advice to give" stated by anyone on this forum. It could be implied, I suppose when someone gives lots of advice, but that could just be because they know a lot that could help on the particular subject, or maybe they thought of something that could possibly help. Sometimes its good advice, sometimes not. Ultimately, it is up to the one seeking the advice to choose whether or not to follow any given advice, like Maltese_Falcon91 said.

2] The blind leading the blind would be even less helpful... And for all anyone knows, some of the folks here could have some sort of literature-related degree.

3] What exactly would be "someone of substance"? And what exactly separates them from other people?

4] I suspect couple of reasons why people give advice: it is asked for, and the person giving the advice wants to be nice and/or helpful. The person giving the advice has nothing to gain or lose by giving it, so I don't see any issue here, and cannot understand why anyone else would. As for why someone should listen, well, the beauty of thinking for one's self is that no one has to take advice given if they don't want to. Should a person think some advice given isn't helpful, they can ignore it. It really isn't that difficult.

5] I don't think I'm being defensive, and I am certainly not offended. I am curious as to what you have seen in this forum that would cause you to ask the question you are asking, and I am confused as to why you would ask the same question twice in a row. I'm not going to answer it again, by the way. You can just read #4 twice if you want the answer twice.

EDIT: It just occurred to me that I did not answer the question from a personal perspective, so I will try to remedy that:

Why should anyone take advice me? Well, as stated before, they don't have to, and if a person finds any advice or suggestion I make to not be helpful, I would expect them to not use it. If I were the one asking for the advice or suggestion (I have in the past and probably will in the future), I won't use every bit of advice given to me, but I would be happy that someone took time out of their day to give it.

If you are asking more about qualifications that give a person a right to give advice, to be honest, I have none. Then again, one doesn't need a master's degree in any subject to give good advice. I can repeat advice given to me, or suggest things that I have done that worked for me, or simply give my own personal opinion. Sometimes this works for the person I'm talking to, sometimes it doesn't. I guess the person asking for help or advice just has to cross their fingers and hope they are given good advice. Sitting by and saying nothing when I have the possibility of helping I think is worse though.

I'm a Creative Writing/Literature professor who has been published and won prizes. I write book reviews and copy edit professionally.

But mostly, two heads are better than one. The best thing is to talk it out. Asking questions and recommending similar material to read is my modus operandi.