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Creative ideas are typically criticized, so it's worthwhile knowing how to handle criticism. The key in doing so is to realize that there are different kinds of criticism and that each kind needs to be handled differently.
Suppose you were thinking about how to improve the way movies are rated and you came up with the idea of rating movies according to how many years a person would spend in prison if they did everything shown in the movie. You reason that this might be a good idea because it provides a meaningful measurement of how much "badness" a movie shows.
Upon suggesting this idea to someone, the person criticizes the idea, saying "That idea won't work because someone assigning jail sentences couldn't get enough information from the movie. For example, it makes a difference whether the criminal is a first-time offender, but the movie might not reveal that information." This is an example of a valid criticism because the objection points out a valid weakness in the idea.
The way to handle a valid criticism is to improve the idea to remove the weakness. In this case, the weakness can be overcome by having the years-in-prison (YIP) rating be a range of numbers instead of a single number. For example, a movie might be rated as YIP 17-95, meaning that someone who did everything in the movie might spend as few as 17 years in jail, or as many as 95 years in jail, depending on various undetermined circumstances.
Suppose the next criticism is "Hey, that's a stupid idea!" In this case, the critic isn't supplying enough information to indicate whether he or she sees a valid flaw in the idea. In this case, it would be useful to ask "What flaws do you see in the idea?" If the critic is unable to be specific, then you can regard their criticism as offering no useful information. On the other hand, they might reply with "Some movies have so much killing going on that the YIP number would be huge, and therefore meaningless." This becomes a valid criticism, which means you should consider improving the idea. After some thinking, it occurs to you that most large-scale killing occurs in wars, and that wars don't have prison sentences for killing the enemy. So, a "+WAR" designation could be added to cover destructive acts done as a part of warfare, and the range of numbers would only cover criminal acts done against people on the same side.
Suppose someone responds to your idea saying "I don't like that rating scheme because it doesn't let me know if my kids should see the movie. I don't want them seeing nudity and hearing profanity even though there are no jail sentences for such things in non-public situations." This is an invalid criticism because the critic has mistakenly assumed that the years-in-prison (YIP) rating replaces existing maturity ratings (such as R, PG, G, etc.). In contrast, your idea is that the YIP rating be in addition to, not instead of, existing maturity ratings.
As this example makes clear, the way to deal with an invalid criticism is to clarify how your idea differs from what the critic is imagining your idea to be. Such misunderstandings can be reduced in the future by improving your explanation of your idea.
There are other kinds of criticisms besides those mentioned here. But of all the kinds of criticisms, valid criticisms are the most useful -- if you improve your idea to overcome the flaws that are pointed out.
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