Friday Fun – When someone gives you negative feedback on your writing

Friday Fun is a group post from the writers of the NHWN blog. Each week, we’ll pose and answer a different, get-to-know-us question. We hope you’ll join in by providing your answer in the comments.

QUESTION: You have just shared your most recent work with someone – a family member, trusted “beta reader,” colleague, etc. – and their feedback was not as enthusiastically positive as you’d hoped. In fact, some comments were downright harsh. How do you feel? How to you react? What do you say to them, and what do you do next?

Lisa J. Jackson: Mixed bag answer to this one. If it’s someone who can give me honest feedback, then I’ll take their comments respectfully and evaluate my piece. I’d have to consider the reader’s interests and strengths in feedback, too. My piece could just be something the reader doesn’t enjoy or has a particular strong reaction to. It all depends, I guess is the answer.

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Julie Hennrikus: It took me a long time to realize that not all feedback was useful. I write in the mystery genre. People who don’t like the genre are not necessarily going to give me the best feedback on plot or characters. And some people want you to write the book their way, so the feedback isn’t helpful since you are writing the book. And then there’s the feedback of “this doesn’t work, what is this, I don’t understand that” that is painful, but so, so valuable. Because you can fix those things.  So the pain is worth it.

I have a very limited list of first readers, and an even smaller list of potential editors. New work is fragile, and needs to be handled with a bit of care, and a lot of tough love.

photo: M. Shafer

Deborah Lee Luskin: More than thirty years ago, a friend asked to read a short story I’d written. When she finished, she said, “Oh, I see how that character is like your brother.” “Whaat?” I said – truly bewildered. “Michael,” she said. It wasn’t until she said it I realized the character and one of my brothers had the same name. And that’s when the light-bulb went off: Friends and family assume that the narrator and the author are the same, that my stories are all autobiographical, and that the characters are all family and friends. In fact, they’re looking to find themselves.

Ever since then, I have a strict rule when family and friends ask to read my work. I either direct them to something that’s published, or I suggest they stay healthy so they’ll still be around when the next book comes out. It does seem as if publication creates a healthy barrier, so these same friends who think that I’m writing about them when something is in draft form, become absorbed in the characters when the same story is in print.

Like Julie, I now have a very short list of first readers – and I ask for very specific information from them: What worked? Where did you start thinking of what you were going to cook for dinner? What didn’t you believe?

Jamie Wallace: Hmmm … what are the five stages of grief? Oh, right: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. Yep. That about covers it.

Our stories are like our children. We give them the spark of life, labor over their creation, and then tentatively set them free in the world. When someone’s critique is less than flattering, grief – in all its five stages – is a perfectly appropriate response. You’ve been there, right?

Though there are certain cases (as Julie points out) where outright denial is the correct reaction, in most cases there is something to be learned from even the harshest critic. Though you may start the process by denying that there’s any value in what the reader has said, you usually end up moving past this knee-jerk reaction.

… and, on to good, old-fashioned anger. How dare she judge me? What does she know about writing anyway? I should critique her fashion sense. Now, that’s something that could use a good editing (and so on…). But anger is usually short-lived. After all, you are a professional. You know it’s not the reader’s fault if your story isn’t working, or … is it?

Bargaining is a messy business. This is the part where you try to justify your writing to the critic. You try to explain why you chose that word or killed off that character or decided to switch halfway through from third to first person. This is pointless. If the reader didn’t get it, the reader didn’t get it …

… which means that you are a terrible writer – a total hack. Bring on the depression. And, while you’re at it how about some Ben & Jerry’s and a nice bottle (or two) of chardonnay. Oh, and why don’t you queue up an Ab Fab marathon, too. Hell. Why waste time writing. You’re obviously just fooling yourself …

… except that you’re not. You are a writer. You are. There’s no need for you to let a little negative feedback unravel you completely. Breathe. Step back. Get some perspective. Accept the feedback for what it is and work with it as you see fit. Don’t make it about you. Use it to make your story better. Use it to become a better writer. That’s its purpose.

… or, maybe that’s just me.