by Lori DeBoer
You’ve done the drafts and decided to test the publishing waters by sharing your writing with your inner circle. Or maybe you’ve signed up for a slot with a local or online critique group. While your manuscript is out and you are waiting for feedback, it’s a good time to calm your Beta reader jitters by developing an action plan.
To wit: How are you going sift through all that feedback?
A plan will help you keep your post-critique bearings. You want to emerge with a good dose of confidence and clarity about how you’ll tackle your revisions.
Here are some strategies for sorting the good advice from the bad:
Consider the Source
This advice comes straight from my mom, who doled it out when I took an unkind comment to heart from folks I shouldn’t have been listening to, anyway. Granted, her advice didn’t make much sense when I was a kid, but I’ve grown to appreciate her message. So, does your oldest arch rival find your most recent short story “trite”? Does your mom think your memoir shouldn’t go on and on about Great Aunt Vivian? Does your boyfriend cringe at the sex scenes in your romance novel? Does your boss’s nephew who recently graduated from college really know if zombie novels are passé? Consider the source. Bonus tip: Don’t give your memoir-in-progress to anybody in your family, or even tell them you are writing about the family. . . for at least a year. Trust me on this.
Be Realistic
If you are a total beginner, it’s likely you have a lot to learn. Even seasoned professionals work hard at their craft. Nobody expects to play a professional sport or become a professional musician or actor without years of study, practice and paying those proverbial dues. If you have just started out and are getting consistent suggestions that you might want to dump your prologue or that your characters are flat, you might want to entertain that feedback. Remember to say “thank you.”
Set Some Benchmarks
Writers who are successful read like writers. That is, first they read in their genre for pleasure. That out of the way, they reread their favorite and least favorite books in said genre with a (metaphorical) scalpel. They break those books down into what works and what doesn’t and dissect their disparate parts until they can put them back together. Once you do that, you can figure out who critiques your stuff with an insider’s knowledge, who recognizes what you are trying to do and can help you get there.
Avoid Extremes
Did the comments you received make you feel like you were walking on sunshine, on top of the world or in seventh heaven? Or did the comments make you feel like crawling into a hole, under the covers or back into the hell that you were spawned from? Either extreme should give you a tip-off that this is not the critique partner/group/forum for you. Even if the folks giving you comments are wildly published, you should find the nearest exit and run.
Get a Second Opinion (Or More)
When I was pregnant with my son, I was diagnosed with a fatal disease and thought I would die in childbirth. Turns out I should have gotten a second opinion. I was tired and didn’t, but that’s another story. Unless you are in the throes of a high-risk writing pregnancy or some other sort of extreme author illness, buck up and get a second or third opinion. And while you are at it, check that person’s credentials. Some opinions are more informed than others.
Ask for Specifics
If a reader claims that your writing sucks, is insipid, flat, filled with cliches or, God forbid, “sentimental,” ask for specific examples. Ask politely. Even if the critique is spot on, it’s difficult to get a feel for what’s not working in a piece when you are handed vague and pointless remarks like “it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on.” Likewise, if a reader professes to “love” a piece, resist the urge to leave it at that. Ask him or her to point out moments or passages in your writing that evoke these feelings of “love.” The most recent research on motivation shows that we learn more from specific feedback about what’s working more than barbed remarks about what we are doing wrong. That said, gratuitous praise helps no one. In fact, no one really believes overinflated, vague praise. Not even kindergartners.
Challenge Your Resistance
If some feedback or suggestions really makes you angry or upset, you may want to take a look at why you threw a tizzy fit in response, even if you threw it quietly. The feedback could be truly terrible. Or it could be that the advice you received is spot on and you subconsciously (or consciously) just don’t want to deal with the ramifications Because revising is a lot of hard work, like hauling rock, only with your bare-naked brain instead of your bloody hands, and who wants to do that? So, feel like pushing back? Try pushing on in your revisions.
Know Thyself
What are the secret, dark and dishonorable impulses that might be motivating you to write? Is your memoir a thinly veiled attempt to tell the world about how your mom/father/ex/teacher/fill-in-the-blank treated you? Are you seeking revenge for all your past hurts in the form of a novel about time-traveling werewolves? Are you writing schlock because it seems like easy money and you have allowed yourself to become a bitter person? Do you dream of instant author popularity at your 20th class reunion? If any of this resonates with you, it could be that your personal baggage is getting in the way of you reaching your personal writing best. Figure out a better way to schlep that stuff around, or dump some if it altogether, and chances are your writing issues will also resolve.
Be Willing to Experiment
Not sure what to do with a piece of advice? Try it out! At the advice of others, I’ve overcome my tendency toward being stubborn (I am the youngest child) and overhauled my stories. In one case, I changed the age of a character, in another, I changed the setting and point in time, in a few other stories, I’ve changed the point of view. Sure, these revisions have taken time and I’ve groused about them, but I’ve always learned something from these experiments. If you feel petulant about undertaking revisions, remember that you aren’t working on a typewriter for Pete’s sake, so no hardships there, and this is what writers do. So just get it over with and see what cool scenes you come up with.
Let it Simmer
Take enough notes so that the feedback you receive makes sense, and then stick that writing in a drawer and let it simmer for a couple of weeks. After you are no longer in the thick of producing that story, you’ll be able to look at your work and the advice you received with a more impartial eye.
Ultimately, what you do with the feedback you receive on your writing is up to you. At some point, you’ll find a reader or two who really understand what you are trying to do with your work and can help you bring it to a level that will earn you legions of fans. My advice? Those kinds of readers are keepers. Feed them chocolate and and gratitude.
When it comes to revising your writing, how do you sort out good advice from bad? Please weigh in!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lori DeBoer is an author, freelance journalist and writing coach whose work has appeared in The Bellevue Literary Review, The New York Times and Arizona Highways. She has contributed essays on writing to Mamaphonic: Balancing Motherhood and Other Creative Acts, Keep It Real: Everything You’ve Wanted to Know About Research and Writing Creative Nonfiction and A Million Little Choices: The ABCs of CNF. She founded the Boulder Writers’ Workshop and is a homeschooling mom. She and her husband Michael and son Max live in Boulder.
Lori, I wish I’d understood this better with my first, fragile and kinda awful attempt at fiction writing. I had one very kind and helpful CP and another who just made me want to hide behind a rock. Her feedback was probably well-grounded, but we didn’t have the writing relationship and she was ouch, harsh. Great advice here.
I wish I’d known you when you were first writing, Julie. I’m glad you made it through those initial, tender stages. It’s really important for folks giving a critique to understand where the writer is at. Psychologists know that harsh critiques are not good teaching tools, but many a misguided critique group member or beginning editor/coach will dole out lashes. I guess I am on a crusade against riding roughshod over writers, because positive feedback brings them up to speed much more quickly and doesn’t leave a trail of potential authors (and their books) by the wayside.
Lori, this is wonderful advice for those of us who use critique groups or beta readers. I have a wonderful group but sometimes the amount of feedback is overwhelming, and sometimes conflicting. We have to learn that process of weighing advice and then going with our gut.
I hear you, Patricia. When I used to lead free critique groups, part of my responsibilities as a moderator was to “debrief” the writer on the hot seat by giving them an overview of the positive and negative comments and then gently suggest three or four items to address. It’s always hard to keep your feet in that wave of feedback, even for experienced writers.
Great advice Lori. I, for one, enjoy the critique/feedback/revision phase. The original writing is always a challenge, fun and an adventure. But the good writing, the stuff that really will make an impact, comes with/after the critiques/revisions. Sure the first draft kicks it off, but it wanders around looking for a place to lodge. The revisions/edits make that place a home and a story worth reading.
I’m glad this resonated with you, Dean. I find that successful writers don’t go wandering off themselves after the first draft. The revisions and edits are really where the fun begins.
Great advice, particularly the parting nugget (“let it simmer”). As much as I’d like to FINISH, I find that both good writing and good advice become more obvious over time.
Thanks, Brian. I’m with you in that I like the end product more than the process, but I never regret letting my writing stew a bit before I send it into the world.
Great suggestions! Years ago, when I was starting out in a poetry support group, I at first tried to edit in everyone’s suggestions. I soon figured out that not only was that impossible (because often reactions conflicted), but that I had to be part of the process, evaluating which feedback I would incorporate and which I would not.
Thanks for sharing your experience, Kathleen! I’m so glad you were able to pull back and evaluate the feedback you had received.
Really good stuff. This should be a primer for all new authors and especially those going into Critique groups. Crit groups helped me make the jump from reclusive scribbler to determined writer. The process helped me find consistency and identify weaknesses in my blindspots. Most importantly, I learned to take and give constructive feedback. But, just like every other tool, peer review has it’s limitations. A crit group–either through poor moderation or simply beyond it’s shelf-life–can become petty, personal, and counter-productive. Joe Lansdale says too many cooks spoil the soup and I believe he’s right.