(Note: I promise I’m not calling out anyone here. This is something I’ve honestly been thinking about and talking to a friend about for a while now ^_^ If we swap stories, it’s because I like working with you.)
I’m back to musing about writing again, but I think this particular musing applies to all aspects of our life. Apply it to your job, home, school, church, anywhere that someone else has an opinion on the way you do something. I’ve been discussing this with a couple of friends, and we’ve reached a concensus, so I’m going to share.
My mother was a writer. Growing up, I remember her selling nonfiction articles, and writing novels. Researching issues of Writer’s Digest, printing out manuscripts, sending them to publishers, that kind of stuff (because when I was growing up, the internet was something that Matthew Brodderick used to hack NORAD.) And she belonged to a local writers’ group.
So even at a young age, I was familiar with some of the processes of getting feedback and getting published. That may have saved me a lot of anguish in my younger days, because even though I thought I had finshed my first novel at about 25, I was terrified to query anyone because I didn’t know what I was supposed to put in my letter.
And I didn’t know if the book was any good, because I couldn’t get people to read it. I couldn’t find an in-person group like my mother had. However, even though I didn’t grow up with the internet, I’m still an internet baby. By the time I was 19 I had discovered its wonder and glory. So when it came time to write a book, I figured there had to be people out there who were also on the internet who might want to read it.
And I searched, and there wasn’t hardly any information out there back then. These days you can do 95% or more of this online. 100% if you’re so inclined (and I almost am. I have one CP I know in real life. And my live-in muse/spouse :-D. All the rest of it? Online. With people as far away as Egypt and New Zealand.)
I’m getting distracted with my tangent. The point of all of this is I did find people online who were willing to read my work. And I figured all of their feedback was valuable.
That was until someone didn’t like my story. Then suddenly their feedback wasn’t as valuable as everyone else’s. But I discovered over time that I just needed a thicker skin. I needed to learn to take all feedback, or I’d never learn and grow as a writer.
So I tried. I really did. And when someone said something like “This is good, it just needs work in this area”, I learned how to take that and integrate it as constructive. But still when someone said “This just doesn’t work for me at all. I wouldn’t keep reading.” It still devastated me and I wouldn’t hear what I needed to hear in their comments.
But I know people who would look at the first example and call it sugar coating, and say they prefer the second. “I don’t need praise, just tell me what doesn’t work.”
I can’t fathom that. If I don’t know what you liked, I assume you only found flaws in the story, and then what’s the point of fixing them if there’s no good points.
BUT not everyone feels that way. That’s what I’ve discovered. For some people, they approach it very differently. The way I understand it, if something needs fixing, they want to know about it, and if it doesn’t there’s no reason to make a fuss. These individuals don’t need the ‘feedback sandwich’, they just want the meat.
I like a little bread with my sandwich.
What I’m discovering is it’s really helpful to exchange stories and feedback with people who have a similar view to it as you. It also helps if they have a similar delivery style.
If it’s important to point out both the good and the bad, that doesn’t make you less capable of handling constructive feedback, it just means you prefer a differnt wrapper.
If it’s important to you to be able to toss ideas back and forth with the people reading your work and whose work you’re reading, that doesn’t make you chatty, or mean that you’re trying to justify what you wrote so you don’t have to change it, it just means you like to do some things collaboratively.
If you’re not concerned with praise, If you just want to know what needs work, it doesn’t make the other guy less honest, it doesn’t make you a hardass, it just means you integrate feedback that way.
So sure, not all feedback is created equally in that:
“This needs work. Fix it”
is no more helpful than
“This is awesome.”
But in-depth feedback has to be tailored to the indivual as well. Sure, once the book is published you won’t have that option with readers. But the book isn’t published yet, and if you’re trying to make it better, it’s worth the effort to find someone who communicates the way you do.
It frequently takes work and heartache to find those people. But in the end, your sanity and creativity will thank you for the effort.
At least, that’s what I think. What do you think?