Feedback

Giving and receiving feedback is such an important part of a writer’s life. But so many of us are not great at doing either one. 

What is feedback? 

It is a helpful response to someone’s work and can be used to improve it. 

Feedback is not an opinion. It is based in measurable and meaningful analysis. 

Receiving Feedback

Learning to receive feedback is challenging in the sense that you must learn how to identity a good critique over criticism. How does it feel when you hear a criticism of your work vs an effective critique? A good critique, while it may sting a bit, is inspiring and despite the discomfort is even exciting. Criticism is harsh, unproductive, and just plain feels bad. It’s totally okay to ignore criticism. You don’t have to take it into consideration, in fact, you are the final word on your own work. Feedback is only useful if you think it is useful and can help you improve your work. If you find that you are looking for approval and acceptance, make sure you ask for that from your reader. Tell them you need a boost, and you are looking for a cheerleader. Be clear about what you need. If you have a specific issue in mind or you would like your reader to pay attention to certain aspects of the work, let them know in advance. This will help the reader give better feedback when the time comes. Also, learn to let others criticism and opinions roll off your back because people will offer them whether you like it, ask for it and want it. Feedback on the other hand is always welcomed because it shows the reader took time to carefully consider what might be useful for you and how they might assist you in making your writing a bit better. Again, you are the only person who decides to implement the feedback or disregard it. 

Giving Feedback

Giving feedback is quite a skill and needs to be cultivated. Feedback is very different from an opinion. Anyone can offer an opinion, but feedback is useful information about what works or doesn’t work in a piece of writing. This means you need to understand what is effective and why it is effective as well as the reverse. What doesn’t work and why it doesn’t work. A good editor is skilled at both. A casual reader can learn to give good feedback by being a careful reader. Reading and then observing how the writer accomplished any technique can train you to notice good writing and what makes it good. It’s easy to say, “I really liked this,” but it doesn’t offer the writer anything to work with. If you say, “You used a lot of active verbs to describe this scene,” is more helpful and specific. Follow up if you can, why active verbs are better than adjectives and adverbs when describing a scene. As you can see it takes a lot of attention and practice to become good at giving feedback. What if you aren’t that good yet and someone has asked you to read their work? At the most basic level, you can detect when something is off, or when you really like a part of the writing. It’s okay to start there and explore together what might be the issue or why you liked a certain part of the story. We may have a good ear for the writing but not quite understand what makes it so. And conversely, we may be aware of a metaphor that doesn’t quite land, or a sentence that just sounds wrong and yet not be able to articulate why. That is the place to begin. Only through practice will you become better at giving feedback. You can practice this on your own writing as well. Can you articulate what works/doesn’t work in a piece of your own writing and why? Give it a try. It’s not as easy as it sounds but you will become a better writer and better at giving and receiving feedback. 

Giving and receiving feedback is under-practiced skill and is worth the time and effort it takes to become good at both.