Writing 203: Receiving Critiques
Greetings and sleechy! Well, if I fall during the rain, I might get that. Anyway, welcome everyone! Today, we will do the final part of Anne’s brilliant series on critique! Take it from here, Anne!
(Anne:) Thanks, Vivian! Today is a day of grand adventure because it’s time to learn how to take the criticism thrown at you by a cruel, unforgiving world!
The Big Picture
I want to start by telling you about a very stupid thing I did when I was starting out self-publishing my books. A couple of my early books are pretty skewed one way or the other in terms of the gender of characters, so I had to rely on character names instead of pronouns more than you’d usually see in a book. It seemed very reasonable to me because, I mean, you have to keep track of people.
Now, unrelated to this, I was in my graduate program in creative writing. I got a pretty scathing critique that said I dumbed down my writing for my readers (it fell into the category of destructive criticism because it was basically just used as a way of insulting genre fiction–which I wrote–as meant for people who weren’t smart enough to understand “real” literature–which they obviously wrote). Anyway, I knew it was just that I kinda sucked at that, not that all scifi/fantasy was bad writing.
So, in this setting, I got a review that said that they hated how I kept repeating character names because it felt like I didn’t trust the reader to remember who was who. And to say I overreacted is to understate it. 😂 I immediately went through the entire book that I’d self-published, then everything else I’d ever written (which was a lot), and slashed character names, replacing them with pronouns unless I absolutely had to have a character name. This is a bad idea. Don’t do this. I was overly sensitive, the criticism came at just the wrong time, and I didn’t stop to think whether or not it was even criticism I should take seriously.
Well, as you can probably guess, not too much time passed before I got a review that they were having trouble telling who was who. Which prompted a much, much more careful look at my books to see where that balance actually should be. To this day, I tend not to put enough character names, and my critique group always tells me to put names instead of pronouns.
All of that is to say that criticism can have a huge and lasting impact on your writing, and if you don’t have a good-sized grain of salt and take at least one night to think about whether the advice is good or not, you might very well screw yourself over. So learn from my mistakes and learn from this post because now that I’ve taken you through what critique is and how to give critique, it’s time for the real difficult stuff: what do you do when it’s your work that’s receiving critique?
What is critique again?
Now, I’d love to imagine that all of you have read parts 1 and 2 and remember them like the back of your hand, but it’s a busy world out there, and there are still a few fun things to do that might make you completely forget some of the definitions I’ve been using! First, at a basic level, this series of blogposts is about critique, so you have to know what that is.
Critique is the act of giving feedback of any kind about a given piece of creative work.
Although I’m primarily talking about writing, I keep my definition expansive because
A creative work is the deliberate expression of a person’s thoughts, emotions, or other abstract ideas through a means that communicates with an audience.
So, almost anything, really!
And, of course, because I run into this so often with my students when I talk to them about being critical thinkers and readers,
Being critical means approaching a subject with an open mind, taking in multiple viewpoints, looking at different information on the subject, and coming to a logical conclusion based on everything gathered.
It doesn’t mean negative, although there is a type of critique that’s negative. Being critical or more similar to being skeptical, except the process and conclusion involved in being critical are different.
When you’re giving criticism, there are three basic types, one of which isn’t actually criticism: destructive, constructive, and null. I’ve defined them thusly:
Destructive criticism: Criticism not intended to help but often insult the work and/or creator.
Constructive criticism: Criticism intended to help the creator make the work better.
Null criticism: Something that is phrased like criticism but offers nothing critical about the work, often framed in an exaggeratedly positive manner.
Obviously, when you’re giving critique, you want to provide constructive criticism and avoid the others, but in this post, you’re on the receiving end. You have pretty limited control. I highly recommend you send potential critiquers to this series of posts, but that isn’t always an option, and they might also just consider different things as belonging to different categories.
Whether you’re receiving critique from friends, family, a critique group, a workshop, beta readers, editors, reviewers, agents, or even AI, there are a few things to keep in mind to help cushion what can be a bruising experience, especially if you’re new to receiving criticism.
Grain of Salt
The most important thing to remember when people give you any type of feedback on your work is to take it with a grain of salt. They could be the most amazing writer in the history of writers who have deigned to review your manuscript, and they might give you advice so poorly reasoned and inept that you can’t believe they can string two sentences together or comprehend more than three words in a row. No one is perfect. No one. The best people can give the worst advice, ill-intentioned or not. Yet, the kid who doesn’t read and hates your genre might hear you talk about your project for one sentence and give you advice that revolutionizes everything you thought you knew about your story or the entire art of storytelling. Because just like no one is perfect, so too is no one incapable of good critique.
What really matters is whether they have the right advice for you. And sometimes you won’t know whether that advice is good or not until long after you’ve made the recommended changes–or didn’t. So it’s really, really important that you take everything with a grain of salt. Don’t accept it blindly, but don’t dismiss it blindly, either.
Ways to handle the inevitable blows to the ego
Criticism hurts, but how much it hurts depends on many factors. There are times when it’s going to hurt, but you need it, and times when you really just need to learn to recognize when it’s going to do more harm than good. But as much as harsh or destructive criticism hurts, sometimes really positive and hopeful criticism is exactly what we need. Will you roll the dice?
When starting out
Okay, this is one of those times when you’re gonna need criticism at a certain point. But make sure you’re ready for it. I’m going to talk about the ego blows when you think it’s perfect below, but there’s often overlap. You’ve dedicated your life to this piece of art, and now it’s time to unveil it to the world. Well, the world often isn’t going to be appreciative.
Sharing creative work is a deeply personal thing; we often just want reassurance that we aren’t wasting our lives. In my previous posts, I talked about the importance of knowing what kind of criticism your reviewer wants, and that’s key here. If you’re just getting criticism for the first time, don’t ask the person to rip you to shreds. Maybe just ask for a thumbs up or thumbs down, or you can even say, “I want to make sure I’m not wasting my life on this.” But be ready because they might not give the answer you want.
The thing to keep in mind when you’re just starting out is that you’re going to get better at writing. As long as you keep writing, you will improve. If you keep asking for feedback waiting for that one person to say you’re great so you can dismiss everyone else as jealous, and you never find that person, just keep writing. Write, and write, and keep writing, and when you can look back at your earlier work and see your mistakes, then it’s time to test the waters again. If you’re doing it right, you’re always going to be improving.
It’s said that you should never publish the first book you write, that it should get shelved, and this can be really tough for new writers who often spend years on a project and feel that it’s the best work of their lives. Everyone thinks they’re an exception, that they’ll be the one author whose first book becomes a best seller. And it does occasionally happen, I think? It must, right? I don’t know of any cases, though. Even if you hear about authors who do well on their first book, that’s usually quite misleading. It’s probably the first book they’ve published, sure, but written? Unlikely. And if it is the first book they’ve written, they’ve usually been writing for years and perfecting the craft but just never wrote a book until then. And when it’s an extremely young author who really is publishing their first book? They usually look back years later and regret publishing it.
So no matter what people say, if you’re starting out, there’s nowhere to go but up! Keep going, because you will improve!
When you’re vulnerable
Yeah, this is one of those times when you probably don’t want feedback, but if you’re a situation where you need to get it, be clear about what you can handle. Critiquers often don’t know what to tell you, as you probably saw in the second post in this series, and you’ll be doing them a favor if you’re really explicit. Most people won’t want to hurt your feelings, so tell them your limits.
Maybe ask for a couple of things you’re doing well, and if they think you have things to work on, just to tell you in broad strokes and stay upbeat. This also is not the time to take specific advice. Accept that things might not be working, but don’t assume that people’s advice is automatically good. If you’re feeling vulnerable, you might start clutching at straws. So ask for critique, but put limits on it, and just know that once you’re feeling stronger, you can deal with things better.
When you think it’s perfect
There are kind of two paths if you think your work is perfect, and it depends on one big question: do you actually want it to be perfect? If you want to believe it’s perfect and not have that belief questioned, then you’re looking for null criticism. Just tell people that. Say you’re not looking for advice or real critique, you just want a pat on the back.
But if you actually want great work, then you’ll accept that what you think of as perfect might not actually be perfect. There are a couple of things to keep in mind. First, no one is perfect. You’re going to have mistakes. Second, the more mistakes you find before you publish, the better. Think of it as perfecting your work!
But let’s say you get eviscerated, and worst of all, it isn’t destructive–the critiquer is genuinely trying to help you. They just think you suck. (I did this as a beta reader to someone accidentally, as described here… so it does happen). Well, a couple more things to keep in mind. Should I keep numbering from above or start over? I’ll keep going, since you should keep all of these in mind regardless. So third, remember that this is one reader. That grain of salt? Yeah. This one person might just really not like your style, or there might be things going on in their life that’s making them especially negative, or sensitive to certain kinds of mistakes.
Fourth, you’re not required to listen to anyone, even if you’re the one who asked for feedback. You can always just… ignore them. Now, I don’t recommend this! I’ll actually talk below about why this is a terrible idea. But if you feel like they were just way off, or there’s some other reason you just flat out disagree with them, there’s no requirement that you use all of the feedback you get. Just be aware that you risk missing a huge error in your work that could have been avoided.
The best thing you can do when your ego gets hurt because you were expecting praise and you didn’t get it is to take a step back and remember some humility. This isn’t a competition and there’s no such thing as perfect. No matter how good it is, there’s always room for improvement. I would say take into account all of the feedback you get, but you don’t need to take all of the advice, and again, grain of salt! Just remember that the goal is not to “win” at creating, it’s to improve and to enjoy the process of creation. So you’re not perfect. There’s always tomorrow, and the next day, and the rest of your life.
When you want to give up
I mentioned clutching at straws above, and one thing I see is that creators who down about the creation process try to get feedback to bolster their spirits. If you want to give up, it’s nice to think that a few compliments will help you find your passion again. And maybe that’ll happen. But what if you don’t get compliments, or at least not exclusively compliments? That hurts, and you might want to give up more than ever.
I know you’re probably expecting me to say that you should keep going, that you’ll improve, yada yada, and that is true. But honestly? Take a break. Put your book away for a day, a week, a month, a year. It’s not giving up. It’s taking a break, and we all need them sometimes. And you know what? Your life will continue, and you’ll learn from that life, and no matter what kind of artistic work you’re making, you’ll gain valuable experience towards it. And eventually, you’re going to come back.
Maybe you’ll ditch everything you had and start from scratch, maybe you’ll pick up exactly where you left off, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you enjoy the process. Now, obviously, if this is how you make a living, you might not have this freedom. But the number of artists who make a living from their art alone is vanishingly small, so a break of some sort is usually possible, and you’ll come back refreshed and more ready than ever to create.
What not to do
Okay, so those are some ways to deal with the pain that critique often brings. Some coping methods are healthier than others, and there are some you should probably avoid altogether. One thing I tell my students about peer review is that when someone comments on your work, it usually indicates something wrong even if the reviewer is wrong about what is wrong or how to fix it. Your critiquers are the same. You may disagree with them, but you need to seriously consider that they’ve picked up on something deeper that isn’t going well in the story.
So okay, what shouldn’t you do? Mainly, get super defensive and utterly reject the feedback. I mean, if you want to throw out everything someone says, no one will stop you, but it’s a risk. There are two main reasons why people reject the feedback they get, and a lot of it has to do with how the critique was delivered.
But they didn’t understand!
You have a vision, and they just don’t see it! It’s them, not you! You’re perfect, and only an idiot couldn’t see it!
It’s very possible that you’ll get critiquers who don’t understand your writing and what you’re trying to do. If you get enough people looking at your work, it’s all but guaranteed. That doesn’t mean the feedback is worthless. Again, they may have picked up on a deeper issue, and maybe there’s a reason they can’t appreciate your glorious story.
If one person totally misinterprets what you’re saying or is totally off base and you have a good number of people who did get it, then yeah, you can probably assume that it’s this one critiquer and might not be a genuine problem. But still… do you just not want to appeal to people like that at all? Maybe not. But maybe you do, and you should try to address whatever the problem is.
Now, if more than one person has trouble with your story, even if its just two people, that’s a red flag. The problem is that you won’t be around to babysit your readers, so if it’s not easily understood, you don’t get a second chance. You can say “they didn’t understand” about one person, not multiple people. Or at least you don’t want to.
In the traditional college writing workshop, the writer isn’t allowed to say a word during the workshop. This is because in the real world, the work has to stand on its own. If it can’t, then you need to know while you can still fix it. Now, I suggested some ways to have a workshop that preserves this intent while also preventing workshops from going down paths that are totally irrelevant to the writer in a previous post, but it’s always good to remember that your work has to stand alone. You don’t get to sit there and explain it every time. So if more than one person is confused, you need to address that.
But they’re an asshole!
Remember destructive criticism? You know, the one whose intent isn’t to help but to hurt? Wouldn’t it be great if you could dismiss and ignore harsh feedback you get because you claim its all destructive? (No, the answer is no). If your critiquer’s delivery is too harsh, it’s easy to think that everything being said can be ignored. This is a huge mistake. You don’t get to disagree with someone just because they’re an asshole, no matter how convenient that would be.
Avoiding this kind of defensiveness is a big reason why I recommend the compliment sandwich when I talk about how to give critique. Start with a compliment to disarm them, give them any negative (but constructive) criticism, then end with another compliment so they know you have their best interests in mind. If you do that, it’s hard for them to say you’re an asshole.
Unfortunately, not everyone has read my post and knows that strategy, and some people just delight in being mean even if they’re technically being constructive. Telling the difference between harsh, ill-intentioned but constructive criticism and genuinely destructive criticism can be really difficult, but I would say not to dismiss something just because it’s worded harshly. Even assholes can be right sometimes, and honestly, even destructive criticism can stumble on the truth sometimes. So if you get feedback you don’t like that was given a little harshly, don’t dismiss it as them being an asshole until you’ve seriously considered what they said.
One Night Rule
(Anne:) Sometimes, you might decide that their critique isn’t something you can use. Maybe they misinterpreted your story. Maybe it’s not your style. Maybe you just have your heart set on doing things one way. It’s fine to ignore advice. That grain of salt helps. If you find yourself ignoring more than half of what the same critiquer says, it’s probably time to find a different partner.
Sometimes, what feels at first like an accusation of poor writing will, when you sit back and think about it, actually be really good advice. And sometimes, you might be absolutely overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of comments or feedback. If you get something back and it’s covered in comments, it can be overwhelming and depressing. Stepping back can give you time to prepare to go through everything. Personally, I love getting things back that are covered in comments, and my own editing style is to leave a lot of feedback. I know it’s too much for some people, and I always warn people in advance. That’s where the honesty plays in as well.
Sometimes, you’re just not in the right frame of mind to receive critique. When my critique group meets, I’m more focused on giving critique than receiving it. I obviously write down everything they say (including things I already disagree with), but I then take a day or two before going back to it and making any changes. Sometimes, I take more time, but rarely less.
No matter what, you want to wait before responding. If the critiquer presses you for a response, just tell them you want to think about things. Because you do. That should be an honest answer. Making snap decisions often ends up working against your best interests, as I learned the hard way. I’m still working on this because I like making changes as soon as I hear them (assuming I agree). However, sometimes I change things that, upon further reflection, aren’t good suggestions, or else I make changes that don’t actually address what the comment was about. And yeah, don’t ever take all of the character names out of your books, I’m just going to say that’s never a good idea no matter what you think!
All of this is to say that whenever you receive feedback, even face-to-face, listen to it, read it, and then wait before responding. Your initial reaction may not be the correct one, especially if you’re the type to get indignant, angry, or depressed. Assuming you’ve set expectations and developed honesty and trust, those negative emotions will be passing things.
(Vivian:) I recommend this strongly. When Anne edits my story, it sometimes hurts my ego. But a good night's sleep and I am clear enough in my head to take it on and consider all she has said with more neutral eyes. 9/10 times, what she says is very good, and what I need to make it better.
Summa Summarum
When Vivian was reading through the earlier sections, zhi commented that I sound a lot more natural and like “me” than I did when I started writing these blogposts. That was a big insecurity of mine at the start of this blog journey. Sometimes I feel like I don’t have a good handle on what “my voice” actually is, but I didn’t let that stop me. I just kept plugging away, asking for and getting advice, practicing, learning, and getting a compliment today made it all worthwhile! But don’t worry, I’ll keep improving, because I don’t believe anyone is ever finished learning their craft.
So when you get feedback, whether it’s someone saying you baby your readers too much or saying you sound like a robot in teacher mode, listen to the feedback and consider it seriously, though with a grain of salt. Don’t make any rash decisions, don’t overreact, and don’t get defensive. Try not to get hurt. Just accept it as something to be improved over time, and keep going.
If you have any tips or advice on how to deal with critique, or if you have any stories of when you’ve definitely done the exact wrong thing in response to criticism, I’d love to hear it in the comments! Good luck with your creating, and just remember that your journey is different than everyone else’s. It isn’t a competition, except against your past self. So always be improving, and have fun!
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