How to Take Feedback as Encouragement, Not Discouragement

By R.M. Archer

Your heart races as you spot the email. You open it, your hand shaking over your mouse. Your stomach sinks as you see how many comments have been left on your precious manuscript. How many criticisms mark its pages.

You slam the laptop shut, gritting your teeth. The words in your head might go one of two ways:

“What do they know, anyway?”

or

“Why did I ever think I was good enough?”

But feedback doesn’t have to be discouraging. In fact, it is possible to open a document full of edits with positive anticipation rather than fear.

“But how?”

I’m glad you asked.

Feedback is an Opportunity

to Grow

A document covered in red ink doesn’t mean you’re a bad author. It means you’re a growing author.

Whether you’re looking at a friend’s reaction to your book, a beta-reader’s critique, an editor’s notes, or a stranger’s review… any time they point out a weakness, see it as an opportunity to grow.

As you grow as a writer, you will learn a lot. You’ll learn a million different approaches to dozens of areas of the writing craft. You’ll try some approaches. Some of those will fail. You’ll find others that work. Some will replace or impede other methods you’d tried.

Through all of this, your writing will see some ups and downs. You might improve your prose, but find that your plot is weak. Or you might strengthen your worldbuilding, only to find out that your description isn’t strong enough to communicate it effectively.

As you strengthen certain areas of your writing, you’ll reveal other weaknesses.

As you grow in your writing skill, you’ll come to a deeper understanding of what you don’t know.

And feedback helps you strengthen those weak areas.

Feedback points out new weaknesses and helps you to address them. And good feedback from readers who know your writing will likely point out areas in which you’ve grown stronger, as well!

Feedback is a huge part of the growing process as a writer. Embrace it and use it to build up your writing; don’t let it tear you down.

Faithful Critique Partners Want the Best for Your Writing

If you’ve chosen your critique partners (or beta-readers or editors) carefully, then you know that they have your best interests at heart and they want what’s best for you and your story.

A faithful critique partner will point out areas in which you need to grow, which can sometimes sting a little, but they do so out of love for you and a desire to see your writing improve.

One Christmas, I wrote a short story for my dad that was heavily character-driven. I thought I was pretty good at developing characters. I thought I’d done pretty well at making each character distinct and notable.

And then my dad said, “Hey, you focus on characters a lot. Maybe you should work on your character development a little more.”

I still remember that it stung.

But you know what? I looked over the story again, and… he was right.

I took that critique, I figured out my problem, and I learned to write stronger characters. (Though my characters still aren’t as strong as I would like.)

You can’t grow if you don’t know your weaknesses. Critique partners help you locate those weaknesses, and sometimes even provide guidance on how to grow in those areas. Maybe you struggle to make your description connect with your main character, but you have a critique partner who’s great at suggesting several ways your character could feel about a given setting element and this gets your own ideas going.

Your critique partners want to see you grow. They want you to be the best writer you can be. If they only told you what was good about your story, it might feel nice, but they would be setting you up for a bigger failure by making you think you’re a better author than you are.

It’s better to hear loving critique from a beta-reader you know now than to read a harsh review from a stranger later.

As Proverbs says,

“Faithful are the wounds of a friend.”

~ Proverbs 27:6

Friends correct and critique because they want to see you grow; not because they think your writing is lousy.

It’s Allowed to Hurt—

Take Your Time

Here’s the thing. Handling critique isn’t always easy.

I’ve been told I take critique gracefully, and I like to think that’s true most of the time, but there have certainly been times that I’ve rejected critiques out-of-hand due to pride and hurt. And there have been times, like the example with my dad, where I took the critique even though it hurt.

You’re allowed to feel stung when someone doesn’t read your character the way you intended, or they don’t like one of your favorite lines, or they think your world is boring.

What you’re not allowed to do is let that discourage you from moving forward.

Sometimes, you need to take time after reading a critique to just soak it in and let your emotions work themselves out. Sometimes you need a bit of cool-down time before you can see the critique—and your story—through a fair lens.

Sometimes it takes a while. I once had a short story critiqued and rejected all of the feedback I got because I thought the reader was way off-base and just didn’t get the story.

I came back a full year later and wondered why in the world I’d ditched the critique, since it was perfectly reasonable. I applied the feedback I’d gotten and the story is now significantly improved from the original.

You’re allowed to take time.

Take as much time as you need.

But when you come back, remember that feedback is there to help you grow, not to judge you or to ruin your story. Use it as a tool and a building block to make your story—and your writing as a whole—stronger.

Of course, that’s perhaps easier said than done, so let’s take a look at a few practical ways to work with feedback.

Apply What Helps; 

Ignore What Doesn’t

You’re not required to take every piece of feedback you receive.

When you come back from your break with fresh eyes, read through and consider the feedback you’ve gotten. Think fairly about what will or won’t improve your story. And then ignore what doesn’t build up the story you’re trying to tell.

Most feedback from well-chosen critique partners will truly make your writing better. You’re likely to end up with a long (potentially overwhelming) list of things to fix. 

But there will also be suggested “fixes” that miss the point or over-complicate things or otherwise don’t suit your particular story. That doesn’t mean that the feedback is bad—it might be great feedback on some other story—but it means you don’t have to worry about it.

Feedback is there to serve you and your story. It’s not the be-all, end-all. You don’t have to take feedback that turns your story into something it’s not just because someone provided that feedback. You won’t offend your critique partners by not applying every last suggestion.

You know your story best. Don’t disregard good advice out of pride, but don’t take misplaced feedback out of obligation, either. The proper balance will probably be closer to “apply everything” than “ditch everything,” but it won’t always sit at the full extreme.

Explore Different Versions

Not sure what advice will strengthen your story and what will misdirect it? Try testing out different versions. Keep the version you have somewhere safe and then create a new version that applies a particular recommended edit. See which you prefer and which better suits the story.

This can be time-consuming, but it will help you get a better feel for what advice is or isn’t helpful. The more you learn what does and doesn’t work, the more easily you’ll be able to sort through feedback on future drafts or future projects.

Take it One Step at a Time

You’ve tested out different versions of your story to find out what feedback is helpful for this story, you have a long and overwhelming list of edits to make… Now what?

Feedback will be a lot more manageable if you take it in pieces.

Start with the big-picture suggestions. If you’ve gotten feedback on your plot or character arcs, fix those first since they’ll alter the structure of your story. Then move on to things like worldbuilding. Then description. Then grammar. Work your way down from the big picture to the details.

If you’re working with only lower-level edits (line edits or copy-edits), maybe take them chapter by chapter or (for a short story) paragraph by paragraph.

Or you might find some other method that works for you. The point is to split your work into manageable pieces so that you’re only looking at one piece of your story rather than trying to tackle the whole long list of issues at once.

Conclusion:

Feedback can be seen one of two ways: as a sledgehammer meant to tear down your story, and you as a writer; or as caulk, meant to patch up the gaps in your writing that are letting in drafts (pun intended).

You’re allowed to feel hurt at first. But brush yourself off, remember that feedback is given out of love and a desire to see you grow, break down the suggestions you’ve received, and use the critique to build up a stronger story.

What’s a piece of feedback you’ve received, maybe a suggestion you didn’t like at first, that turned out to greatly strengthen your work?