Feedback: The good, the bad, and the painful
I got a bad grade.
Yeah, I know, cue the tiny violin, but hear me out. For a discussion post assignment, I received 25 out of 35 possible points for my “Insight, Organization, and Clarity.”
That 71% was averaged out with the responses to a decent-ish grade. But the feedback said, “Some of your sentences and ideas need to be clearer.” As a writer, this was a tough pill to swallow. In addition to this blog, I have founded two writing workshop groups, published two novels with my writing partner, Andrea, and have written two independent novels due out this year. And I have a day job: Technical Writer.
Needless to say, writing is kind of my life. Being told my ideas need to be clearer is like saying I’m not good at what I do all day, every day. But the cold hard truth is, I’m not.
By the time this blog post goes out to the world, it will be read by others, revised, and edited. (Probably in that order.) Even though I write for a living, I’m not perfect, and sometimes, my ideas just don’t connect with readers. This can be for a lot of reasons, different lived experiences, assumptions of shared knowledge, or I ate too much sugar before trying to get the gremlins out of my head onto the page.
For more about the gremlins, see February’s blog post, “Voices in my Head.” But back to you, the reader.
My goal as a writer is always, always and forever, to communicate something to you the reader. You are the heart and soul of what Andrea and I do, because we want to share something lovely, something meaningful. And not to put too fine a point on it, if you don’t understand the meaning, we failed. The problem is, I can’t go to all of you with every story, poem, blog post, or meandering thought and ask if you understand. (I want to, but let’s be honest, that’s not going to work out all the time.)
That’s where feedback comes in. I have a few Alpha readers that look at my work early and often. Alphas get bite-sized chunks of a work in progress, shaping it as they read. They help devise and develop plots that work, that hit the beats of the genre, and deliver the satisfying ending we all long for. In our genre, Romance, that’s the HEA.
For more about the Happily Ever After, see March’s blog post, “The Need for HEA: Happily Ever After.”
After the Alphas come the Betas. Beta readers look at the whole novel together. They’ll give their impressions, ask questions, and let us know if we hit that final goal of a complete character arc that lands in the right place at the end. Betas may catch grammar issues or misspelled words, but their main function is to help us see the finished novel more objectively. If all goes well, Beta readers will suggest changes that fill in missing bits that make the whole picture. If all goes to compost, we make major revisions to the structure or character development. Either way, the goal of subjecting our work to this ongoing criticism is to be sure we are actually telling the story we want to tell.
Last, but not least, comes our fabulous editor. Tara McGee gets me. She’s edited our blog posts, novels (she has Moore Love Book 3 now 🙂), and more. What I appreciate about Tara is how she takes what has already been tested, and refines it, bringing a polish to the work, making it absolutely shine.
In my day job, my boss functions as Alpha, Beta, and editor. The purpose of my writing is different, but with the same end-game. Will readers understand my meaning?
With two published novels, both with 4+ star ratings on Goodreads, I feel like Andrea and I have a system that works, a great collaborative writing process followed up with all the levels of feedback that make a good story a great read. But getting feedback isn’t always easy, and I mean that both ways.
Getting feedback is not easy. Finding people willing to read your half-crazed, misspelled, scribbles is hard.
I’ve sent out copies of a manuscript to dozens and dozens of willing victims, only to get a message back a year later that reads something like, “Haven’t forgotten about you…” It happens. If you don’t know that going into finding readers, you’ll feel rejected, but that’s not really what’s happening. People are busy. Life is busy. Finding readers, good or bad, takes patience and persistence.
2. Getting feedback is not easy. Being told that what you wrote doesn’t connect hurts.
Break out that tiny violin again. Because here comes my sob story. (Also known as the best feedback of my life.)
The picture in the header is of an old notebook, stuffed with handwritten feedback. I share this with you because it comes from the first class I took in poetry the Summer of 2015. I will never forget this class. The workshop was live. And once you read your work aloud, you weren't allowed to speak again, at all, not even nod or shake your head. Meanwhile, the rest of the class picked apart your poem. The professor's theory was that your work should be able to stand on its own. If you have to explain it, it’s not working.
As I listened to the thoughts and questions of my peers, I felt okay about how I did. That was until it was my professor's turn. She looked me dead in the eyes and said, "This isn't poetry. Throw it away and start over."
Painful? Yes. Helpful? Maybe. I had already been writing for a long time, but she challenged me to my very core to write to others, rather than just myself. To hone the craft of writing, to know the mechanics inside and out, to see the structures and the effect of breaking them intentionally. The poetry I produced that semester was the best I had ever written.
The same can occur with Beta readers. Not all readers care about your feelings. They don’t have too and sometimes the best feedback comes in specific criticism. An “I don’t like this” gets us nowhere, but “This character sounds mean here, and I don’t like that about them” is a huge help. When we understand why something doesn’t connect, we can fix it. (Usually.) At least we can make the effort to soften a character’s voice, or provide enough backstory that you can forgive their meanness.
Andrea and I are very fortunate to have readers who give criticism with a healthy dose of encouragement. I am grateful for that. I should also mention that the same professor above cheered me on as my writing improved. Yet, here we are a decade later, years of writing under my belt, and I still missed the mark on that discussion post just last week. My meaning was lost on my reader.
Now, there’s no revising a discussion post in an online class. Water under the bridge. There is however the important reminder of how valuable the feedback process is. It’s necessary. Sometimes feedback is painful. But it’s as much a part of the process of publishing as putting words on the page.
