For Beginning Writers – How to Accept [or Decline] Feedback

Giving feedback and receiving it are skills. Your ability to develop these skills will directly impact your development as a writer.

Good feedback…

Supports what you are trying to accomplish with your project. Good feedback identifies a problem and then leaves it to you to determine a fix. Good feedback comes in a personal note or letter or in a one-on-one conversation. This is because it’s personal and must be thoughtful and thorough.

Bad feedback…

Is feedback that’s all appreciative, all praise, unbalanced. Bad feedback offers elaborate or invasive fixes. A good reader is nearly always right about the fact there’s an issue, they are always wrong about how to fix it. You are the only one who knows your work well enough to determine a fix—and if a fix is needed. Bad feedback suggests ways to make a piece something  never intended by the writer (e.g. “this story would be great if aliens showed up and foiled the bank robbery”).

What to do? 

Act on feedback that is coming from a source that seems to 1) understand your intent and the project, and 2) is coming in the form of appreciative and constructive feedback. Be open-minded. Recognize that this is a reader who has been kind enough to give you their time at this critical point in your project. If you have questions, talk to them about their feedback. And express your gratitude.