It’s time we pulled the art of good feedback out of the shadows

Giving and receiving feedback can make you a better writer – and even a better person!

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

It always amazes me how the writer’s journey so closely echoes life’s journey. Both are about the pain/pleasure of growing and developing, meeting challenges, deep vulnerability and exposure, the importance of persistence and resilience. The way things sometimes purr along, and at other times are a slow grind of rusty cogs. There’s no hiding place in writing, just like there’s no stepping off the carousel of life. Both are messy and flawed, a game of snakes and ladders.

The giving and receiving of feedback holds the same parallels - feedback is about responsibility, honesty, exposure, being confronted with others’ opinions and subjective ideas, facing shortcomings with grace, grappling with the commitment to improve, dealing with ego and a sense of self-worth. That’s a lot of high-level stuff, right? 

And yet, it always feels to me as though feedback lurks in the shadows. I’ve read many writing craft books, scoured the internet for sources of advice, been to workshops and masterclasses, and rarely does the art of good feedback get the billing or analysis it deserves.

I have a theory as to why. Feedback is an inconvenient truth. The act of letting others analyse your work is hard, the prospect of having to make big changes can be deflating. Meanwhile, some struggle with the effort of giving feedback, either because they don’t know what to say, or because they don’t see the benefit of it to themselves.

I think feedback deserves a makeover, a glow-up, a fresh haircut and some natty threads. Because the rewards of developing your feedback skills are bountiful. As a feedback giver, it flexes the editorial muscles that enable you to better analyse your own writing. As a feedback receiver, it gives you a chance to embrace fresh potential and possibility. What a gift that is, a light in the murky darkness when you can’t see the wood for the trees.

Editorial changes are an inevitable part of a writer’s life. There’s no escape. So why not take the time and effort to develop your abilities to give and take honest, thoughtful, rigorous and specific feedback. The British novelist Jon McGregor, wrote a really fine piece about feedback on his Substack Class Notes, last year (go read it after this, it’s rich with insight). He summarises it like this:  

Feedback is a description of your reading experience.

Honestly, that’s it. You take a piece of text that you’ve never read before, and you describe your experience of reading it. You describe this experience in detail, and you describe your understanding of the text along with your uncertainties and confusions and questions. And you do this always with the sense that you want the writer to come back to the text and be prompted to do their own work on it.

Inspired by this, I have added some thoughts below on exchanging feedback, also based on my experiences as a writer, tutor and editor. I hope they will prove useful, I hope they will help recalibrate the idea of feedback if it has negative connotations in your mind. And I hope it will help pull feedback into the light, not as some afterthought or chore, but as crucial way of helping you improve your writing.

Ideas on How To Give And Receive Good Feedback

• A positive place to start with your feedback is by asking the question: ‘What is working in this piece?’ Then move onto areas which may need attention in subsequent drafts.

• Encourage improvement by critiquing the writing, not the writer. No-one should feel judged on their overall abilities as a writer or as a person, it is about the work they are presenting, in whatever state it is in at the time.

• Feedback is not an assessment of whether you like or dislike a piece of writing. It is about looking at the components which make up a piece to see what is working and what needs further work. I tend to concentrate on some or all of the following areas when giving feedback:
  
  Opening – is it engaging and well-voiced? Does it send the tone and emotional temperature of the work?
  Point of View – does it work, or does it feel a battle? What would happen if you changed it?
  Characterisation – Are they interesting and compelling? Do they have struggles and needs? Are you developing character through their interactions? Are they people or archetypes?
  Dialogue – Is it working on more than one level? Is there a sense of an underlying tension? Is there a sense of what’s not being said is as important as what is being said?
  Setting – Is there a sense of place? Does it add to tone? Have you used sensory writing to make it vivid?
  Structure & Plot – Does the story work in the way it intends? Are there ‘what ifs?’ that could be explored. Does it flow?
  Language – Does the language lift the story or is it flat? Is there colour and life in the language of the characters?
  Pace – Does the story drag, or does it speed at a key point? Are there points where it drifts, or loses the reader’s attention?
  Theme/Premise – Does the story create an overall affect? Does it try too hard to explore a theme? Is it too ‘on the nose’.
  Ending – Is it earned? Does it fit or does it feel tacked on? Does it add something more to the story?

• Be as specific as you can. Vague feedback like “I really like this” or “such a powerful story” or “I didn’t really get into this” are not useful comments. Be more specific, for example: "I felt an affinity with the main character because of X, Y and Z"... rather than just "I like the main character..."

• When you are receiving critical feedback on your work, try not to debate and argue against each point. I have seen this happen many times and it is generally self-defeating. Assessing feedback and deciding what needs to be done about it, is something to do when you come to write the next draft. You may find that you get contradictory feedback or a range of suggestions. It’s up to you as the author to assess these and pick those which ‘feel’ right for the story, not those that are just easy fixes.

Being aware of our own biases when giving and receiving feedback

Writing courses usually have a wide spread of writers in terms of geography, age, genre, cultural background, neuro-diversity, class etc. And the stories produced can often deal with potentially sensitive topics. It's really important to remind ourselves of the responsibility that comes with critiquing draft stories that may touch on themes or subjects such as:

• Race

• Sexism

• Neurodiversity

• Gender

• Class

• Ageism

• Mental Health

This is primarily about trying to be aware of our own biases and experiences (or lack of them) and how they might influence us when critiquing other people’s work. It’s about working to ensure we question any assumptions we might make when we see something we think is wrong, a bit opaque, hard to fathom, doesn’t seem right to us.

*As ever, I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments. Especially as not everyone shares the same views - there is for example a school of thought that all feedback should be positive. It’s a debate worth having, because at the very least it raises the profile of feedback to where it belongs - as a vital component of the writing life.

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