Episode 9 - How to Give (and Receive!) Writing Feedback

Recorded September 26th, 2022

In this episode, I talk about who to ask for feedback on your writing. What sort of comments you should give to another writer when they trust you with their work. And how to process the emotions that arise when you’re receiving feedback to allow you to use them in the most effective way and make your story better (without risking ruining your story or driving yourself mad with the comments you get!)

Mentioned in this episode:

• The Act Break Podcast
• Jamie Redact’s Instagram Account
• Karli C. Ask’s Instagram Account
• AP Thayer’s Instagram Account
• Sabaa Tahir’s Post on writing slowly
• Mentoring Program of the Horror Writers Association
• https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener-affiliate.html?fpr=leftie68
• David Michael Kaplan’s Revision: A Creative Approach to Writing and Rewriting Fiction

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This podcast is recorded and edited using Descript: https://www.descript.com?lmref=V_4suQ

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Intro music credit: “Cinematic Cello Arpeggio Trailer” by Gregor Quendel, found on Free Sound https://freesound.org/s/555995/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Leftyobe's Writing Podcast, where I share with vulnerability and positivity my journey towards making all of my writing dreams come true. I hope you learn with me as I go from the things that go well and what doesn't go so well. But mainly I wish it inspires you to pursue your own writing dreams. Now let's begin.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Hello writers, thank you so much for being with me this week. You know, I really like to start those episodes sometime by mentioning a writing podcast that I've really enjoyed lately. Um because I always love to hear about new writing podcasts. So I'm wondering that, you know, maybe it's the same thing for you. So this week I want to talk to you about the Act Break podcast. Uh, this is a podcast by two writers that I followed on Instagram for years, especially Jamie. Uh, in the very beginning of when I started posting on Instagram about my writing, Jamie was one of the first people I followed, and she followed me back. So um I was super excited when she started our podcast way back when. Uh so I've been listening to it, and lately I've been really, really enjoying it. Especially the episode with my friend AP Thayer. I'm really, really enjoying the conversation that they have, the three of them together. Uh, the last one was about dialogue, it was a really, really good conversation. So sometimes they are just the two of them, just Jamie and Carly. Um, but sometimes they also get different guests. And AP is a guest that comes often on the podcast, and I always really, really enjoy the conversation they all have together. So, as always, I will put the link in the show notes if you want to give this podcast a listen. So, the topic this week for the episode is going to be how to give and receive feedback from other writers. So, lately I've been giving and receiving lots of feedback. So, I thought um since I've been getting a lot better at both receiving and giving feedback, uh, I just thought I could do an episode about this because when I started my journey, especially the receiving, was really, really hard. You can go and listen to episode one if you haven't already. I talk about my first experience with feedback from writers. And yeah, let's just say it wasn't the best experience because of myself, it wasn't the fault of the writers, it was completely my fault. Um, so yeah, I think this could be some really valuable information if you haven't done it much, uh, and you're just wondering how to go about it, or if your experience with both giving and receiving feedback hasn't been the best so far. So this could be some clues to help you have a better experience. Because I really think that giving feedback to other writers about their writing and receiving good feedback about our writing is the best way for us to grow as a writer. Um, so I I really believe in how important it is, but it needs to be done right, or it could be quite destructive, I might say, when you're not in the right Ed space to receive it, and when you're not receiving the right feedback or not giving the right feedback, it can be a bit harmful. So um stay tuned for that. But for now, I'm going to go with my updates. So last week I finished chapter 9, so I'm really embracing this all taking my time, taking the time that the book needs, that each scene needs. So last week I wasn't like all worried about taking a whole week on one chapter. I was really confident that this chapter needed it. So if you didn't listen to the episode last week, I go into more details about why that scene needed more work and what I did to make it work. But uh, so I finished it. Uh, I sent it to my mentor, and I told her like that I did more work, and she agreed that the work like made the scene better. So I was really happy about that, and I'm really happy about how the scene turned out. It's not a big change that I made, but I think in the end it it makes a big difference. And also I think that with embracing writing slowly, there's there comes like this freedom that takes away like the mental barrier you put for yourself and actually allows you to work more efficiently on your scene. And like today, this morning, we are Monday, the 26th of September, as I'm recording this. I was fully embracing the time it takes me. I was fully like not putting pressure on myself and just going in like I know what I have to do, I'm working on chapter 10, and like this is just line the thing. This chapter didn't need as much work as the previous one, and I just went into it with that attitude, and I almost completely finished it in one writing session, which it has been a long time since I did like one chapter in one day, close to. I I did the edits by end on my iPad with my Apple Pencil, so I just need to go back and integrate the change that I made into my scrivener file, but I almost finished completely a scene in one day, so yeah, I think that there is something about embracing writing slowly that ends up like you don't end up taking that much more time, I I think. So uh we'll see, but uh I'm pretty happy with with how it turned out. And last week also, like I it was the first complete week of implementing this new writing routine, this new way of integrating more balance into my life. So, again, if you haven't listened to last week's episode, you can go back to see what I'm talking about. So I really did it. I managed to get to bed earlier, so I was like more rested in the morning. I got even like two times I got my seven hours of sleep, so I was really, really happy about that. Uh, it has been some time since I I had seven hours of sleep, and and I think that showed that really showed throughout the day that I had more energy because I allowed myself to because I I was tricked with my bedtime. So that worked well, and also like I didn't manage to stay off of Instagram for all of my breaks last week, but I did uh went on two walks with my dog, which I hadn't done in a long time. Uh, and I managed to read also, I think, three or four times in the week. So those are all big, big wins to me. Uh, and I think it just showed in my overall attitude. Like, I'm really being open to keeping this schedule for a long time, and that that's cool. So we'll see how it goes. But for now, I'm really I'm really happy with how my last week's plan is shaping out. Lastly, I also told you last week that I was working with two of my new writer friends that I made on Instagram. Uh, so we are ex we are about all in the same place in our novel, and we are exchanging uh pages. And uh so I had the chance of reading the first chapter of uh my friend's memoir, and it was really, really good. Like I I just completely burst through them. Uh, and so that that was really fun, and I wanted to mention it. I'm really, really enjoying having this chance of working with writers on their book and helping them making them better, and I'm feeling just so grateful when writers trust me with their work. So that's about it for my updates this week. So, how to give and receive feedback on your writing and other writers' writing. So, before we get into the topic, I just want to mention how important this is. Nothing helps you grow more as a writer than both giving feedback to other writers and receiving them. I know that some writers, and I certainly was like this at the beginning, are wary of not getting the right feedback, not from the right person, of not giving the right feedback, of somehow altering the vision or the quality of another writer based on this feedback that you're giving. And while those are valid fears, I don't believe anymore in letting fear drive me. And I don't think you should let those fear drive you to and keep you away from giving feedback to other writers and receiving it. Because when you analyze someone else's story and you take the time to think about it and come up in a coherent way to tell you, okay, I I felt this, and then try to translate it into something helpful for someone else. It makes you think about what makes a story work and not work, and it makes you see some stuff in someone else's stories that you will not be able to see on your own. So this work of seeing a work in progress, and it's really different from reading something published, because something published have been analyzed and critiqued and worked by so many people that it's up to a point where most of the time it's just a question of taste, whether you like it or not. There is not like a big craft problem that you will usually see in published books that are done well. Um so you cannot develop the skills of being able to see, okay, this doesn't work, and I think this could help fix it by reading published stories. Like it just doesn't work the same way that when you're seeing a work in progress by another writer, that's when you will be able to pick up some things that still need works on because it's a work in progress, therefore it's not finished. So this is super important and will help you grow so much because, like I said, you will see things that you cannot see in your own story, you will notice it because you have a detachment, you don't have like the emotional connection to the story. So you will be able to see things more clearly. And once you've seen someone else do something, when you go back and edit your own work, you will notice it more easily because you'll see, oh, okay, I'm doing the exact same thing. And because I've felt what it's like to read a story that has this particular quote-unquote problem, uh, I'm able to see why it doesn't work in my own text too, in my own writing, too. So that's for giving feedback, but also receiving feedback is super important to help you push a story to a level that you can never push it on your own. Because we have this emotional connection with the piece that we are working on, because we know what we want to say, because we are so close to it, we have blind spots. And there is things that we will never be able to see on our own in our stories that needs to be worked on. So, for example, sometimes you may have the intention of writing something in, but you haven't actually put it in, and you will not be able to see it. It will take someone else to come in and say, Oh, I don't understand why she did this at this point in the story, and you will say, Ah, okay, it's because I haven't actually put it in. Like, I knew it, but I didn't set it. And also, if you're earlier in your writing journey and you're still developing your skills, you will have some tendencies in your writing that you will not notice, but that are easily fixable. And another writer with a little bit more experience in craft who have read more or developed their craft more, will be able to come in and say, Oh, uh, be careful there, you use too many dialogue tags, for example, or um you're telling way too much and you're not showing anything, or vice versa. So if you're starting out in your writing journey and you haven't learned all those craft principles, someone else with a little bit more experience than you, craft-wise, can can really help you to see those things. Um, but of course, you need to to learn them too on your own. Learn your craft, but it really helps when when you have someone come in and point those out to you. And it's by getting these feedback and making the story stronger based on the feedback that you get that you really develop your skills even more. And when you go back and write another story, you will keep those things in mind. And it will it will always get better and better every time every new story that you write. I remember there was this comment that my friend in my writing group said, uh I made her read um a short story of mine, and she said I had this tendency of always repeating the same thought in the inner life of my characters, in the interiority, I had this tendency of repeating two times the same thoughts but in different ways. I had really this pattern in my writing that I had never caught, and she pointed it out every single time I was doing that in my short story, and it was quite short, and I did quite a lot of time. And when I went back in my novel to start working on the line editing, I immediately caught that I was doing this too in my novel. Of course, this is a tick, a writing tick that I have. Like I will say the same thing twice in different words. So I immediately picked it up because my friend had mentioned it before in my short story, and so I could see it, and I I had worked on it to, you know, delete the least strong of the two occurrence when I was saying something. Um, so I had worked so much on it and and seen it so much that it was super easy to me after to go back in my novel and say, oh my god, I'm doing the same thing, and I corrected it. So my friend will not have to tell me the same thing because now I'm aware of the stick that I have. So if I hadn't made this friend read my short story, I would have known that I have the stick and I wouldn't be able to correct it in my novel. So this is just to give you an example of the sort of thing that a writer friend can see, and howbe it will help you every time elevate your writing. Because now that this is fixed, now that this is a tendency that I'm not doing, my friends will be able to comment on other things, and then it always brings up a level. So now it's one thing to know how important it is, but if you're starting out, or if you don't have really, I'm always saying my writer friends, if you don't have writer friends, you can say, but who can I ask for for feedback? Um, and our first instinct, and I know it was mine when I started out, is to ask for readers around us to read our stuff and give us feedback. And while that can be useful, I'm really not recommending it. I said this in a previous episode, but a doctor would not go and ask a carpenter for his opinion about a patient's case. Like they just don't have the same language, they don't have the same skill set, they don't have the same knowledge, so they cannot help one another. The same way that the carpenter would not ask the doctor for a trick for how to do the roofing on a house, for example. So, yes, a doctor has been in a house, and a carpenter has been in the hospital, but it doesn't mean that they are qualified to give feedback and to help someone with their problems. So it's the same thing with asking a reader for feedback. They may have been in contact with many stories in their life. It doesn't mean that they have the skills or the language or the knowledge to be able to give helpful advice that will help a writer elevate their writing and take it to the next level. A reader can give you feelings. They can tell you, oh, I think the middle dragged a little, oh, I didn't really connect with the character, oh, I didn't thought this thing there was believable. That can be helpful, but that also can be really confusing and frustrating because how do you go from there? It can be really hard, and you need to have lots of writing knowledge and skills to be able to say, okay, if the reader thought the middle, for example, was dragging, maybe it's because I spent too much time on this and I'm going to work rework it, but it's harder. Whereas a writer may come in and say, Oh, you're spending way too much time in the fun and games beat, and like your midpoint is really way too far in the book. So that's why like it's dragging. You need to cut some part there, bring your midpoint forward, and then the pace would be better. So that's something really more helpful, and something that will be easier for you to work on than just I thought your middle dragged a little. So really ask you another writer who is engaged in his craft and ideally who has the same sort of goal that you have. So I covered all of this in lots of detail in episode three, the episode on writer friends. So if you don't have any writer friends and you want to make some and you want to find which could be quote unquote good writer friends to ask for feedback and to have it on your writing journey, go and listen to episode three if you haven't already, or go back to it and take some notes if you haven't. But I really covered it in details how you can find those friends and what friends are maybe better to ask for feedback than others. But again, it doesn't need to be like exactly someone who has exactly the same goals as you, writes in exactly the same jar as you, is exactly at the same place in their writing journey as you. All of this helps, but I've had some amazing feedback from writers who are not writing horror, and that has helped me a lot. And I've given also feedback to people who are not writing horror at all. So the jar thing is like I think the one that matters less, except maybe for things like poetry and literary writing. Like, I think that it's hard to give feedback if you are a commercial commercial writer, for example. It might be harder to give feedback on a literary piece, especially if you're not reading a literary novel. But other than that, like jar doesn't really matter. I I think it's more about really being engaged in the craft. And before you go and ask someone to read your stuff, at least try to build a little bit of a friendship with the person first. Uh just don't go and like DM someone on Twitter or Instagram and say, will you please read my 100,000 novel book and tell me what you think about it? Like this is a lot. And and just like just asking someone to read your time a book, like have even more of a relationship build, and and ask them to maybe read like a few chapters first and then see, you know, before you commit for you and for someone else, like before you commit to the whole thing, like start small, just to be sure that that you're working well together. Actually, there is one friend we exchange like just a few messages over DM before we actually exchange page, but it just it it worked, like, and it's working super well. Uh, but usually like I will not no two friends. Yeah, I have another friend who we we became friends by he gave me feedback on a short story, so it was like instantly what what made us become friends. But those are like exceptions to the rule, I think. Most of the time, like when you take this time to build this relationship with the writer before you start exchanging your work, it helps you to just know how the other person is, what style. They're in where they are at, and just to be sure that you can really help one another, basically. So that's the first thing. Start by chatting before you go in and send your entire book. Okay, so you have a writer friend, you have exchanged some message, uh, the vibe is good, and they ask you to read their stuff for feedback. So, first, be happy. This is really cool. They this means they trust you with their work, which is something big, so so be happy about that. Take this task with the level of caution that it requires. So, first, before you go in and give anybody any feedback, you need to know a little about where they are at in their general writing journey, where they are at with the project they've send you. So, is it the first draft? Is it the second draft? Is it a seventh draft? And also, I usually forget to ask for this, but I think it's super, super helpful to ask the person clearly what they are looking for in the feedback that you're going to give them. So, knowing all of this will help you better know what to focus on. Because there is several things you could focus on with your feedback. So, you could give global story structure feedback, where the story is going, what beats have been covered, thematic comments, character journey, what scenes are in, what scenes should be in but aren't. So, all of those more global things. After that, if this part, like the global work has been done, the feedback that you can then give is more like comments about continuity, about interiority, like if you're wondering, okay, why isn't the character wondering this? Why are they doing this? So, more specific comment about what's actually happening on the page, but zooming in on the scene more. So once the global work is done on the story, then you zoom in and go and give those sorts of feedback. So you could say, like, for example, I didn't get why the character did this at this moment. It didn't seem like it went with what you purposely established for this character. Or you could say, Oh, this doesn't feel believable to me in general. Or uh you could say, this part, you've said it already, like you're repeating yourself, we don't really need it. So those types of more, it's still global, like it's not line level feedback, but it's more zooming in really on the scene. And then there are line editing comments that you can get. I find this is the least common sort of feedback to give and receive because it's a lot of work to do, to put in, and usually the moment where I like to give and receive feedback is when the more global work has been done, but the line editing hasn't been done. So what I'm looking for, when I'm looking for feedback, is really to know is my story working globally and on the scene level. Have I done what I set out to do? Basically. So I haven't worked on the line by line writing because I don't want to be spending time rewriting a scene on the line level if I do not even know if the passage will remain there. So it will be wasted time. So I don't want people to waste time giving me feedback on the line level, and I don't want to waste time doing it before I'm at this stage. But when you're starting out, um, or when you know that is that this is like something you really need to work on, I think it could be super useful to ask a friend of yours, and I did this with it was with my short story, my horror short story. I I had done the line editing work and I submitted it to a friend, and she thought I hadn't done it, and she was super nice, like really, really nice about it, but she really didn't think I had done it, so it hurt a lot at first to hear like, oh, once you do the line editing, this will be super good. And I was like, Oh my god, I did it already, so it crushed me, but at the same time, it was the comment I needed to hear. I really needed to know that the line editing work I had done wasn't enough, and so I asked this friend, can you just line edit like a page or two just so that I can see what I'm not doing, what I should be doing, what I'm doing wrong. So I was super intentional asking just for a page or two because I knew how big of a work this is, and I just wanted to see because I could not see it. I was like, I don't know what I can do else. Like I've already aligned it at this piece. But I I didn't just do that, like I also went and listened to I don't know how many YouTube videos about how to make your writing stronger on the line level. I bought a whole book because of one chapter that talked about this specific thing. I I will link to it in the show notes if you're interested. I listened to podcast episode. I took the shining and I went and I look at really on the line level how it was written for me to see how good writing on the line level was. So I went back to a drawing board and I said, okay, my skills are not good enough in this area, I need to work on it. And I think it showed like the work that I did, plus, with the help of my friend who took the time to help me see what she meant when she said, when you will do the line editing, it will be stronger. So the line editing, it's not something you will ask for a long piece. And I and also don't do it yourself on someone else's work before asking them if they want it. Most of the time, like I said, people will ask feedback about in this stage of the global work is done, but they haven't done the line thing. So most of the time, this will not be useful to them to get feedback on a line level. So if you feel like it needs it, you can ask. But just don't go and take this time without asking first. Um, actually, just want to mention that one friend actually did it for one of my short stories, and uh I'm glad he did. I thought again that it was that and there was still room for improving, but like I said, we had this previous like relationship established, so I I didn't feel bad about it at all. I was just so like, wow, you took the time to do this because this is a lot of work. So those are the types of feedback that you can give, and really when you're reading a piece, a work in progress, like be sure that you're in a mental space where you actually really want to give feedback. So giving good feedback takes a bit of time, so just be sure that you're in the right Ed space and go with what you're feeling, what you're seeing, and really focusing on how you can improve it. And sometimes it's not about saying this doesn't work, you should do this to fix it, but more like pointing out something, like my friend said, with like you're saying the same the same thing twice, or like this passage feel really long. I think you have too much description going on, or on the other end, like I cannot see like this the setting in my head, you should add in description. So those sort of feedback, but I think that it's more valuable to point out what doesn't seem to be working than offering solution. But sometimes offering solutions can be really good, and I think that the muse can speak to you for someone else's story when you're reading it. So if you have like an idea, just just tell the writer like you could maybe do this, but I think it should always first come with saying this doesn't work for this reason, and then you can say this, I think this solution will fix it, but only saying do this without first telling what the problem is and why it could be there, that could be interpreted like not in the best way. So just saying you should cut this character, it might be harder to take as a comment than saying, I didn't think that this character was moving the story forward, I think it was just repeating what this other character is doing in the story. So I think maybe you could combine them. So this is more easy to digest as a writer and to process than saying just cut this character. And I also think it's really important to go in someone else's work knowing your own limitation, knowing what your skills are as a writer, and also knowing what are the areas that you're not the best in. So if you're not if you're an intuitive writer and you don't know story structure much, and you don't really like to think about story structure, you more like to go with your gut. Maybe you could you could tell a comment about just your gut, like saying, Oh, I just think the middle was dragging a little. But maybe just leave it there if you know that you don't have maybe the language to explain why you think the middle is not working. Like with one of my friends, he's a really good writer, and I just told him, like, I can help you with your story, but I will like I know that I'm not the bad. And he he writes more literary stuff, like his writing is more elevated on the commercial scale than mine. So I just told him, like, this is not a strong suit for me. And when it's a really super literary piece with no really like classical structure to it, when it's more vignette, more a feeling piece, like I'm not the best person to give you feedback. So I just told him, like, up front, when he asked me for feedback, like, this is my limitation. And if you're making me read a piece that's more literary, I can give you my feelings, like how I feel reading it. But that will be basically like the maximum I can give you because I know that it's not something I read a lot, and it's not something that I write, so I'm just not the best to go deeper than that. But I can give you feeling, so I think that by knowing your own limitation and stating it up front to someone, like this other friend, like she was writing YA, and I just told her, like, I'm not reading a lot of YA at the moment. I did before, but I'm not right now. So just know, just think of that. When I'm giving you feedback, it's not based on knowing all the tropes and the convention of YA writing. So just be sure that you have this in mind. So if I say something that goes against a trope or convention of YA, like know that this is why maybe I'm giving this feedback, and maybe you can discard the feedback I'm giving you entirely. So, so I think that it's doing both you and your friend a big service to know this because you're going both in with this common understanding that this is something I'm really good at and I can help you, but this maybe not that much. So if you need help with this, go find someone else who maybe will be better. Um, and it's normal with we're not like all equally skilled at everything, so it's just important, I think, to to just know that. And also, um, if you're not the target reader to of a particular story, I think it's important to keep that in mind when you're giving feedback to, um, and trying to go more maybe with the the craft than how you felt why while reading it. And my last tip on giving feedback is always give good feedback. Yes, what helps make a story better a writer makes their story better and what helps them grow and progress is giving constructive feedback. That we know, but it's also really important to tell someone else what they did right. No matter where they are in their writing journey, no matter if you think they don't need to hear it, and especially if they're starting out, especially if it's an early draft, tell the writer what's good about it. I'm sure even if like you have this friend who's just starting out and they really need to develop their skills, there is absolutely I'm 100% sure that there is something good in their work, and take the time to mention it because we are all fragile creatures and we all need some approval and validation and feeling like we're doing something right. So when you just get constructive criticism and absolutely no good feedback, it can be harder to digest and it and it can make you doubt yourself, doubt your skills, doubt your story. Sometimes what I like to do is just highlighting a sentence that I really enjoyed, a moment in the story that I really enjoy, and I will put a heart next to it, a comment of a heart, or I will put a laughing emoji at the passage that makes me laugh. I always do that. Like if I laugh in a book, you'll be sure that I will tell you that I've laughed in your story. And when I'm feeling an emotion, like when my friend makes me cry, and he makes me cry way too often in a story. I always tell him a comment like, You made me cry here. Um, I think that it's important not only for our ego as writer, but also those comments about what works well, they help us as writers to know what we shouldn't tinker with, basically, what doesn't need to work. Because sometimes when we don't have any feedback on what's working well, we can start to mess around with things that were working well in the first time just because we don't know better. And I also find that it's really helpful to get good feedback because sometimes if you ask a couple of writers to read your story, and some people mention, uh, for example, oh, I really enjoyed the interiority of your main character, like it's really connected with me and I really enjoyed it. And if you have someone else who comes in and says, Oh, there's too much interiority, I really didn't care for it, I just wanted plot. It helps you to know that someone else really enjoyed it, and then you can say, Okay, is this what I want? Like you know then that it's a question of taste and not a question of did you actually pull it off on a craft level? So I'm always finding it super useful to know what people enjoyed in my story, not just for my ego, but actually to know what okay, this it works well, I do not need to work on it, so I will focus on this instead that dimension. And yes, it it's just fun to read. Like, I think we on some level, as artists, we all want to know that we've done things right. Like, I just think it's normal and human, so and it feels good to give good feedback too. So um be sure to do it, but not just telling what works well, uh, especially if the piece is earlier in the process, like be sure to add in some constrictive criticism. But like uh what's good is always good to know. And also, sometimes you might be in a place where you're really doubting yourself as a writer. It might be a good time to just send a couple of pages to your writer friends and ask them, okay, give me only good feedback. Just tell me everything that's great about those two pages that I sent you. I need it right now. I need to to boost my confidence in myself. So please tell me how I'm good. And and I think that it's normal and it's important, and to be able to have this level of awareness and to know who to ask for, like I think it could be really helpful. And I did that actually with the podcast at the beginning. I was really doubting myself, the show in general, and my capacity to to deliver it. So I went to my friend and I said, you know, just just tell me what you like about my podcast, basically. I want to know, I need to know. And he did, and it it really like it it really helped me to just gain more confidence as a podcaster. Uh so it's it's the same thing as a writer, and like I said, no matter what needs to be worked on, there is always something good in what you write. Always, always, always. So sometimes it's just it just helps to know. And now the episode is titled How to Give and Receive Feedback. So this might seem obvious or really not, depending on where you are with writing feedback, but there is an art to receiving feedback as well as giving it. So when you're unused to being critiqued on your work, and even if you are, but you think that you have really nailed something, and you receive comments that tell you otherwise, like this example I gave of my friend who told me like that I needed to work on the line editing, it can be really, really hard to get those types of feedback. And I've heard many writers in a podcast interview who are published or are working with a publisher, and they will get their editorial letter from their editor at their publishing house. And I've heard so many times writers say, I need to read it and be mad and put it aside for a day or two, and then once the emotion of being angry and sad and all of the bad emotions, once they are processed, then I can go back and say, Oh, of course, yeah, yeah, they're right. Okay, let's go. I can do this, I can make it work. But they need to take some distance because when you get a four, five, six, ten pages letter telling you everything that doesn't work with the book you've just put like years into you. I've heard it can be quite like something to process. So, first, like if you get some feedback and you see that it's coming from a genuine place and you know the writer and you've built a relationship with this person, so you know they're not just out to destroy you, that's why it's important to build a relationship first. Because if you ask a stranger on Instagram to read your book and then they give you shit about it, then maybe it's not about how you need to process it. So that's why it's super important to build a relationship first. But if you know this person, if you know it's a good writer who knows what they're talking about and care for you and wants what's best for you, know that the feelings of being sad, being angry, being put lots of doubt into your mind, those are all just normal. And they do not mean anything about your friend, and they do not mean anything about you and your writing, your value as a writer, your word as a writer, and their word as a writer, it doesn't mean anything about all of this. It's just normal because it's confronting when you get this criticism. And what I've found to be true is that the more it comes and it gets to me, the more emotions I get when I get feedback, it means that they really have put their fingers on something that I really need to work on, and that will make at the end a big, big difference. So, because when you get a feedback, a comment that doesn't apply at all to your vision of the story or what you want to do, or that just like maybe I don't know, the writer doesn't work, like I said, maybe in the same jar, so they don't know the trope, and they're giving you a comment that really don't fit with the trope that you know super well. When a comment doesn't apply, you will see that it's easy to just say, okay, that this doesn't apply. You will have no attachment to a comment that you know intuitively that doesn't apply to work. Whereas when it really gets to you, is usually for two reasons. You know that the person is right and you don't know how to fix it. Because when you know the person is right and you instinctively know how to fix it, you will get excited. You will get so happy that you got this feedback, you will say, of course, they're right. I need to take away this character because it's doing the same thing as this other character. And it's actually super easy. Like, I just need to combine, like, change the name, change what they're doing, and just combine them. So it's an easy fix. So you will get excited, you will be happy to apply it because you can see, oh, it's going to make my book so much better. So, this is the type of feedback that's easy. Easy to apply, and that usually brings out good emotions. And the feedback that you don't have to apply doesn't apply to your book, uh, aren't relevant to what you're trying to do, usually you will be able to just glance over it quickly and just toss it aside as unrelevant to you. But when you are in this spot of knowing deep down inside that the writer is really right about their comments, what they're saying is right, but you don't know how to fix it, that's when it hurts. And usually you we're not capable like instantly of saying, Oh, okay, I'm feeling those emotions because of this. Usually the emotion will just come, the anger will come, the sadness, the feelings of not being good enough for a writer, maybe I should quit this whole thing. They would this will come really, really quickly. And it will take some processing and some experience at getting those comments to be able to just say, okay, they are right, and I don't know how to fix it, so I need to go back to work. And that was exactly what happened with my friend with this comment online editing. I got not mad at her because I loved her too much, and I knew that she wanted the best for me, and I knew that she did not intend to be mean with her comments. So there was absolutely no anger towards her that that happened. What happened was instantly that I was like, C, you suck at writing. C, you're not good, C, like that's why you're getting rejected all the time. It's because you don't know how to write. I felt so irrelevant. I s I felt so bad at writing that it made me doubt everything. And it made me think that maybe you should quit. You see, like you you've put in a lot of work in your line editing and and it doesn't work. But when I took a step back, I really realized that it's because deep down I knew that the writing on the line level wasn't strong enough, and I knew that my skills, my knowledge, my craft wasn't up to a point where I could make it better. And those two things combined brought up all those feelings inside of me. So the solution to that was what I did, and I think it's always the way that you should approach when your those big, big feelings arrive is saying, okay, they are right, so now what can I do? Can I ask them, okay, can we get on a call and discuss it out? Can I go back into my craft book? Can I go back and listen to a podcast episode or YouTube video that talks about this subject so I can have more knowledge and more skills? Can I go into a story that I know does this thing super well, or one or two or three stories that do this super well, and try to analyze okay, how did they do it? How did they manage to get this thing super right? So those are all the options that you have in front of you to acquire those skills, acquire that knowledge, to then feel like, okay, I I'm capable of going back into my story and fixing this thing that I know needs fixing. So I think it's super important to recognize those emotions that arise and why they arise so that you can then apply the right thing. Because if you do not, if you're not able to recognize those those feelings, you might go in and throw an entire story out when it doesn't mean that the story cannot be salvage, it really just means that you need to go back and work. And at the same time, if you do not know how to recognize the feeling of this comment just doesn't apply to my vision of the story or to the jar I'm writing in, or of my writing style, even if you are not good at recognizing that feeling of okay, I can discard this comment and you take every comment at heart, you can change something that actually really works in your story. And so that's why I said earlier to ask a few people, like more than one person, some feedback about a piece, because if your intuition about what you want to do, what you're setting out to do, your skills, and what you're actually trying to do with a story, if you're not really good at at seeing through those things yet, by having lots of feedback, if there is something that everyone mentions, then you can say, okay, it's not a question of taste, it's not a question of the vision I have for the story. Obviously, this thing is not working, so I need to go back into it. But if you have like two people who say they really liked something and two other people say they don't like it, then you can know, okay, you can be more like detached and say, okay, do I change it or not? Because some people liked it, some people other like don't didn't like it. And if there is only one person who mentioned something super specific and nobody else mentioned it, like maybe it's just this person's perspective on your story that makes them say this, and maybe it actually doesn't mean anything about your story. So you can develop your intuition based off of the comments that you get. So, and you can even try to say when you send out a story, do this little trick of saying, okay, what do I think they will say? And I found that most of the time, deep down inside, we know what's not working with our story. We're trying to get away with things, and people will tell us. Um, so you can do this little trick to just test out your intuition and saying, okay, I think this is working, and I think this is not working, and we'll see what people say. But it's important to really recognize those feelings, excitement, anger, and this just lack of emotion. Being able to recognize what arises when you read a comment will help you know what to do with it, basically. And I think this is the thing that takes the most time, but it's being able to recognize what comments, what feedback actually aligns with what you're right trying to do with your story and what doesn't. And this is the hardest part, but I think it comes with practice, with writing a lot, asking for a lot of feedback, giving a lot of feedback, reading a lot, and developing your own taste, and then it will help you to better like make this this distinction, basically. To finish, I just want to say remember that giving and receiving feedback is one of the joys of writing. I really believe it is. I really enjoy helping a writer with their story. I really love seeing like uh before and after of when I've offered feedback. It I really, really enjoy it to see actually what the writer has done with the feedback that I gave. I love seeing a story being elevated because of the contribution that I could give to it. And I love getting feedback. I love knowing what works, I love knowing what doesn't work so that I can go back and make it better before I show it to a professional of the industry. This is one of the fun and the joy of writing, and it should be. And if it's not, it's because either maybe your mindset when it's come to receiving the feedback isn't optimal, or maybe you're just not asking from the right person. So if it's not a joy to you at the moment, I'm just inviting you to check those things, check in with yourself and see okay, how can I make this be a joy? Because it's supposed to be, and I'm telling you, good feedback, it will transform your writing forever. So I really hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, you can support me in several ways. You can go in the show notes. Uh, there's my Ko-Fi page if you want to support me financially. Uh, there's my Instagram if you want to follow me there. You can subscribe and rate the show. Uh, let me know if you are enjoying the show. I always love to hear about listeners and what you thought. This makes me so happy. So don't be shy. You can DM me on Instagram or send me an email. And uh I will see you next week for another episode. But in the meantime, I'm wishing you a lovely week of writing.