Criticism―How To Deal With It And Why It's Often More Useful Than Praise

Being praised for your work is great!
Criticism is sometimes more helpful!

In this episode of A Book and A Dream, Megan O'Russell discusses how to use criticism to push your work, both in writing and in life, to new levels.

As mentioned in the episode, Feather and Flame comes out tomorrow, May 26th, 2020! Follow this link to order your copy now: https://books2read.com/FeatherandFlame/

Also mentioned in the episode, Inker and Crown is now available for pre-order. Check it out here: https://books2read.com/InkerandCrown

Transcript

Megan: [00:00:03] Now, if you choose something super weird, like spider shifters, you may not reach an audience, and that's your choice.

Announcer: [00:00:16] Welcome to A Book And a Dream with Megan O'Russell: An Author's Adventure in Writing, Reading, and Being an Epic Fangirl.

Megan: [00:00:27] Hello, my name is Megan O'Russell, and welcome to Episode 27 of A Book and A Dream. Now, I think we all enjoy it when someone says something nice about us, about our work, our art, us as a person. Some of us may have deep-seated psychological issues that, I dunno, make us hide from praise and like curl up in a corner for a while while trying to figure out if they're worthy of it. But in general, most people enjoy when someone says something nice about their work, especially their book. But with that comes the other side of the coin. What do you do when someone says something not so nice about your book or, you know, the song you wrote or sang or whatever, the negative reaction to what you've done may be?

Megan: [00:01:18] I wanted to talk to you about that, but to get to why we're talking about it, first, a little update about my little book world. So tomorrow, which is May 26, Feather and Flame, the final book in the Ena of Ilbrea series will be released. I am so excited to have this book out into the world because it is the end of a series and it's the first series that I undertook completely on my own. But it is not the end of Ilbrea. In fact, there are more Ilbrean series coming. I'm going to do a whole podcast about that next week to tell you how it came to be and how they interlock and all that exciting things. There's so much world building and maps and I'm really excited about it. But in the meantime, I wanted to announce that there is a book in the Guilds of Ilbrea series. The first book in that series is Inker and Crown, and it will be released in July. It's even up for preorder already. I'm so excited about this project.

Megan: [00:02:15] And because it is going to be the second series in the Ilbrean world, the book's done. It was actually done before Ena was ever written.

Megan: [00:02:25] But I started wanting to be more very particular for my fans. So if you've read the Ena series, you know a lot about Ilbrea, you know a lot about the Guilds, but then if you've never read Ena, you don't have to read it in order to jump into Inker and Crown. I want to make sure that there's a good balance between having not so much information that people who have read Ena are... Ena are like, "I already know all this. Why are you repeating it?" And people who have never seen the world before aren't like, "Wait. What are you talking about? There are guilds? I'm...I'm so lost right now." And that's a really hard balance to strike because I have five files of information, a lot of maps and so much data in my head about this imaginary place of Ilbrea. It's hard for me as an author to separate what other people don't already know. So I decided to actually get a professional beta reader, which is the person in the process who would go in before, like, your content edits and your line edits and all those things. They get basically, like, your finished draft that you would send to an editor and they give you feedback on it, which is great.

Megan: [00:03:33] I don't usually use a professional beta. I have other people who beta for me, but they've all read Ena, and I don't want to, you know, contaminate the sampling by having someone who's already familiar with the world. So I go online to one of my author groups and I'm like, hey, I need a beta. Do you have any suggestions? And they all gave me some excellent suggestions for where to find it. Someone offered to beta for me themselves, which, she's a fellow author, which is so generous.

Megan: [00:03:56] And one of the comments that was written about this one beta is she's very thorough, but she's very mean. OK, to which another author said, well, but like mean in a good way. OK. Well, she doesn't just say nice things about your book.

Megan: [00:04:18] And it really made me think about how we handle when someone doesn't like our work. Now, I'm pretty good with criticism. Sometimes I actually handle criticism better than praise.

Megan: [00:04:31] It's weird, man. It's... I don't know if it's like too many years in ballet and musical theater where, like, they ream you in front of everyone and give you notes about everything you've ever done wrong, straight up to how you smile. And then you walk back into the next room...into the room with the same people you were just criticized in front of the next day, like, you really get a thick skin because it's the only way to survive.

Megan: [00:04:52] But I know it's not that way for everyone. So I wanted to talk to you about how to use those negative comments and make them useful to you, your book and your artistic process. So, negative feedback can help you fix problems within your manuscript. For example, I have some lovely readers who get the final drafts of my books. And these ladies, they have an eagle eye. They will find a missing letter, a missing punctuation. They're amazing. And they give me all kinds of wonderful information about what they like, what they don't like, anything they're confused on. And it helps me clarify one more time before it goes out to my readers. So one of my lovely review copy readers emailed back and she was like, I don't know, it kind of feels like it's not the end of Feather and Flame.

Megan: [00:05:44] And it was said in, like, a very brisk way, like she was not being mean. But she even apologized, was like, sorry, I'm in a hurry and I hope I don't offend you. And she didn't. But I sat there and I looked at it and then I went back in to what she was talking about and I stared at it for a while, may have had a glass of wine.

Megan: [00:06:01] And then I went in, and I added three lines to the final chapter of Feather and Flame. And it made it so much stronger because in my head, because Ena lives in my head, I know exactly where she's at at all times. But it just needed a tiny little bit of clarification to make it stronger for the reader. And I sent that chapter back to her and was like, hey, just, you know, totally took your advice and fixed it.

Megan: [00:06:26] She loved it. It's so much better.

Megan: [00:06:28] But if she hadn't said, "oh, I kind of feel like..." I wouldn't have had that information. So when someone gives you something like that about your manuscript or whatever, just look at it. Take a second, take a step back and see if whatever they are saying could make your project stronger. Also, while talking about, like negative things, sometimes bad reviews can actually help your book. I know, it sounds absurd, and sometimes bad reviews are just nasty. Like, I will admit, there are some nasty people out there, especially Goodreads. People on Goodreads can be heartless, they can be cruel. But there are cases where bad reviews help. For example, there may or may not be a review on Girl of Glass that says, This book was awful. There was too much blood and vampires.

Megan: [00:07:22] Well, yes, Girl of Glass does, in fact, fall...involve blood and vampires.

Megan: [00:07:29] So by having that review on there, while it kind of sucks that it dinged my star rating, it helps other readers who don't like blood and vampires not to buy the book that has blood in vampires, which would, in turn, create more negative reviews, so it can be helpful. Accept it with a grain of salt. Take a breath. Eat a chocolate. It's going to be okay. Negative reviews and feedback can also help you figure out where your book should live. Back in The Tethering's traditional publishing days, it was often pushed into, like, a paranormal romance category, which, if you're an author familiar with the Amazon algorithms, sometimes you have to go into paranormal romance because it's the only kind of romance that fits. There's really not a fantasy romance for teens or like an urban fantasy romance. They push you towards paranormal. I don't know why it's the only category you can get into. But that doesn't mean you necessarily have to market the book that way. And that's what they were doing with The Tethering.

Megan: [00:08:32] And there were some reviews that said, hey, there is not enough sexy time in this book to be paranormal romance. If it's a paranormal romance, why does everyone have pants on?

Megan: [00:08:42] So then I knew when I went indie, that's not how to market that book. You know, Jacob and Emilia, it's heartwarming, heartbreaking, passionate romance with pants on a lot of the time. So, no, that story isn't going to fit in with the bare-chested books. And so that helps you figure out what readers are looking for and what readers do not, in fact, belong to your book. Now, if you're not as hard hearted as I am and you have a problem taking criticism, I get it. It can be hard. It can hurt your soul. It takes a long time to get to the level of I don't give a @#$# that I live in. And that's OK. I would encourage you to continue on this journey towards finding the good in the negative feedback in the criticism. However, I do want to caution you against toxic criticism. This is a huge problem. For example, let's say, I don't know, your best friend decides to read your book and then they come back out you with, Well, this is a problem and that's a problem. And this is a problem. Please consider the source. Does your friend even read in the genre you're writing in? If your friend only reads techno thrillers, and you're writing a cozy romance, they may be expecting, I don't know, blood and international travel that isn't required in your genre as they literally don't know what you're doing with your manuscript, with your art, with your life for that matter. Maybe take a step back and say thank you so much for your feedback, but I'm actually looking to other people in my industry for comments and criticism.

Megan: [00:10:31] It's OK to say no to your friends when they're trying to be helpful if they don't know what the @#$# you're talking about.

Megan: [00:10:39] Also, be aware of the drama behind the criticism. Let's say that you do look to peers in your genre, in your art field, and all of a sudden you get this really nasty feedback. Take a look. Is there drama behind it? Is there some kind of crazy that you don't know that's going on? A good example: I once had an editor who told me that Jacob in The Tethering was abusive. Horribly, horribly abused Emilia.

Megan: [00:11:11] And I got a little mad because, no, no, this is not Twilight. There is no creepy abuse going on. What are you talking about?

Megan: [00:11:22] And then I realized that what she was talking about literally didn't exist. [I] asked some questions of my publisher, found out that there was lots of emotional trauma going on in her life. And she was taking it out on my manuscript. I'm not saying that's always the case, but if it literally hits you out of nowhere and you can't pinpoint where they're getting that point of view, maybe look around and see if there's some underlying drama.

Megan: [00:11:47] Last, but definitely not least, make sure that whoever is giving you the feedback, criticism, reviews, whatever, that they know what your end game is with your product. If they don't know where you're aiming...this is a little bit less for people who have bought your book, because if they read your book blurb, it should be telling them where you're aiming. But that's a different thing. Honesty and blurbs is like a a different podcast. I'll do it down the line. Don't worry, but make sure they know what you're trying to do with your book. Especially beta readers, editors, all of those people. Or, you know, maybe it's people telling you what to do with your life and they don't know that you just want to live on a cruise ship and be an international traveler and perform for all your days.

Megan: [00:12:31] And, you know, they're trying to push you to move into a farmhouse, whatever it is. Make sure the people you're taking advice from know what your end game is. Not every fantasy book is trying to be Harry Potter. Not every dancer wants to be a ballet dancer. Not every person wants to have millions of dollars. There is lots of advice out there for people who want those very streamlined paths. If that's not where you're going, then you just kind of have to shake off whatever criticism is trying to push you that direction and retarget. What is your goal with your manuscript? What genre are you trying to fit in? What readers are you trying to reach? Now, if you choose something super weird like spider shifters, you may not reach an audience and that's your choice. You can decide to write a weird book that may never sell because it's what makes you happy. Know that that's your choice and that you're probably not going to get big numbers. But if that's where you're going, own it. And when someone says, no, you can't write spider shifters. Everyone needs to be writing about the boy who lived. That's when you say Aragog is more my thing and I'm going with the spiders.

Megan: [00:13:47] That's fine. You do you. But just remember, take a breath, take a moment, absorb and either fling it away or work it into your piece. Now, I will do the Ilbrea podcast next week because I am so excited to tell you more about the world and all the things that are coming up. Take a moment. There will be a link below this video or in the podcast notes so you can check out Inker and Crown. I am so excited to share it and I am so thrilled that Feather and Flame is coming out tomorrow. So do me a favor. What is the weirdest random criticism you've ever gotten? Something like super inapplicable, like, you know, someone telling you your hair is blue when you you kind of did that on purpose. So you're aware and you like it. Things like that. Share it in the comments below. I would love to know. And don't forget to like, subscribe, whatever you have to do in order to make sure that you get to see the next video/hear the next podcast when we will talk more about Ilbrea. Because I am so excited. Until next time.