Getting Useful Feedback – 6 Steps for Writers
Unedited Guest Article by Marla Beck
Isn’t it satisfying when you ask someone to look at a project you’re working on and you get exactly the feedback you’re seeking? Sometimes you receive a wise and constructive appraisal of your craft. Other times, you gain a professional contact or referral. In either case, you used your time well and you feel great!
This doesn’t often happen for you? Do you wish it would?
Getting good feedback is a skill, and for some writers it’s effortless. For others, getting good feedback requires a bit of intention and practice.
If your requests aren’t yet resulting in feedback you can use, here are six specific steps to help you learn the art of Targeted Feedback:
1. Know Your Purpose
When you think about asking someone else for feedback, are you clear about what you’re looking for? Be very honest. There’s a big difference between asking someone to edit your prose and asking someone to shore up your belief in yourself as an artist.
----------
Sell your book to a publisher before you've even written a word! Learn the book proposal secret from a publishing insider. Click here now!
----------
2. Build Your Belief
“Creative cheerleaders” are important, but it’s even more necessary to ensure that your Number One Cheerleader is you.
We’re especially vulnerable to looking to others for validation when we’re taking creative risks with our work. Think about the past few times you’ve asked someone for feedback. Again, be honest. Were you seeking approval, validation or permission for your project? If so, it’s time to strengthen your belief in yourself and your work.
3. Refine Your Request
Useful feedback results from clearly stated requests. What specific input will move your project forward?
If you’re seeking feedback on how well you’ve developed your thesis or protagonist or extended metaphor? If so, you’re asking for content help.
If you need help formatting or proofing your work, you’re asking for help related to form.
If you’re hoping for contacts or ideas for marketing your manuscript, you’re looking for business input.
Once you’re clear about what input you need, practice articulating your request with clear and direct language. Remember to define and limit your request. Without guidance, many readers will bounce from issues of form to content and back again. This type of feedback is not only inefficient, but it has the potential to wreck havoc on your writing process or confidence.
Clarifying your intention and crafting clear requests takes practice, but it can be learned.
4. Who’s Got What You Need?
You’d be surprised at how many smart, accomplished writers I’ve coached forget to ask the crucial question: “Who’s got what I need?”
“Don’t go to the ice cream parlor asking for a hammer,” says a popular adage. Make sense? Never (repeat: never!) ask a blocked artist to champion your creative work.
As you begin asking for Targeted Feedback, you’ll notice over time who can offer you what: “Jennie’s the best copy editor; Max reads for content; Rob is already publishing where I want to place my work.” As you consciously develop your creative network, you’ll develop a useful and diverse array of feedback partners.
5. Draw a Veil
Imagine a surgeon asking her family for feedback on the day’s incisions. An exaggerated example, but it makes an important point: writers with good professional boundaries don’t ask non-writers to validate their craft.
One of the paradoxes of the writing process is that often our closest personal allies (friends, siblings, parents, significant others) make lousy feedback partners. It’s not that they don’t care, but perhaps that they know you not only as a writer, but also as a daughter, a nephew, a friend or spouse. And with these roles come expectations. (“I wish she’d stop wasting time on this novel business and start earning real money!” said one client’s husband when she tried to share her work.)
If you’re in an artistic partnership with a close friend or family member and it’s working for you, by all means continue. Otherwise, it’s a wise move to draw a veil around your work as you nurture it into being. Share your writing with your family, but only when you’re ready (and not in need of validation).
6. Time it Right
One of the fastest ways to strangle new work is to ask for feedback too early in the process. Use the veiling technique to give yourself more time and space than you think you need to be alone with your work. Take much more time than you think you need. By doing so, you allow ideas to develop and impressions to deepen. It’s tragic when a new idea goes unexpressed because someone receives negative (or even neutral) feedback too early in its genesis.
Bob Dylan sings, “if something’s not right, it’s wrong.” Be sure to time your feedback request right, and if you have any doubts, wait.
Marla Beck, life coach for writers, empowers writers to write — and live — with ease, creativity and balance. The Relaxed Writer, her monthly ezine (and blog), provides inspiration, tips and strategies to create a more focused, relaxed and rewarding writing life.
----------
Making Money With WordPress Just Got Easier. Start generating multiple streams of income from your WordPress blog in minutes. No programming required!
----------
Popularity: 8%
Related posts:
