Serious feedback

This morning I'm packing up to drive to the annual Dunford Novelists' weekend.  Held in a hotel in Bournemouth, on the south coast of England, it's an event I look forward to each year.  I've been going  to the weekend for a few years now, and I always look forward to meeting up with writer friends I only see two or three times a year.

The work part of the weekend is not for the feint-hearted.  We get 8 minutes to read out our first page to a group of 30+, who then give verbal feedback on it.  The twist is that the author isn't allowed to respond to the feedback.  It's the equivalent of getting thirty varied reviews on Amazon at the same time, except that these are delivered face-to-face.  Then there are the six written critiques I'll get of my whole chapter.  Again, there's no opportunity to dialogue with the reviewers.  The only place where I do get that chance is in the small group reading session.

It can be infuriating at times.  For me the pet hate is reading a critique that starts off "I don't read SF, but...", and I've had lots of those.  Some of the reviewers have stretched their brain to embrace the story, some haven't even bothered.

Which brings me to another of the serious writer's essential skills - the ability to filter and evaluate feedback on your work.  There are a lot of women's contemporary writers in the Dunford group, and a fair few romance writers.  We have nothing in common, but sometimes one of those people will attempt to critique my work.  This is generally not helpful.  It either ends in useless generalities, or with an infuriating and inappropriate comment that no SF reader would make.

So it's necessary to filter the feedback, and knowing who the reviewers are is useful for this.  Like the year when I got a crit from a freelance copy editor which told me to move all my commas about, but told me nothing about whether the story worked.  I did not take to is particular individual, and thankfully this copy editor won't be at this year's meeting.

Dunford is hard work, and I'll come home with six conflicting views on my chapter as usual.  But that's the life of a writer.  As the saying goes, you can't please all of the people all of the time.  I just aim to come home with enough sensible critiques to make the effort worthwhile.  And there will be some nuggets of serious feedback that will be pure gold.  That's what I do it for.