Criticism versus feedback

A recent critique I received of some of my work has set me thinking about the difference between criticism and feedback on our writing.

Writing is a very personal thing.  It’s no exaggeration to say that every piece of our writing contains a little piece of our hearts.  And if we are following our hearts when deciding what to write, the piece may encompass our essential beliefs and values too.

There’s no getting around the fact that, the moment we show our writing to the world, the world will have an opinion on what we’ve written.  Some of those opinions may be helpful, but some might be downright destructive of both our work and of our self-esteem as a writer.

I’ve learned the hard way that not everyone’s opinion is useful to me. As a science fiction writer, I’ve left several writing groups through sheer frustration.  Too often I’ve found myself in the midst of groups of seventy-something female romance and saga writers who have never seen or heard a piece of science fiction writing in their lives.  I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve got “That’s interesting, dear.” as the only feedback from these groups.  

But at least that wasn’t totally destructive criticism like I received from one critiquing group I was part of at a science fiction convention.  “I cannot believe in anything about this novel” one of the critique group members said.  That might have derailed me, if it wasn’t for other group members saying they loved it, and it was just the sort of science fiction they liked.

If I’d been a novice writer that spiteful criticism might well have stopped me writing,  Bu by then I’d been writing for over thirty years, and I’d had enough feedback on my work, some of it from industry professionals, some of whom had told me I could write.  So I thanked this spiteful woman politely and moved on, promptly ignoring every word she said.

I’ve become more wary about who I show my work to as I’ve got more experienced.  I’m lucky that I have a local writer’s group which gives me honest but respectful feedback. I also have my small group of close writer friends who’ve also critiqued most of my work, and whose opinions I trust,

This is the key with feedback.  It needs to come from trustworthy people,  People who acknowledge that their view is just one individual opinion, and don’t state their responses in dogmatic ways as if they’re the absolute truth.

I also expect people to be respectful of my heart these days, to be aware that they’re not just critiquing a few words on a page, but commenting on a piece of my heart.  So I expect them to deliver their feedback by using words like “I felt this...   I was confused by...”. I expect their feedback to be specific, and owned as one individual’s view of the work.

I can work with respectful feedback, and these days when I get dogmatic and disrespectful criticism, I protect myself by not even reading it.