Tips for Getting Feedback on Your Writing

Stephanie Morrill is the creator of GoTeenWriters.com and the author of several young adult novels, including the historical mystery, The Lost Girl of Astor Street (Blink/HarperCollins). Despite loving cloche hats and drop-waist dresses, Stephanie would have been a terrible flapper because she can’t do the Charleston and looks awful with bobbed hair. She and her near-constant ponytail live in Kansas City with her husband and three kids. You can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and sign up for monthly updates on her author website.

I have never been a particularly thick-skinned person. I embarrass easily, I have issues with perfectionism, and receiving feedback on my writing often feels like I'm bracing for a punch.

But feedback is an important part of turning your manuscript into a book that people want to read. My editor and I were talking recently, and she commented that she can tell when a manuscript has already had lots of feedback before landing on her desk. This intrigued me, so I asked if she could be more specific. She said:

A lot of it is the level of polish (no typos, clear transitions, etc.), but what’s most evident is usually plot. By the time I’m getting a submission, I shouldn’t be seeing gaping plot holes or finding confusing/unnecessary scenes—rounds of revision and a good critique partner would catch those things. I may still have changes, of course, but manuscripts that have strong flow and a well-executed plot definitely show signs of hard work.

Maybe you are the fortunate writer who looks forward to getting feedback so you can improve your story. Maybe you have loads of writing friends (or at least reader friends) who are happy to read your manuscripts.

Or maybe you're like I was as a young writer. I felt anxious about being told what was wrong with my story. And even if I did want feedback, I had nobody outside of my parents to ask.

Wherever you are on that spectrum, here are seven tips for soliciting, preparing for, and incorporating feedback:

Ask only people who have your best interests at heart.

Showing somebody the writing you've poured your heart into is a vulnerable thing, especially when you're just starting out. Even now, nine years after my debut novel hit shelves, I hesitate just a moment before submitting a new book idea or a proposal to my agent. 

From experience, I can tell you that if the reader doesn't have your best interest at heart, they can say things that leave you wounded for years. 

Maybe you're thinking, "But when I start submitting to agents and editors, they're not going to be gentle with me. I need the practice." 

There's truth to that, but it's different when you're submitting your best possible work to a professional versus when you're trying to get feedback on a piece that you know still needs help. At that vulnerable creation stage, you need people who will be honest but kind.

If you're looking for other young writers to build critiquing relationships with, you can leave comments on this post, or join the Go Teen Writers Community Facebook group. (To expedite your acceptance, send an email to GoTeenWritersCommunity(at)gmail.com to say you'd like to join. We try to be extremely careful about who we let in!)

Consider starting small.

If you're just getting used to receiving feedback, I wouldn't recommend sending your entire manuscript to someone. Especially someone who has never critiqued for you.

Rather I would suggest something as small as a story description. It's helpful if the person who's critiquing for you is interested in your story. If they like the story description, then consider asking them to read and provide feedback for the first 1-3 chapters.

Be specific about your needs.

When I first grew brave and started soliciting feedback from writing friends, I would send out chapters with a, "Here they are! Tell me what you think!" kind of email. Some critiquers would nitpick writing rules, like backstory or POV violations. Others would line edit the whole thing.

I hadn't told them what kind of feedback was helpful, so they didn't know where to focus.

Finally I figured out that I needed to be specific. That I needed to enclose my chapters with an email that said something like, "Here are my chapters. I don't need line edit stuff yet because right now I'm wanting to make sure the character motivations make sense. Would you pay particular attention to the transition of my character's motives in chapter two? I'm not sure about how that's coming across."

Not only was I receiving the kind of feedback I really needed, my critiquers weren't wasting time and energy on edits that I didn't need.

Be respectful.

Unless you're in a writing group where you workshop raw material, don't waste time having first drafts critiqued.

The readers have to dig through so much that they can't offer as strong or clear of feedback. And unless you all are swimming in time, there's only so many read-throughs of a book that a person can do. Only look for critiquers when you've invested time in cleaning up the draft, which is when their feedback will have the biggest impact.

If the other person is a writer, I would encourage you to offer to read for them too. There's no need to try to make everything perfectly fair, but if you ask them to read your chapter, then it's respectful to read their chapter as well.

If the other person is in more of a mentor role (they're already published or contracted, for example), they might not need you to critique for them, but you can still show your appreciation. You can do this by following their social media accounts or leaving a review for one of their books.

One last thing note about being respectful: As a critiquer, it's frustrating to offer feedback to someone, only for them to argue every point you make. While there's no need to agree with everything they say, this person is giving their time to help you. Even if they're completely wrong or misguided in their feedback, there's a way to respond that isn't argumentative. ("I'll consider that suggestion, thank you.")

Give yourself time to hang out with the feedback before you do anything with it.

Feedback elicits a variety of responses from me:

• That's so obvious, why didn't I see it?
• What an interesting insight. But if I make that change, is it changing the story for the better, or just making it different?
• No, I'm going to ignore that.
• Ugh. That comment bugs me. 

That last one is the slipperiest reaction of them all. Sometimes I'm annoyed because I was misunderstood. In that situation, I have to look at how valid the comment is, and if I need to change pieces of my story to make myself clearer.

Other times I'm annoyed because I think they might be right, and I don't want them to be right because that sounds like a ton of work.

This is when it can be very valuable to have several readers. If multiple people make the same comment, you know you need to pay attention. But sometimes only one person makes the suggestion, and you can't tell if you need to make the change or not. Then it's helpful to be able to discuss the dilemma with others who read the story.

Don't feel like you need to immediately jump into edits. Sometimes when I receive feedback, I have to let it soak in for a few days before I feel ready, and that's okay.

Make a list of the suggested changes.

If you're using a word processing program that allows tracked changes, you might have an overwhelming mess that you're trying to sort through.

I know that's what happened to me when I was in critique groups. Everyone would read from the same document, so I had not only a ton of comments to read, but also others would respond to comments that people had left, agreeing, disagreeing, or suggesting alternatives. 

I found the process of incorporating all the feedback so overwhelming that I wasn't at all sad when the group dissolved!

What I wish I knew then was how to make a list of suggested changes. Jill talked about this in her post on Two Ways To Tackle A Major Rewrite, but the best way I've found to start making changes is to start by listing all of them, and then arranging them in the order of biggest change to smallest.

Instead of tackling the issues chronologically, I take care of all the big changes first, and then work through the small ones. 

If possible, stagger your readers

Even though I had written a lot of books before The Lost Girl of Astor Street, this was my first historical mystery. I was so nervous about failing or abandoning it, I wrote the entire first draft without mentioning it to my agent.

After completing my second draft, I asked Roseanna White to read it for me. I asked her because she writes historicals, so I figured she could tell me what I had screwed up genre wise. I also asked her because she knew how nervous I was, and I trusted her to express criticism with kindness.

After making Roseanna's changes, I told my agent about the book, and she asked to read it. After she read it, I made her changes, and then I had Shannon and Jill both read it. (Normally I would have had Shan and Jill read before my agent, so I think that just had to do with timing.)

The great thing about staggering readers like this is I didn't have four people coming back to me saying, "Your villain doesn't show up until 3/4 of the way through the book, and you need to revise it." I could make that change just based on Roseanna's feedback, and then I could test out how my changes worked on the next few readers.

If you have the luxury of staggering readers, I highly recommend it.

How do you feel about receiving feedback? Love it? Hate it? Wish you had good critique partners? Let me know in the comments!