FEEDBACK
It is truly terrifying to send out your baby (manuscript) into the world to face the cruel and often brutal place it can be out there. If you have a thin skin, get yourself a suit of Armour or at least a chain-mail vest as you’re going to need it.
If you want to improve as a writer you have to bite the bullet and get some feedback and that means other people have to read it.
Unfortunately, friends and family are not the best people to give you truthful feedback. Even if they think it is awful, they won’t say so as they don’t want to hurt your feelings. If you ask them what they think they tend to say, “It was good,” or “I enjoyed it,” Both not very helpful are they? At the time, when I wrote my first novel I thought it was brilliant but when I re-read it some years later, I cringed at how bad it was, clumsily written with very wooden dialogue to say the least.
I see now they were sparing my blushes but it didn’t help me at the time to get any better. It was no surprise than that it was rejected by agents. I shudder now that I ever sent it out in that state. I recognize my friends and family were put into an uncomfortable position so try not to do this as they cannot possibly say what they really think.
So, who can you ask? This is a tough question to answer but joining a writers society may be the answer as they often have critique groups where other writers point out errors and as they don’t know you they will be honest. Again sometimes this is hard to hear but to improve you have to know where you are going wrong. See if there is a group near you and give it a go.
More on this next time.
It is truly terrifying to send out your baby (manuscript) into the world to face the cruel and often brutal place it can be out there. If you have a thin skin, get yourself a suit of Armour or at least a chain-mail vest as you’re going to need it.
If you want to improve as a writer you have to bite the bullet and get some feedback and that means other people have to read it.
Unfortunately, friends and family are not the best people to give you truthful feedback. Even if they think it is awful, they won’t say so as they don’t want to hurt your feelings. If you ask them what they think they tend to say, “It was good,” or “I enjoyed it,” Both not very helpful are they? At the time, when I wrote my first novel I thought it was brilliant but when I re-read it some years later, I cringed at how bad it was, clumsily written with very wooden dialogue to say the least.
I see now they were sparing my blushes but it didn’t help me at the time to get any better. It was no surprise than that it was rejected by agents. I shudder now that I ever sent it out in that state. I recognize my friends and family were put into an uncomfortable position so try not to do this as they cannot possibly say what they really think.
So, who can you ask? This is a tough question to answer but joining a writers society may be the answer as they often have critique groups where other writers point out errors and as they don’t know you they will be honest. Again sometimes this is hard to hear but to improve you have to know where you are going wrong. See if there is a group near you and give it a go.
More on this next time.