I write every day, clicking away at my keyboard. This is, naturally, a solitary activity, unless you count the dog who usually cuddles by my side or my kids who are often upstairs for quiet time (when they’re not asking me for a snack for the millionth time). Sometimes I’ll join my writing group, particularly during Nanowrimo, for a write-in, where we focus on getting words onto paper. Even then, when I’m surrounded by others clicking away at their keyboards, writing feels pretty solitary, at least when I’m drafting and getting my ideas onto paper. (Affiliate links included). After that?
I would argue that my best writing comes when I allow others to read my drafts and provide feedback — and, yes, that definitely includes criticism. I’ll admit it can be hard at first to send that draft off to my critique group. What if they don’t like anything about it? What if what I wrote is absolutely terrible and it’ll be torn to pieces? Their opinions on something I’ve worked really hard on are out of my control, and that can be a hard thing to accept.
But, here’s the thing:
Even in the roughest of drafts, even when the story has plot holes, or the characters act “out of character” for how I’ve written them thus far, the members of my critique group have always found something they like about a piece. Are all critique groups like this?
Heck no. In fact, in the past, I have been a part of groups where the criticism wasn’t…. well, encouraging — but I didn’t go back to those.
Because while I welcome criticism, it’s diplomatic criticism that I prefer and that I find the most helpful. As the head of my local writing group, The Writing Journey, has said: “it’s not what you say, but how you say it.” Criticism can be a good thing, as long as it doesn’t tear you down in the process. The best kind of criticism is constructive, helpful, and, I daresay, even motivating.
To participate in the Writing Journey’s recent anthology, “Stranded,” every story went through three rounds of critique from three people. That’s feedback nine times! What’s really cool about all this feedback was seeing how different people interpreted the stories. When people provide feedback/criticism, they catch things that we, as writers, miss because we’re too close to the story; they help strengthen the story by giving their interpretation of what we’ve written, and sometimes?
One reader will love the black and white tiled floor in your story, and another won’t. True story; you can read what I decided to do in my “Date of Death” story published in the Journey anthology “Stranded.”
That’s the thing about criticism: it comes from an individual’s perspective, and you can choose to take it or leave it, because at the end of the day?
You’re the author and you make the final decision. Even so, my stories wouldn’t be what they are without the criticism I’ve gotten along the way.
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Get your copy of the “Stranded” anthology here.
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