Tag Archive for: revision

The Secret to Receiving Constructive Criticism

Receiving constructive criticism can be as difficult as giving it. It can be challenging to divorce personal feelings—and all the hard work put into the previous draft—from someone else’s opinion. But when I put my story out there to receive constructive criticism, I need to be open to it. I have to put aside my feelings and understand that these comments aren’t about my quality as a writer; they’re about the execution in this one specific piece of writing. Even if I think it’s my very best work, it’s only my very best work so far. Think of all the ways it can be improved! So, starting with a deep breath, constructive criticism can be the best thing for my work, especially if I’m open to change. I have a three step-method for taking in constructive criticism that includes listening to what is said, evaluating how that critique fits with my plan for the story, and then getting excited to revise!

Listen

When I get feedback from a critique, I start by reading each comment as though I’m another evaluator on the manuscript. I’m not the author when I first read a critique. I’m another objective party, taking in someone else’s comments to get the big picture of the feedback. I start by reading the summary comments and then all of the in-line comments before making any decisions about how to act on those comments.

Evaluate

Now that I’ve listened objectively, I get to be the author again! It’s important to keep some objectivity, after all the purpose of constructive criticism is to identify ways to strengthen the writing. Now, though, I start deciding how to address each comment. Should I keep the exact suggestion a reviewer made? Should I accept that something’s hinky but enact my own solution? Should I ignore the comment? Ignoring a comment is a perfectly legitimate way to respond to a critique. Someone might not “get” what I’m doing, and it’s okay for me, the author, to decide that I know what’s best for my work.

One method I use for evaluating comments is to have the comments and my story side by side in separate documents. If I disagree with a comment outright, I don’t move it to my story document. If it’s an easy fix (a grammatical error or improving word choice), I immediately do it. If it’s a trickier one or one that I’m not sure I want to make, I summarize the feedback as in-line comments on my story document and add my thoughts. At the end of the evaluation, I have all the comments I will or possibly want to respond to on my story document.

Get Excited

After every critique I walk away feeling excited to work on my story. I’ve thought about the feedback and, through evaluation, have come up with at least a few solutions to strengthen some of the weaknesses of the manuscript. Yes, I might have a lot of work ahead. Yes, someone might not have seen all of my brilliance. But I now have ideas for making the story better, and that’s a pretty exciting thing.

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DIY Edit: A New Hat

Even though I’m an editor for hire, I firmly believe in self-editing. For one, it helps you develop your skills as a writer because it forces you to learn to analyze your own work. For two, you’ll get more from a professional editor because if you’ve already caught simple mistakes, an editor can spend more time on complicated issues. For three, if you decided to hire me, it makes my life easier. 😉

Because I’m a proponent of do-it-yourself editing, each month I’m going to drop a tip for developing your ability to edit your own work or identify things to look for as you edit.

01 A New Hat

Editing your own work can be a tricky thing, but it is not impossible. When editing your own work, one of the most important steps is to create distance between you and your work. One of the best ways to create distance is to recognize the difference between your role as a writer and your role as an editor.

The Writer is the person who has lovingly nurtured the manuscript into its current state. Every sentence makes sense (even when words are missing) and typos and grammatical errors disappear in front of the writer’s eyes. The writer loves the characters, understands the plot innately, and can perfectly see every aspect of the setting and character description. The world is completely alive for the writer because the writer is the creator.

The Editor is the person who is going to dissect the manuscript to highlight the strengths, illuminate the weaknesses, and identify as many typos and grammatical errors as possible. The editor comes to the manuscript as a blank slate. Everything the editor knows about the world is from the words on the page. An editor will read slowly and carefully to catch errors both in the language and in the continuity. The editor’s job is to identify what the writer needs to do so that the manuscript will translate more easily from the page to a reader’s imagination.

Switching between these roles can be difficult, but the more you distinguish the tasks, the easier it will be. Keep the jobs separate and don’t preform writer tasks on an editor day. When you’re editing you must look at the work objectively. You have to distance yourself from the mental images that already exist and build those images from the words on the page. The key role of an editor is to find what needs to be strengthened, changed, or even rewritten. After you finish analyzing the manuscript as an editor, then you address those issues from the role of the writer. Keeping these roles separate is a great way to start learning to edit your own work.

 

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