That bit in Predator where Arnie and Carl Weathers shake hands in an uncomfortably manly way
Or why you need a buddy
I’m not your Buddy, Guy!
Let’s talk about external feedback, how you’re getting it, what type you’re getting, and should you listen to it? By external feedback I mean any feedback you receive that’s not from your immediate family, professionals, writing groups or student cohort.
Why not these groups? I can only speak from experience here and as I’ve not paid for an editor at this point that leaves that group out. The rest are too close to you and in the sense of your writing group or cohort they’re too nice.
The number of times I’ve sat in either and had the feedback “I really liked it,” is unreal. Yeah, it sounds nice, but it tells me you probably haven’t read it and even if you did it gives me nothing to work on. Either I’m the greatest writer alive or you just don’t feel comfortable criticising the work. That’s ok! Some of us are British, and don’t like being impolite but you really should get over that and give me, not scathing reviews per se, but constructive feedback.
Constructive. That’s the number one thing you should get out of feedback.
BUT
“I liked this, but…”
That BUT is the best BUT since Nikki Minaj (sorry). Always have a BUT. Now the next sentence doesn’t have to be horrible or even bad, just constructive. This is how I give mine in these places.
“I liked this, BUT have you tried this?” or
“I loved this, BUT what about this?”
This way the author solves their own problems.
JRR Tolkien and C S Lewis used to be in their own little writing group with other notable writers. I read somewhere (so if its not true don’t @ me Lewis fans) that every time Tolkien read something involving elves, Lewis would shout,
“By God! Not another Elf!”
Though he probably swore more in a Christian way.
There is another way to get no-holds barred constructive feedback. That’s to get yourself a writing buddy. A Dillon to your Dutch, a Tango to your Cash, a Murtaugh to your Riggs. The trick is to pick someone experienced, who isn’t high enough that they don’t value your opinion, and who you know or could get to know well enough to chat about stuff around the writing. You could even have a couple.
When I first started writing I flew too close to the sun. I asked two of my established author buddies for feedback on something I’d written. This was years ago when I didn’t realise how bad I was. I had potential but not the skills. They asked me how brutal I wanted them to be. “As brutal as you’d like,” I said. They were.
Author wins. Brutality.
Now this wasn’t a bad thing. I’d asked, they’d given. I just couldn’t act on their advice fully. Now I can and I’ve gotten to this place by utilising my own buddies. A couple of times a month, I send work out to a couple of people. One emails me annotations, the other I meet for coffee, and we hash out each other’s work. It’s like in school where you marked your partners work but with espresso and cake.
Why espresso? Because I hate coffee and want it in shot form to neck as soon as it arrives.
Doing this (the buddy meet-up not the necking espresso) has caused us to reevaluate old material, think of better ways to start stories, better ways to end it, and allows us to talk through writer’s block.
As for the feedback itself? You’re the author. It’s up to you how much you take in, and what you agree with. If you want to keep something that your buddy doesn’t like, then argue for it. See if that argument holds up to scrutiny. Then do what you like.
It’s your story.