Image: CC-BY Writer’s Block I by Drew Coffman @ Flickr flic.kr/p/8kvbSL
It takes a lot to be a successful writer. For starters, it takes persistence and hard work. It takes imagination. Passion. Love for what you’re doing. But it also takes a whooole lot of objectivity.
I don’t care if you’re Quentin Tarantino or Ernest Hemingway—if you’re not objective about your own work, you will never reach your full potential. Still, easier said than done. Objectivity can be a tough thing to grasp as a writer. So what do we do? We turn to feedback.
Feedback is one of the most important tools in a writer’s arsenal, and good feedback (along with a writer smart enough to incorporate it) can be the difference between a mediocre first draft and a spectacular final draft. But brutally honest feedback (which is of course, the best feedback), can be a tough pill to swallow.
I’m sure the majority of writers reading this know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve finished that first draft. You’re in love with the kick-ass protagonist, the thrilling plot, and the pitch perfect comic relief. You send it out to some peers for review, and wait for your gold star and firm pat on the back. Then… the feedback arrives.
Turns out that kick-ass protagonist is a wimp. That thrilling plot is a boredom factory. And as for that pitch perfect comic relief? About as funny as a funeral. At this point, most of us go through one of two phases.
A: We fall into a deep depression, convinced we are hacks who aren’t worthy of writing Twilight fan fiction.
B: We reach the logical conclusion that the reviewers are the real hacks; a bunch of amateurs who clearly can’t grasp our brilliance.
Sometimes, if the work is really important to us or we’re particularly proud of it, we’ll go through both. But as with any grief, eventually there must come acceptance. Okay, so maybe we haven’t written our masterpiece, but that doesn’t mean we might not further on down the road. And that road is paved by rewriting.
We toughen up. We go through the feedback again, side by side with our story, and we assess every note with absolute honesty. Yes. Maybe that witty dialogue we thought was the funniest part of the story really does nothing but bring it to a complete halt. Maybe that plot convenience we thought was perfectly legitimate does make life far too easy for the protagonist. Maybe the entire second half of the story is boring and doesn’t make a lick of sense. Whatever the case, we keep working.
Having said all this, I do think it’s important to remember that not all feedback is valid. Sometimes a reader really won’t get your story, even if it’s an awesome one. In that situation it can be wise to discard some (though perhaps not all) of their feedback. However, if the number of people who aren’t getting your story keeps pilling on high, then maybe they aren’t the problem.
Avoiding bad feedback becomes much easier if we seek out the opinions of people we respect. Whether they are fellow writers, teachers, or just friends who have good taste, people who have similar storytelling sensibilities to ours and who aren’t afraid to bruise our egos are invaluable resources. We owe them a great debt. Without them, our stories might never reach their full potential. Though perhaps we shouldn’t let them know, or they might start charging.
When we’re watching a movie, especially one by a creative team whose work we aren’t familiar with, we have no problem being objective. If it’s garbage, we will say it’s garbage without so much as a whimper. If it’s amazing, we will praise its name from the rooftops of the tallest skyscrapers. To be an accomplished writer, we have to treat our own work with that same kind of objectivity. We have to take pride in our work, but we also have to be the first to point out when it’s not up to snuff. It’s as simple as that.
PS: You’ll probably notice the similarity between this and the post on rewriting. We might be exploring familiar ground, but that’s only because this ground is so important. I’m a big believer in the theory of “first draft, worst draft”, and that if you want to really bring your work to the next level, you’ve got to be willing to keep rewriting and keep rewriting.
So if you haven’t checked out the post on rewriting—which you can do so here—and you found this one useful, give it a look through, as these topics go very much hand in hand.
