STORYMOJA

How to Apply Criticism and Not Lose Your Mind by Merrilee Faber

So you’ve sent your story out to impartial and honest readers for feedback.  The results come flooding in, and suddenly you are overwhelmed with pages of conflicting advice, comments, praise and condemnation, often all in the same critique.

How do you deal with this?  Even if you only get comments from a few readers, you’ll be very lucky if they all say the same thing.  How do you decide what criticism to accept, and what criticism doesn’t serve the needs of your story?

Weighting criticism

Weight Criticism

No, that’s not a typo.  “Weighting”, in scientific terms, means giving certain data points more weight than others.  It’s something you should definitely do with critiques, as not all critiques are equal.

I usually weight using the following formula.

1. Agree completely with the comment

Number 1 should be obvious; sometimes you read a comment and go “duh”.  It’s your story; have faith in your intuition to guide you towards the right answer.  Just be wary of the dratted ego.  It doesn’t matter who the comment is from; if it’s right, it’s right.

2. Comment from someone whose writing I admire

If I get a comment from someone whose work I have read and who I think is a good writer, I will give it solid consideration, even if I initially disagree with the comment.

3. Comment from someone who writes/reads in my genre, but I don’t know

If I know the critiquer is familiar with the genre of the story, I will give their comment more weight than, say, a person who only reads romance.  All genres have their tropes, and someone familiar with the genre will be more likely to notice relevant issues, rather than raising comments that don’t apply to that genre.

4. Other comments

But just because someone doesn’t read/write in my genre, doesn’t mean they can’t make a pointed and accurate analysis.

5. Comments that induce blank confusion or homicidal rage

You will always get comments like these.  Read them, say thank you, then tuck them away in a separate file.  Don’t delete them though; they are deserving of a second read through at a later date, when the ego is not so prominent.  There may be hidden gems in there.

You want to read Merrilee’s full article, so go to Not Enough Words and read it.