On Getting Feedback

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Feedback is important for writers, but the timing of it is equally important.  I think the best times for us to get the feedback may also change as we continue with our writing career.

When I was first starting out, I was desperate for feedback on my work-in-progress.  I wanted to know right away what I needed to improve.  I think that’s mostly because I just didn’t have a lot of writing time and I didn’t want to keep doing something wrong to the point where the edits would be awful.

That’s when I joined a couple of critique groups. One of them only met monthly, which was tough on me (at that point, I felt I could use daily feedback). The other was weekly,  which was better.

But after finishing my first book, I felt less of a need for immediate feedback. In fact, I found that the critique groups weren’t really giving me what I needed anymore.  I’ve always used the analogy of playing tennis and having a hard time finding a compatible partner: either they’re much better than you are and it’s frustrating, or they’re much worse than you are (equally frustrating).

For a while, I just worked solo and didn’t get feedback until it was time to send the manuscript to an editor.  Now that’s feedback, ha.  I learned that the editorial letters I’d get always seemed scary and overwhelming at first, but then seemed much more manageable the following day.  It also helped to make myself a step-by-step list of tasks to complete to break it all down.

Then, I discovered some of my readers were really invested in my stories…to the point that they were happy to be beta readers.  Now I send my stories to them as soon as they’re done and before sending them to my editor. Frequently, they have excellent suggestions for changes and improvements.  After I make those, I send the book off to my freelance editor.  This method has been working well for me for several years now.

Additionally, I read my reviews.  Sometimes they sting a bit, but again…readers have amazing suggestions for improvement quite frequently. The bad reviews can really help.

For further reading and thoughts on leaving critique groups, see Kathryn Craft’s “Leaving a Writer’s Group: 5 Reasons it May Be Time” and Lisa Bubert’s post, “Knowing When to Fly: Leaving Your Critique Group.” For thoughts on the importance of beta readers, see Barbara Linn Probst’s post “Beta Readers: Who, When, Why, and So What?”

I’m curious if anyone else has had a similar process in seeking feedback.  Did you need it more frequently (or, really, immediately) when you were first starting out?  Has your need for critiques levelled off a bit?  What’s your current process for getting feedback?

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