Making the Most of Critiques, Part II

Now that you've collected your feedback, it's time to incorporate this into your edits. Assuming you didn't solicit all your critiques from identical robots, you'll have some comments which contradict each other, some that don't make sense, some that make you squirm, and some that just make you mad. Trying to follow up on everything that any of your readers has said is a recipe for revision stalemate and lots of frustration. Instead, it helps to do a bit of advice culling.
Throw out the weird stuff. If you're getting critiques from the wilderness that is the internet, there will be some. This means the conspiracy theories, political rants, comparisons to random things (yes, Mike and I got all of the above!) get the delete key. The ones that make you mad usually fall into this category. Tally it up. If one person notices something, it may or may not be important (see below). If a bakers' dozen of people make variations on the same comment-- positive or negative-- they are very likely onto something. You cannot please everyone, and in this case, you want to tap into the wisdom of the average reader. For example, Michael and I originally included a good deal of dialogue in Scots, and used modern orthography. The general feedback was that it confounded and annoyed most English speakers (sorry guys!), so we compromised and rendered the dialogue in Scots-influenced English. Note what hits a nerve. If a comment stings, it may well reflect a conscious or subconscious worry you have about the story. Dig in and see if the commenter has a point. If you like, take a step back and 'cool off', which may allow you to look at the feedback with a clearer head. You're the boss! Remember, feedback is great, and can point you in the right direction when you're improving your work. However, you make the ultimate decisions about your story, and you get to decide whether to act on the critiques you collect, and how much.