Risks and Benefits of Getting Feedback

Dorothy Parker

I hate writing. I love having written.

                                                    Dorothy Parker

The Situation

Writers usually crave large expanses of solitude to think and reflect. To feel grounded, they require regular retreat from the public sphere in order to access the private. However, effective writing necessitates public input because it takes a reader to complete the writing process. And a reader's response is most effective during the drafting process, not after publication.

The Risks

Experienced writers know the enormous difficulty of composing effectively--or of getting to a zone that enables it. We all want our writing to ring true, to reach readers on emotional and intellectual levels. The challenge is to find reliable, informed first readers and to manage their feedback. That process sometimes challenges writers accustomed to depending on their own instincts for writing decisions.

Writers seeking feedback are sometimes challenged with:

• learning to expose themselves to others' input, to show the vulnerability that's essential to the workshop process, 
• finding a group of writers trained and practiced in responding to drafts,
• reading their work aloud without qualifying it first and without defending the writing after getting feedback,
• sorting through commentary, knowing what to follow, what to ignore, what to make of a reader's comments.

It takes courage and humility. But once a writer realizes its value, especially from a group of other writers, feedback becomes a critical and necessary part of the writing process. 

One tip for writers that has helped me get perspective: Treat each draft as an artifact, as something you've accomplished, an object you've made. Your writing, even memoir writing, does not represent who you are in your entirety; it likely represents a part of who you have been and are becoming.  It's a thing, a product of your hours.

Invest your writing with love as you compose; practice tough love as you listen and learn from your readers. 

Some Benefits of Reader Responses

• Collaborating with other writers can prompt useful and reciprocal practice.
• Others' questions can cultivate memory, push your thinking, offer other angles, or confirm nagging doubts.
• A reader can tease out the germ of a story that might otherwise be buried in tangential writing.
• Other writers can identify self-indulgent writing (we all do it) or help you see where to cut and where to develop.

Writing Workshop, Italy, 2012

In my recent workshop in Italy, one writer who makes business presentations nationwide told the group that her fear had kept her from ever reading the regular evaluations submitted by her audience members. 

Yet she was amazed that week to hear the insightful comments offered by others after reading her draft aloud. She later wrote: Learning to listen to and understand the critiques of the other writers has been an important life-learning experience for me.

Here are some responses from four other writers in the group (submitted anonymously):

• The technique of having the writers listen [without speaking] while others gave feedback was good. 
• I liked that there was no room for nasty critical criticism. That made the tone very good.
• Great feedback from classmates. The work-shopping system was an excellent classroom procedure.
• Getting the feedback of others is invaluable, especially from people I respect. 

Most of all, seek feedback from others who know and appreciate the entire process--writers. They are people, according to Thomas Mann, for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.


I'd love some feedback! Let me and other readers know what you make of these ideas--in "Comments" at the end of the post.

NOTE: Enrollment for France, in Other Words is just around the corner. I'm eager to gather a group of supportive, focused writers--or writers who want to learn those skills!