How to give Constructive feedback in your writing group
My writing group is a safe space where I can share ideas and discuss my work with others. The encouragement from my fellow writers has been and continues to be invaluable. Giving and receiving feedback is an important part, and I speak from experience when I say that it's not always a walk in the park. But when the feedback is constructive, it can dramatically boost your progress and personal development as a writer.
In this article, I share my 7 tips on how to give constructive feedback and to become a valuable member of your writing group.
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Writing can be a lonely endeavour, as we spend days, weeks, months putting our thoughts and stories down on paper. But as with anything that stews in its own juices for too long, we might risk getting entangled in our own ideas. That's why feedback is so helpful. The safety of a writing group is a great place to find out if we are successful in writing stories that give our readers the enjoyable experience we are aiming for.
The members of my writing group vary in age, gender and writing experience, and the diversity of perspectives is extremely helpful in improving my own writing. Being in a circle of like-minded people who share the same passion despite all their differences, is a constant source of inspiration and motivation. I steadily expand my literary horizons, as our discussions are great opportunities to explore new genres and themes.
Giving feedback is one of the most important and most difficult tasks. Ultimately, it is about striking a balance between praise and opportunities for improvement. We should bear in mind that there is always a certain degree of vulnerability involved in submitting one's writing to others for critical evaluation. Our aim should therefore be to ensure that our feedback is constructive, i.e. useful to the writer, encouraging and to the point.
Over the past few years, I gathered some useful tips on giving constructive feedback to share with you below.
1. Understand yourself as part of a team
In writing groups, all kinds of styles, genres and tastes are often represented. Probably not every piece of writing we discuss is about a topic that interests us personally or is written in our favourite genre. There is nothing wrong with having preferences, but we should always remember that others might feel the same way about our own work. As we are grateful for thorough, unbiased and thoughtful feedback, we should always hold ourselves to the same standards when giving it.
Regardless of whether our group members' pieces suit our personal tastes, we should see ourselves as part of a team working together to achieve the common goal of telling entertaining, exciting, and thrilling stories.
2. Respect the author's vision
Writing is not only a creative process but also a craft that comes with a handy toolbox full of methods, techniques and best practices. When readers pick up a novel, they implicitly expect a certain experience of entertainment and suspense, which is highly related to how well a story is crafted. Even if our readers are not aware of the methods used, we writers should take them to heart.
As an example, let’s have a look at dialogue in a story. Good dialogue should feel like an actual conversation, even though it is only a " semblance of speech", as Sol Stein puts it in his guide Stein on Writing. He argues that good dialogue follows the three purposes of "characterisation, moving the story along, or having an impact on the reader's emotions". This provides us with objective criteria that we can use as orientation when giving feedback on dialogue.
Apart from the objective criteria mentioned above, there are also a number of subjective factors, such as the way the characters talk, e.g. with local dialects, using sophisticated or colloquial language, being chatty or monosyllabic, etc. In addition, the relationship between the characters and their individual backgrounds all have an impact on the dialogue. Subjective Factors like these are at the discretion of the author and shaped by his or her ideas of how to tell their story.
To understand why I distinguish between objective criteria and subjective factors, assume we are giving feedback on dialogue, which is stylistically well done and fulfils one or all of the three criteria mentioned above. However, it might happen that we would have liked the dialogue to unfold differently or that we dislike the tone and manner of a character's speech. Again, it's okay to have different preferences, but it's important to respect the author's vision. We should always ask ourselves if our feedback really contributes to the improvement of the work or if it merely satisfies our personal taste. If the latter is the case, we should consider whether we give this feedback at all.
While offering feedback on objective aspects of the craft is always valuable, imposing one's personal taste may not be. Respecting and accepting an author's vision is an important part of constructive feedback.
3. Use your knowledge as a writer
I vividly remember an incident in my writing group a few months ago. We were giving feedback on the first chapter of a fellow writer's novel when a discussion broke loose. The point of contention was a statement made by the protagonist in which he expressed his need to intervene supportively in the life of another character, even though there was no obvious reason for him to do so. Some members felt that the protagonist's conclusion had not been sufficiently motivated in the previous sections and could therefore confuse the reader. During the discussion, the author became more and more defensive, as he had put a lot of thought into this statement beforehand. He argued that any confusion that might arise would be resolved as the story unfolds.
Successful storytellers know how to use pacing and foreshadowing to heighten suspense. They sprinkle hints and clues into the narrative to hook the reader without giving everything away right at the beginning. The aim is for the reader to have an "aha" effect when everything falls eventually into place by the end of the story.
We should bear in mind that we are mostly giving feedback on extracts. Details can be 'confusing' or not well motivated at the moment of reading, as long as all the loose threads come together in a meaningful way as the story progresses. In my example above, my writing group lost track of this, which meant that our feedback was not only discouraging to the author, but would have deprived his novel of suspense if he had heeded our critique.
The advantage of getting feedback from other writers as opposed to "regular" readers is that the former have mastered the craft of writing. It is extremely helpful to draw from this knowledge. Therefore, when giving feedback, we should not only look for weaknesses in a text but also try to understand the structure and methods used by the author and evaluate whether they are successfully applied and benefit the work. When I come across such passages, I usually make separate notes and check later, when I have the complete work in front of me, whether all open questions have been satisfactorily clarified.
Obvious ambiguities should always be addressed. However, we should use our knowledge as writers to judge whether it is really an unconscious ambiguity or rather a stylistic device. This is especially true when we are not looking at a text in its entirety.
4. Positive comments are valuable feedback too
Nobody likes to be criticised. Even if the consequences lead to a positive change or improvement, we are often left with a queasy feeling when confronted with a critical assessment of our work. However, constructive feedback is more than just pointing out weaknesses.
Constructive feedback implies an overall analysis of the text in front of us and should include everything we notice while reading and evaluating. We therefore not only point out areas for improvement, but also highlight particularly successful aspects.
This has nothing to do with wrapping our fellow writers in cotton wool because we do not dare to express criticism. It is about pointing out the strengths of their writing that set them apart from others. Not every writer is aware of their strengths, and this can be tremendously helpful for them in finding and defining their own style. In writing, this is also often referred to as finding your own voice.
Constructive feedback is an all-encompassing analysis and evaluation including all negative, but especially all positive aspects that come to our attention.
5. Find a balance between comments on improvement and praise
If I wanted to sum up the function of feedback in one sentence, I would say that it highlights potential, emphasises strengths and constructively points out weaknesses. Feedback should be critical without being discouraging. As with most things in life, it's about finding the right balance.
There is much truth in the old saying that no one is born a master. To be truly successful at something, talent may give us an advantage, but it never carries us all the way. Rather, it requires passion, perseverance and, last but not least, practice.
Therefore, it is not only important to maintain a balance when giving feedback, but also to ensure that our evaluation is in proportion to a writer's skill and experience. Not every member of a writing group is at the same level, and there is always room for improvement, even if we have already successfully published our work.
I firmly believe that we can find strengths in every text, regardless of whether "objectively" it could be done a little better. Therefore, there is no justification for not being able to give positive feedback.
Too much negative criticism can demoralise, while only whitewashing and kind words can lead to a state of false confidence. Both are a hindrance to a writer's ability to further develop their skills.
6. Consider the state of the draft
Very often, members of our writing group are at different stages in their writing process. Some may still work on a first draft, others are already in the final editing of their manuscript. The further along in the process, the focus and depth of our comments may shift. This is not to say that our feedback should not always be as thorough and detailed as possible. However, it should be aligned with the progress and state of the text.
Like a sculptor, the purpose of a first draft is to hew a rough shape out of the marble before moving on to the details. We should approach it the same way when giving feedback on a piece of writing. For this early stages, it's more helpful for an author to get some indication of whether their main story idea and execution will work as a whole, instead of miniuative details on scenes that may not even end up in the final product. The more advanced a work is, the more important it becomes to move on a micro level and to concentrate on the subtleties.
Valuable feedback therefore should always consider the stage in which the work in progress is.
7. Be honest
This last point is probably one of the most important for me. As we have seen, it is difficult to give feedback for various reasons. One particular difficulty is that we always want to be nice and do not want to step on anyone's toes. But sometimes we have to tell writers that something in their piece doesn't work, when we would much rather tell everyone how great their work is and how much we enjoyed it.
In such moments, we should always remember that honest feedback is not a sign of unkindness, but rather a sign of respect. The hallmark of a well-functioning writing group is that it moves beyond the superficial niceties and reaches a stage of trust and openness where our feedback can be genuinely useful to others.
In the end, we all have the common goal of completing our work as well as possible, and any honest feedback is another brick in the solid foundation on which we are building our careers as writers.
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