(without getting discouraged or giving up)
You’ve been writing for a while now—maybe you’ve just taken part in the StoryADay Challenge and have a bunch of drafts—and it feels pretty good.
…but now what?
This is where you get to do what I call ‘refining’.
You’re in the slippery, uncomfortable, yet important, middle part of the writing process:
- The thrill of discovery-writing is past
- The satisfaction of the polished draft lies in the future.
- And you’re in that foggy, no-man’s land of “how do I get there, from here?”
The good news is that ‘refining’, doesn’t mean you have to make anything perfect. Or do it alone.
Refining your work and your process is all about making progress—in your drafts and your practice. Which can be helped by getting feedback.
Let’s talk about how to do that without freezing…or fleeing!
Define: Refine
Refining isn’t about aiming for ‘perfect’: it’s about making progress, with purpose.
It means:
- Taking a dispassionate look at your work
- Making decisions about what stays and what can go
- Setting appropriate expectations and setting up the processes that support them
- Courageously taking the very next (possibly tiny) step with one piece of your writing.
The Fundamentals of Feedback
Some of our writing projects exist to teach us a single lesson and then remain in draft form forever. (I think of them like origami: beautiful and requiring effort, but ephemeral!)
Other stories—the ones you can’t let go—want to live on. We owe it to them to get some perspective…and that’s a hard thing to do alone.
That’s where critique comes it.
But not any old critique. You need the right sort of feedback, at the right point in your process, and from the right people.
The Wrong Time To Seek Feedback
Before you ask: yes, there are times when it’s perfectly fine for you to keep your writing secret and safe and only for you.
Don’t be pressured into sharing your writing if:
- It’s incredibly personal and too raw to discuss (clue: if it makes you cry when talking about it. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s hard to hear dispassionate feedback when you’re still attached to the source materials)
- You’re still in the honeymoon phase with this piece and aren’t ready to hear anything critical about it.
- You’re still working on it and are worried that other people’s opinions might shape it more than you would care for.
These are all legitimate reasons NOT to seek critique and that’s fine. Keep working until you need something else.
How To Know When You’re Ready for Feedback
There’s a difference between being healthily-protective of your early work, and being over-protective of your tender creative’s heart.
Here are a few signs that you’re ready for feedback–even if the idea still scares you:
- You feel stuck on a piece of writing. You’ve done everything you can think of and it’s still just not ‘right’ (this might be a feeling you have, or something you’ve heard from editors at publications you’ve send it to).
- You keep polishing the same parts over and over again even though you suspect there’s a raging plot hole in the middle.
- You have no idea if your ideas are coming through or if some important parts are still stuck in your head. You need a reader’s perspective!
At this point, feedback is going to be the thing that propels you into the next level of your writing craft.
How to Get Feedback You Can Use (Without the Flop-Sweat!)
Just because something calls itself a ‘critique group’, doesn’t mean you’ll get what you need from it. Choose carefully and avoid getting discouraged or stalled.
1. Trust the Group
It helps if you can find a group that’s run by someone you already know and trust.
Ask the organizer about the level and experience of the writers in the group. Ideally, you want to find a group where people are a little more experienced/skilled than you, but not so far ahead that they’ll scoff at all your ‘beginner mistakes’.
And for the love of all that’s literary, do not send your work in to an anonymous online group. Those places are either so complimentary that they waste your time or so brutal that you might never pick up a pen again.
2. Help The Readers Help You
If the group allows it (and I think it should), add a note to your piece letting folks know what you’re looking for, in their feedback. There’s no point in someone doing a heavy-duty copy-edit if you’re still in the first draft, or giving you general feelings if what you’re looking for a is a detailed, final check before you send it out for publication.
Include in your note these pieces of information
- Where your piece is in your process (“It’s very much a first draft and I’m trying to see if it’s intriguing enough to pursue” or “I’m getting ready to send it to publications and want to know if the plot hangs together.”)
- What kind of feedback you want (“Does the pacing work?” “When did you guess whodunnit?”, “Was the ending satisfying?”). If you’re new to critique it might be difficult to know what to ask, so feel free to say that!
- What you don’t want to hear, yet. (“Don’t bother correcting the typos, I’ll get to them later”; “I know I haven’t included much description in this draft. I’ll add that once I’m sure the story works.”)
3. Ask Specific Questions
Again, this is hard to do if you don’t have much experience of critique, so here are some sample questions you might use, which are miles better than stuttering, “Um, is it any good?” or “What did you think?”
- Were there any places where you were confused by what was happening?
- Were there any places you started to skim (i.e. got bored)
- What lines or aspects did you really love (so I can be sure not to edit them out!)?
- Which character stood out most to you?
- Did I make any promises that I didn’t deliver on?
- If you had to write a one-line summary of what was at the heart of this piece, what would you say?
Build A Feedback System
Growing as a writer means engaging with your writing in a deliberate way.
Don’t leave it to chance.
Set up a repeatable process – a system – for giving and getting critique. Some ways to do that:
- Join a group that has a regular (but not too frequent) critique option
- Swap stories on a regular schedule with a trusted writing buddy
- Try out a critique group on a one-off basis and see if it works for you (remembering that if it doesn’t, that doesn’t say anything about you as a writer. It just wasn’t the right group for you).
If you don’t have a way to get regular feedback yet, don’t worry, I have something that might interest you!
Join a Firm, Fair and Fun Critique Experience (right here at StoryADay)
Three times a year (no more, because we take it seriously!) I host a Critique Week with members of the StoryADay community, and the Superstars group.
It’s a 10-day guided experience where we:
- Exchange short stories or excerpts of a longer work-in-progress (up to 7,000 words)
- Read three pieces each, and receive feedback from at least three other writers
- Learn how to ask for (and implement) feedback that moves our writing forward.
We have writers who are publishing and writers who are just coming back to their craft after decades away. You don’t need to be at any particular stage in your writing, you just need to be curious and ready to refine.
Registration for the next edition of Critique Week opens soon.
We’d love to welcome you in—why not join the waitlist today?
Find Out More About Critique Week
(And if you’re worried you won’t have anything to say about the other writers’ work, don’t be! You simply need to be an enthusiastic reader. After all, that’s what all of us want: someone who cares about writing, to read it and let us know how it hits them.)
Refine Your Writing Life, Not Just Your Draft.
Remember: you don’t have to perfect anything, just keep moving forward.
But if you want to grow as a writer, stay close to the StoryADay community.
Keep going, beyond the challenge, and build a sustainable, joy-filled writing life, with us!
- Keep writing
- Keep refining
- Keep surprising yourself.
You don’t have to do it alone.
Next Steps:
Join us for Critique Week – or make a different plan to get some feedback this month. Your future writing self is waiting to thank you!
Keep writing,
Julie
