How to Turn Criticism into Writing Gold

It’s never easy to hear negative feedback but constructive criticism can improve your work and make you better as as writer. Susan Breen, author of the Maggie Dove mystery series and a teacher at Gotham Writers in Manhattan, offered these tips and others recently in The Writer magazine:

1. Listen. 

And by listen, I don’t mean agree. But I do mean you should try to hear what the critiquer is saying without formulating a response in your head. For example, someone tells you that she doesn’t understand why, in chapter 10, your protagonist, Bethany, doesn’t call her mother to tell her she’s leaving for Colorado the next day. Now, you know for a fact that you mentioned this very exact detail in chapter 3. You can point it out. You can print it out if there’s any doubt about you being right. You have an answer for every single criticism raised. But the problem is that you’re so busy rebutting the criticism, you’re not hearing the underlying issue, which is that the reader was confused in chapter 10. She might be right or wrong. But you should go back and look at chapter 10 and read it with fresh eyes. Keep in mind that when your book is published, you will not be able to stand in a bookstore and answer every last question a reader has. The book has to speak for itself. Sometimes you can be right and wrong at the same time.

2. Write down notes. 

I find being critiqued a harrowing experience. My beautiful words that I have treasured and nurtured for years are now being flayed alive like something out of Game of Thrones. It’s overwhelming. My mind tends to hover over the ceiling like an out-of-body experience in surgery. I need something to ground me, and I find writing words down helps. It tethers me, gives me something to do with my hands and, more importantly, something to do with my mind. One thing I know for sure is that I won’t remember what people said. I’ll stick on certain phrases, forget the rest. In my class, I always ask students to write down notes on the page. Then go home and review them. Think about them.

3. Wait. 

Set the manuscript aside for a bit after it’s been critiqued. A day, a week. A little longer. (Not too much longer!) Dealing with criticism takes time. You have to absorb it, process it, heal. Sometimes I’ll have a student who has just received a fairly intensive critique. Massive amounts of work are required, and yet, the next week she’ll show up and ask me to read it again. “Fixed it!” she’ll crow. My heart always dies a little bit when that happens. It cannot be done. These things take time. Do not go home and immediately change everything that everyone suggested. You must digest the criticism. If you make soup, you will know that when you first put all those vegetables in the water, they just sink to the bottom; all you have are hot water and boiled vegetables. But, after several hours of simmering, the flavors merge and the soup tastes delicious. You must let your mind simmer!