Dealing with Negative Feedback

This is one of the great writing bugbears of our time.

What to do about (and how to handle) feedback?

We’ve all been there. You’ve slaved on this thing for days, weeks, months, years, sometimes it’s a work of love that covered several important years in your life, sometimes this was a story you just HAD to get out, but the day comes when you send it to a friend, or a contact, or professional agency for feedback.

And its not what you hoped.

Feedback is by and large the medium in which people look at and dissect what you have done as a story and apply criteria as a friend, as a contact, as a professional in the industry, and all balanced against a number of factors. Will it sell? Does it tell a good story? Does someone out there stand a chance of liking it? Will people who don’t normally “do” this genre like it, thus increasing the potential of the script as a selling medium?

However, instead of that phone call, email or text screaming “I absolutely LOVE this..!!!” what you get instead feels like a soul-less deconstruction of your hopes and dreams, with a bit of “let’s squash it under our heel for good measure” thrown in. That killer line, that great scene, that deep, layered character is suddenly thrust into the harsh white light of judgement and found wanting.Don’t they understand? This wasn’t a casually thrown together piece of daytime TV junk! This had your heart, your soul, your….but it’s still not good enough.

Are they being objective? How could they! How dare they! They’re only jealous they didn’t write your masterpiece and out of spite they’re pulling it to pieces….

Actually, they probably aren’t. What they have done is objective, maybe a little soul-less, and certainly designed to give feedback as they saw fit.

So how do you deal with it?

Step one, never write anything in answer when upset.

Step two, recognize that with 7 billion of us on the planet, you are bound to differ with one or two people along the way so don’t take it personally.

step three, apply time.

Step away from the computer! Turn off the letter! Play with the dog, stroke the cat, spend a weekend with your children! And in a few days time when you’re more ready to read this, go and read it again. Get rid of the venom and the upset on the first reading and walk away, but always go back to it and read it in a colder light a few days later when you are ready to take things in.

Everyone is different, it’s true. So consider this. We are writers and used to the adages that defined our literary background, and “there are two sides to every story” comes out here. We’ve all seen friends fall out. What’s (one of) the first thing they do? Run around their mutually non-involved friends and tell them THEIR story, THEIR side of the tale, how THEY were wronged in the hope their friends will hear that sorry tale of woe and exclaim “of course you were right in what you did”

Only when you are on the outside of such a monumental fall out and look at it cold can you say, “I can see each person’s point of view, actually…”

This comes back to our subject.

Consider this: if someone said something in a conversation, there must have been some input, some event or data to form that opinion in their mind and give vent to that thought. So, if someone reviews your work and pulls it to pieces, or if you entered that competition and didn’t do very well, it’s not because the person who judged / trashed / rolled over your work in a ten ton tractor, then reversed, then poured petrol and threw in a match for good measure necessarily hated it, but because every word they wrote in the feedback letter / mail had behind it a thought.

And that thought is no less than opinion. So when we return to that feedback after a few calming days nursing our wounds and bitterly calling them every name under the sun, we should try to remember that if they wrote a particular opinion, they must have had good reason to write that particular line. Therefore, we should look at that feedback and ask ourselves a simple question.

What if they are right?

Back to our feuding friends: split, enemies forever, each currying favor from non-involved mutual friends to split Lear’s Empire at least two ways, how could they other guy be right? They’re wrong! They must be! Any fool can see that!

But are they?

So when we read the feedback, one thought should be this:

Let’s assume they are right. What would I change to make that negative comment go away? How would I fix this, by their standards, to make this a better script / novel / etc.

And if by the end of your re-write things look better, then maybe they were right after all. But let’s not forget, it’s your story and not theirs: so if after changing things you think “no, I was right all along”, then that’s ok too.

To dismiss negative feedback out of hand is wrong, but there’s no harm in testing it to see.

Of course, as writers we all know this: but its good to remind ourselves of the little rules now and then.