Getting Feedback Can Hurt—Here’s How to Ask for It

Here’s a lovely piece that I thought was worth sharing. I still cringe when I think of the time that I corrected the grammar in a poem lovingly presented to me by my partner. I’m still wary about giving feedback and always try to be both kind and constructive, but this article gives me more options.

The Brevity Blog

By L. Roger Owens

Asking for feedback on your writing is a delicate dance, the steps tricky to learn, as I was reminded when my eight year-old read me her story the other day.

She ran to me with the unlined pages clutched in her hand. I could see how her impossibly small scrawl sloped down the right side of the page; she had to tilt her head slowly, yoga-like, as she read. The story was a barely veiled display of her deep wish to join the family of a wealthy friend. A protagonist (with my daughter’s name) and seven siblings (one of whom is named after her best friend, their parents named for the friend’s parents), have magical powers, but the use of these powers is stymied when one of the siblings falls from a tree and shatters his arm.

She finished with a smile, and as she held…

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Confidence is the key

As a teenager, one of my favourite books was Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s a dystopian story set in a world where women are progressively disenfranchised and reduced to the status of servants. This is achieved by freezing all of their bank accounts and charge cards. One day they can access the automatic teller machine and the next day they can’t. It’s as simple as that.

Atwood has written a new book with a similar theme called The Heart Goes Last. This book tells the story of a struggling couple who take up an offer of working in an experimental prison where people spend half their time as guards and half their time as prisoners. It’s a fantastic piece of writing in the true sense of the word. The novel also features sex robots called ‘prostibots’.

In an interview with the author, she says that she always has lots of ideas about what to write and that she usually chooses the most outlandish idea to focus on. Not because she wants to make it hard for herself, just because she likes a challenge.

She says that people without ideas shouldn’t write.

I found this a bit confronting as I’m always worried about not having ideas, but I don’t really think the problem is not having ideas, it’s more about convincing yourself that an idea is stupid before you’ve even started exploring it. I’m pretty good at talking myself out of things. It’s less risky that actually doing something because no-one can criticise your work if you don’t produce anything.

The problem is not lack of imagination, it’s lack of confidence.

What people seem to need most coaching about in the area of creativity is not ‘optimizing’ their imaginations—it’s their confidence. And that’s because we’ve been brainwashed into thinking that we are all specialists of some kind, and that you can’t really be a writer unless you’ve got something like a master’s degree. Obviously, we want dentists to be trained, but writing is human storytelling and everybody does it.

Margaret Atwood on how technology influences creativity

This really leaves me with nowhere to go in the excuse department. There’s no reason not to write. There’s no reason not to begin. It’s all about starting isn’t it?

Blogging challenge: day fifteen

It’s wonderful to have supporters and admirers, but you also need people who will give you constructive criticism. You need to develop relationships with people who can provide you with honest, but not brutal, feedback. You need someone to help you identify the areas where you need to improve your skills, and help you make a plan to achieve your goals.

A mentor doesn’t need to be older or even in the same field as you, but they do need to have the wisdom and experience to guide you in your journey.

It takes a lot of courage to ask someone to be your mentor. I have had some experiences where I have asked people to mentor me and it hasn’t worked out all that well. I think I was partly to blame as I probably didn’t make my expectations very clear.

A lot of people don’t really know how to be a mentor and think that they need to solve your problems for you, or tell you where you went wrong. A really effective mentoring relationship is based on mutual respect and a real desire to help the person try things without judging them. In the perfect mentoring relationship, the mentor gets as much out of the relationship as the person being mentored. The conversations can provide a way for the mentor to pass on their wisdom and knowledge or just articulate their ideas.

If you are looking for a mentor and you have someone in mind, I suggest that you start by being very specific about what you want, and make it absolutely clear that you are not going to take up too much of their time.

Blogging challenge: day five

The description I have posted about myself in my ‘about’ section is not quite accurate. I describe myself as a graphic design student but the truth is that I have put my studies on hold this semester. Part of the reason is that I work full-time in a fairly demanding job so I don’t have a lot of spare time, but the main reason I withdrew from the course is because I was really put off by the way the course documentation was presented. I felt that it was poorly designed and that this reflected badly on the course, which focussed on the design process.

I sent an email to the lecturer who asked me why I was withdrawing, so I told him. I think he was a bit shocked at the detailed feedback I gave him and he admitted to me that he found it quite hard to be on receiving end of criticism. I thought his response was quite honest, even though he clearly didn’t agree with my appraisal of the course documents.

I don’t cope with criticism very well myself. I know that it’s good to get feedback, but it can be hard to take, especially if you find it almost impossible to reveal your inner self to the world. That’s one of the reasons that I like blogging. It’s intensely personal and quite removed at the same time. You never know how people are responding (especially on this blog where no-one ever comments…. what’s that about?).

I know that I need to toughen up and put myself out there more, but I think if you are a beginning writer, or blogger, or creative person of any description, then it could be a good idea to get feedback from people who will deliver this with a degree of care. I hope you have someone in your life who can fulfil this role, and if you don’t, perhaps it would be a good idea to look for someone?

This is possibly easier said than done, but it’s a big advantage of blogging. It opens up the world and gives you a chance to connect with like-minded people who share your goals and aspirations.