Writing can feel like a solitary act which you must struggle through, hunched over at your computer desk, entirely alone. This is far from the truth. In fact, outside eyes on your work are critical to telling the story you envision.

Writers write for an audience just as much as we write for ourselves. We want readers to enjoy our work, and we need to know whether they do or not long before going down the self-publishing or traditional publishing routes. This means we need feedback at multiple points throughout the writing process.

As writers, we are frequently too CLOSE to our work to be able to see what is and isn’t working. You need “outside eyes,” third-parties who can see your story for what it is and be honest about it. Feedback from others will give you clarity on how the vision in your head is translating to the page—where it’s effective, and where it’s falling short.

Feedback is critical to improving your work—but it has to be the right feedback.

We all know the struggle of asking friends and family for feedback, and getting less-than-helpful responses. When you factor in that most people don’t know HOW to give good feedback in the first place, it can seem pointless to share our work with others.

But it’s not! In fact, with the below six tips and tricks, you’ll learn how to better ASK for feedback and, once received, how to better PROCESS it.

#1—Ask the right people for feedback.

Most of us immediately turn to friends and family for feedback. We know them already and we trust them in many areas of our lives. However, we usually get feedback that is one of three things:

  1. Entirely positive because our family/friends want to be encouraging
  2. Entirely too critical for little reason or explanation
  3. Too general and therefore un-actionable

Our family and friends—while some of our biggest cheerleaders—are probably not experts in story, let alone familiar with your genre and age group.

Instead, find beta readers, critique partners, editors, and/or book coaches that specialize in your genre and market, and have a good grasp on the craft of storytelling. These people will be able to speak to your story specifically because they are experienced.

#2—Set CLEAR expectations.

Open communication is key to writing relationships. Setting expectations for where you are in your process, what you already know isn’t working, and what you want from a critique will help you and your partner ease in a relationship that’s bound to be productive and successful.

If you’re struggling to get good feedback, chances are you’re not asking for what you WANT clearly enough. General requests, such as “What did you think? Did you like it or hate it? Was it good?” leave too much room for general answers. It leaves the door wide open for ANY thoughts. You may end up getting grammar tips when you wanted to talk about your character’s arc, or you might receive overall story structure feedback when you were actually hoping to get line edits to clean up and finish your draft.

A great way to ensure that you get the feedback you want and need, while building trust, is to ask for it.

Even if you’re not exactly sure what you need to improve your story, communicating your thoughts, concerns, strengths, hopes, and worries gets you much closer to feedback that will open your eyes and level up your skills. Ask specific questions to get specific answers you can act on. Here are some examples:

  • What would you say the point of my story is? Does it come across clearly?
  • Were there places where the story felt slow or you lost interest? If so, where and why?
  • How would you describe X character’s development throughout the plot?
  • Did my characters have agency? Can you give me some examples of where their agency stood out?
  • Was my dialogue confusing or boring in X/Y/Z scenes?

Even after you get responses to your specific questions, continue to probe for more clarity where you need it. Ask where you need examples, or where you’re unclear on the feedback’s meaning. The more specific you can get, the more you’ll be able to take that feedback and run with it.

NOTE: This also applies to feedback you DON’T want.

Know your grammar is all over the place but you’re focused on the story? Tell your readers that you DO NOT WANT grammar suggestions yet, that instead you’re looking for story-level feedback about characters or plot.

If you’re not exactly sure what kind of feedback to ask for (ie, goals or flaws or dialogue or descriptions, etc.), it is extremely helpful just to specify whether you do or don’t need help with general categories, such as: story structure, character development, line editing, sentence structure, grammar, etc.

#3—Talk through the feedback.

Usually when you get good feedback from someone, you’ll have questions—you’ll want to dig deeper into what they saw in your work and their ideas for improving it! Sometimes, too, you’ll get feedback that you don’t quite understand. Maybe it isn’t specific or clearly explained, or maybe they used terminology you’re not familiar with.

Feedback should be a conversation. It should be a back-and-forth.

It is much better to stay curious and open-minded about the unclear feedback you receive than to get defensive and shut down, closing the road to open communication. You should always feel like you can ask for clarity, specificity, explanation, or suggestions.

Regardless of whether you have a book coach, beta reader, or critique partner, plan to spend time talking through their feedback. Schedule it! You’ll get to hear, in their words, where they love your work and where they think you need to improve.

#4—Focus on your strengths.

There’s a saying that it takes ten positive comments to outweigh one negative comment. When you hear where you need to improve your writing, it can feel like you don’t do anything right. However, this is just an untrue narrative we tell ourselves. The truth is that we all have things we do well and things we need to work on.

We’ve talked about getting specific feedback, but I don’t just mean constructive criticism. Specific feedback is also extremely important for knowing what you’re doing well. Ask your readers to point out what your strengths are and focus on those things. Those are the things you need to keep doing. Ask questions about why your reader thinks you’re doing them well and how you can preserve that for the next version of your story. Ask for specific examples so that you can study them, and study those same strengths in other writers.

#5—Assume positive intent.

The concept of “assuming positive intent” changed my life the first time I internalized it. This is a great way to avoid defensiveness (tip #6), but it also is a comprehensive attitude adjustment when dealing with other people and building relationships. Assuming positive intent means that you assume the person giving you feedback has the best intentions at heart. It means you believe they are trying to help. It means that you become more patient and try to see things from their perspective.

Assuming positive intent will help you get better feedback because it will allow you to absorb feedback with an open mind. When you truly believe another person has good intentions, it changes the way you interact with them. It changes how you trust them, and it changes your reactions to them. Plus, it will almost guarantee that you continue to get good feedback every time to work with that person.

#6—Don’t let your emotions get in the way!

Sharing your work with another person takes a lot of courage and vulnerability! It brings up a lot of feelings, which is very normal. Feelings are not bad. Just like feedback is information, feelings are information as well. So how do we get past these feelings and not allow them to stand in the way of receiving feedback?

The first step in receiving feedback is to accept and acknowledge the feelings we’re experiencing. Are you feeling nervous? Defensive? Scared? Overwhelmed? Upset? Angry? Happy? Excited? Sit with those feelings. Name them. Then ask yourself, why am I feeling this way? Why am I reacting this way? Don’t feel like you have to shut down those emotions but acknowledge them and try to understand where they’re coming from.

Whatever feedback you receive is not a reflection of you, of your worth, or of your story’s worth.

Then, try to get back to the right mindset and headspace to receive feedback. If you’re feeling big emotions, take a couple deep breaths. If you need to, take some time to process the feedback. Assume positive intent. Stay open-minded and curious. Give yourself grace. Approach feedback as a conversation, where you’re simply discussing information.

Remember: You are in control of the changes you make to your story. You’re not obligated to take any piece of feedback. You get to decide what you implement or what you say ‘no thank you’ to and leave behind. When you keep this in mind, it is easier to separate yourself from the feedback and look at it in a positive light.