Do writers need ‘thick skin’?

If there’s one piece of writing “advice” that really gets our hackles up, it’s the idea that writers need to have a thick skin.

A lot of us understand, at least objectively, that publishing our stories into the world will eventually result in some kind of rejection, whether it’s in editorial notes, on the querying journey, in awards picks, or reader reviews. The assumption is that to ‘survive’ these inevitable rejections you must have a ‘thick skin.’

This is a lie.

You don’t need a thick skin to survive rejections.

In fact, it might be best if you don’t.

Imagine a thick-skinned author who is completely hardened and unaffected by the world of opinions around them. They blow things off, uncaring. They have an armor around them and live their life within a thick shell so when people hurl negativity at them, it doesn’t penetrate.

Sounds nice, right?

Until you realize that this armor is also cutting them off from every other emotion. They’re cutting themselves off from truly feeling the highs of the journey, the pride and the joy and the love. And because of this, they cannot effectively write emotional books that will truly connect with and move their readers.

Ultimately, the advice to “grow a thick skin” is really saying “disconnect yourself from something you care about.”

From early ages, we’re taught that in order to be successful we have to shut down our vulnerable side. We’re told that emotions are bad and being affected by things that hurt is somehow weak. The problem is, art comes from the heart. It’s inherently vulnerable to make good art and it’s vulnerable to share it.

When you invite outside opinions about your work (whether for feedback or by publishing) you’re going to put yourself in positions that lead to normal, emotional human reactions—and the answer isn’t to shut yourself off from those reactions. The answer is to learn how to move through and manage them.

‘Thin Skin’ and Feedback

One of the first times our ‘thin’ vs ‘thick’ skin is tested is when we start sharing our work for feedback. Getting feedback during the writing process is necessary to writing a book that will resonate with your ideal readers. We need critical eyes on our work so we can improve it.

This is a period of time when it’s actually critical to have ‘thin’ skin.

Your story is your story, and your emotional reaction to someone else’s opinion about your story is invaluable information to help you understand what matters to you about your story and what your true vision is. This doesn’t mean it won’t sometimes hurt—sometimes it will.

If you’re hit with feedback—from a beta reader, critique partner, or editor—that hurts you (whether it was meant to or not) and you start to feel uncomfortable, don’t push it away and say you “shouldn’t” feel that. Instead, engage with what you;re feeling, name the emotion you’re experiencing, and get to the root of why.

Rather than shutting down and becoming emotionless, you can ask:

Why do I feel hurt in the face of this feedback?

• Is it because this feedback is intended to be hurtful or wasn’t asked for? If so, the feedback is irrelevant. You should never, ever take feedback from someone who doesn’t respect you.
• Is it because you know the feedback is correct and you’re afraid of it? If so, that’s okay. Go ahead and feel your way through it. You can implement it. You are capable.
• Is it because you viscerally feel the suggestion is wrong / misses the mark on your vision for the story? If so, great!! You just got invaluable information about what you want your vision to be.

Without allowing yourself to feel your responses to feedback like this you won’t be able to process what YOU want your story to be, and it will be impossible to integrate the feedback into your story in a way that brings your vision to life.

Once you’ve analyzed the source of the ‘hurt’, you can then ask:

What do I do about this hurt?

• If the source of the hurt is that someone disrespected you, then you can ignore their feedback and sever your feedback relationship (even if you maintain the relationship in other ways).
• If the source of the hurt is that you’re afraid of the feedback, you can sit with why. Does it mess up your ideal production timeline? Does it feel like something you don’t have the skills to fix? Are you unsure how to do it? Once you have an answer, you can address that issue—move your production dates, learn craft, seek professional help, or brainstorm with a writer friend.
• Is it because you feel the suggestion is wrong for your vision? Tell the feedback partner this! Explain why. It’s your story, and if they respect you (see #1) then they will listen. Together you can try to figure out what the ‘real’ problem is and brainstorm other solutions together.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Feedback should never feel like shit.

In Tenacious Writing, we talk a lot about the “right” way to do feedback. Feedback is a communication tool. It’s supposed to help us improve our work, but it’s not supposed to make us feel like shit. You shouldn’t need a thick skin in order to feel neutral about receiving feedback. If your feedback relationships are making you feel like shit, then it’s likely because a) you’re not asking for the feedback you need so you’re getting feedback you didn’t ask for OR b) you have feedback partners who don’t respect you in their feedback.

A respectful feedback partnership is all about empathy and communication. You should feel able to ask for the feedback you need, question your critique partners’ feedback, and communicate when it doesn’t match your vision. Writing partners should be partners—helping you see what is and isn’t working. If yours don’t make you feel that way, the problem isn’t your ‘thin’ skin, it’s who you’re working with and how you’re working with them.

What about feedback from an agent or editor?

Listen. Your book is your book. I don’t care if Penguin paid you $2million for it. It’s still yours. The publishing industry wants to make us feel that there’s a power imbalance where the author is “less,” but in reality you are the one with the art. They are nothing without you.

You don’t need your agent’s validation. You don’t have to do what your editor thinks is best. Should you at least hear them out? Absolutely, they have a ton of experience and that’s valuable. If you don’t agree, you should express yourself, try to get to the root ‘why’ behind their suggestions to see if you can see what they see. Most of the time, if you explain your thoughts you can usually come to a better solution together. But ultimately, if you can’t agree, you don’t have to take their side. They don’t know the perfect version of your story because there is no perfect version of your story. They’re giving you their opinion—and yes, they’ve been in the industry and have work experience—but they can’t have the vision of the story in their head you have in yours.

‘Thin Skin’ and Industry Rejections

If you’re planning to seek ‘external validation’ during the publishing journey—through finding agents and/or editors to publish you—rejection will be inevitable.

There is no book in the universe that every agent and every editor will love. Books are subjective. Good books speak to specific readers, and agents and editors are specific humans with their own preferences, biases, and life circumstances.

If you plan to query agents and/or submit to editors you will face rejection.

So how do you prepare for this inevitable rejection without spiraling or growing ‘thick’ skin?

Our best advice is to cultivate self-belief.

If you don’t believe in your book—believe it’s worth publishing no matter what—and you’re seeking validation from an agent that your story is worthy, that rejection will hurt so much more.

I once wrote and submitted a short story at a time when I was frustrated with my novel. But I didn’t believe in the short story, so when it was rejected it was devastating. I worried that if I couldn’t even publish a short story, then I should just quit. But I didn’t, and I focused back on my book which I did believe in. When I started querying, of course I was fraught with emotion—the human part of me wanted instant validation—but I had done the mindset work to believe in the book and envisioned multiple paths forward for it, whether agents ‘chose’ me or not. I believed the book deserved to be published no matter what happened, and that made it easier to process rejections when they came in.

If you query believing that acceptance = worthiness, and that rejection = just give up—you’re not ready to query.

It’s imperative in an industry like this one to believe in your book and in yourself. Regardless of the publishing route you take, before putting your book in the hands of other people, you have to be solid with it or it’s going to be a lot harder to ride those waves.

‘Thin Skin’ and Publishing

No matter what publishing path you choose, if you choose to publish at all, you will have to reckon with reader reactions—and not all of them will be glowing.

As humans, we’re hard-wired to want belonging, understanding, and validation. Art is a subjective and personal attempt at building connection. Through that art, sometimes you will feel deep connections with others, and sometimes you won’t. That’s the reality of art.

When writers say they want their work to be loved by everyone, that is, quite frankly, impossible. You can’t connect with everyone—and that’s not a bad thing. You are writing your book for specific readers for a specific reason, and it’s only their opinions that really matter. Trying to please everyone will only lead to you pleasing no one.

So how do you prepare for reader reactions once your book is in the world?

First, you must understand that reviews are not for you.

Reviews are for readers. Period. Reading them won’t make you happy. Even when your inner critic is trying to protect you by saying “surely there will be something valuable in there,” at the end of the day, reviews are not feedback. You didn’t solicit feedback from these readers and their feedback wasn’t written with you in mind.

When your brains tell you that you need to know what’s being said, what you’re really wanting is validation or an explanation on what to fix. But how is that helpful? The book is already published! It’s terrifying to not know what people are saying about you or about your work, and that’s a very human feeling to have, but it won’t help you.

WHAT TO DO: Build self-awareness

No matter what kind of ‘rejection’ you’re facing, it can be really helpful to bring awareness to how you react to criticism.

Where do you feel it in your body? Does it make your heart race? Do you want to curl in and withdraw? Do you question yourself and your abilities? If you know that criticism makes you spiral or overthink, how can you prepare for that?

Whatever your answers are, they can show you where it might be important to do mindset or grounding work. Maybe that means blocking Goodreads or scheduling a zoom chat with a critique partner where you can brainstorm or share your fears. Maybe it’s taking a walk or doing meditation.

By drawing your own boundaries and comfortability around criticism, you can help take care of yourself after the instinctive reaction. Your reactions are normal and human, but you can help yourself move through those reactions in a way that better serves you holistically.

For me, I know overthink and spiral. Sometimes I get defensive and usually I want to cry because I have a pretty quick tear reflex with rejection. So, I know that I need to walk away and process before moving through the reaction. Rachel, on the other hand, said she gets defensive and her response is to fight back and prove criticism wrong—which can block her from sitting with what inside the feedback might hit true.

When you know how to recognize your behavior, you can later manage it when unexpected criticism happens, like when Amazon shows you a Goodreads starred review number or you’re tagged in a review on Instagram.

Just remember that you as a person deserve grace, and even with these preparations in place, recognize you may not have the perfect reaction every time. You could be on your period or didn’t sleep well—emotional triggers can still be experienced even when doing mindset work.

So how can you respond and reset when criticism happens?

👉🏻 Do not respond right away or put someone on blast. (Depending on the situation, like a bad review, don’t respond at all.) Pause and take a moment.

👉🏻 Remove yourself from the situation and the ability to take action. Turn your phone off. Take a walk or shower. Watch a comfort movie. (If you’re an overthinker and your brain keeps circling back to the criticism, it may take more time for your brain to process it and let it go.)

👉🏻 Find trusted people to talk through your feelings with. People who you know will understand and help you.

👉🏻 Reframe your thoughts and narratives around the criticism. Stand firm in your core beliefs of why you’re writing and why you love your story. Use that to ground yourself and remember that searching for validation is normal, but the only person who can validate you is yourself.

Sometimes this process can take days. Don’t shame yourself if it takes you longer than five minutes to process through it and lean into how your brain works. When you don’t force an expectation on yourself to react a certain way, you’ll find you don’t need a “thicker skin” to get through criticism—you just need to give yourself grace.

WHAT TO DO: Find/build a writing community

Along with strong self-belief and self-awareness, having a good support system is critical to weathering any type of rejection. Family is great, but sometimes they don’t get it even if they are supportive, because they aren’t writers themselves.

A community of writers who know what it’s like to pour out their soul and look for someone else to validate them can be far more affirming and supportive, because they’re in the creative trenches with you. If you’re searching for a community like this, we’re here for you. Come check out Tenacious Writing—we’ve got the most loving, supportive, and anti-hustle writers inside. We’d love to have you.

xo,