2 Types of Feedback

Feedback on Story or Best Way to Tell Story?
I’ve always considered the first draft of a novel as a time to get the story down on paper. The second draft is a time to consider the best way to tell that story.
So, when I’m looking at feedback from a reader, a critique of a draft, [...]

5 Reactions to Novel Feedback

Yep. You gotta get feedback on your novel and you gotta act on it. On everything? Yep. But what if. . .
Yes! Oh! No? Uh-oh! Huh?
Okay. Here are five reactions I’ve had to recent feedback: Yes! Oh! No? Uh-oh! Huh?

Yes! It’s great when

Test Submissions

Submit, Then Revise
At our spring conference, Jen Rofe, literary agent at Andrea Brown Literary spoke about sending out manuscripts.
The one thing that surprised me was her attitude toward submission and revision. Rofe said she usually sends out a mss to about five editors. Then, depending on the feedback, she’ll often ask the writer to [...]

Listen

Learn to Listen to Critiquers
Listening to critiques is hard!
I have to remind myself that writing is communication, with a writer and a reader. When I get feedback, what I’m really doing is checking to see if I communicated what I wanted to. Well, no. I didn’t.
I have two choices:

Ignore the feedback. This guarantees that a [...]

Critique Groups

I’ve written before about Different Styles of Critiques and When to Ask for a Critique. Today focuses on the different types of critique groups.
Different Critique Groups Meet Different Needs
I’m heading off today to my local critique groups and I realized I have several different types of critique groups, each one filling a different need.
Critique Ideas. [...]

When to Ask for a Critique

At what point do you let others read a draft?
First Drafts are $#@#
It’s an open secret that first drafts are awful and the best thing about a first draft is that it is finished. So, do you prefer that outside readers read this draft or wait for a more polished draft? Do you [...]

Revision: Understanding critiques

I seem to be thinking a lot about critiques these days, probably because I’m getting critiques from a couple different sources.
The Strengths and Weaknesses of a Critiquers
In critique groups, I find that writers/readers have different styles of critiquing.
Grammar Witches: This person always finds the punctuation, spelling, and grammar mistakes; I’m grateful for them, because fixing [...]