Getting the Right Feedback on Your Work

"You have the power to determine how you want to be treated as a writer."

Welcome to our weekly column offering perspectives on lit mag publishing, with contributions from readers, writers and editors around the world.

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As an editor, I’ve encountered a problem that many writers struggle with. It crops up after a client and I discuss a possible edit, the client works with it, and the revision reads and sounds great. Then we talk again or I get an email that they’ve consulted their writers’ group or workshop participants or writer friends (and sometimes family members) and now they feel confused because more than one person has said they have too much X or not enough Y. The conflicting viewpoints become a low-level cacophony of feedback that ends up paralyzing them as if they’re stuck in that famous Escher drawing of staircases.

Over the many years of my career as an author, I’ve learned the importance of editorial feedback and also learned that I have to keep input to a minimum. I share my unpublished work with only two writers before readying it for submission. I’ve known them both for years and admire their work and their attention to detail. I don’t automatically take all of their suggestions, but most of what they offer in terms of pacing, diction, structure usually makes sense to me, is productive and encouraging. I didn’t have to look far for either one. The first is my former college writing mentor who I’ve stayed in touch with and the other is my spouse, also an author and in possession of a keen editor’s eye.

A recent essay I published in The Smart Set is one I shared with both of them because I wasn’t happy with something very specific: the title. Titles have sometimes been problematic for me. Each of my critics had suggestions which didn’t fit much better than what I had, but they prompted a new level of subconscious editing that eventually brought forth the final title. It got published as “Portrait of a Lady: My Mother’s Silence.” Earlier titles just didn’t seem right: “She Was Never Tongue-tied,” “The Book I couldn’t Write,” “Mourning My Mother.” Each one felt like a working title to me and both my sources of feedback suggested I look for something larger. I’ve always been a fan of Henry James and their feedback led me to his most famous novel, The Portrait of a Lady.

Whether you’re a budding writer or a more experienced writer, I think it’s crucial to seek advice from as small a number of people as possible—ideally two or three. Choose people who not only like your work but who understand the choices you’ve made; people whom you’re in sync with; people who are smart and constructive whether they’re fellow writers or not; and people who don’t trigger your anxiety. You don’t want to share your work with anyone who can make you doubt its value or even doubt yourself as a writer. It’s difficult enough staying centered and confident with our work without getting confused by too many different opinions.

When I was in an MFA program, my first story dealing with children of Holocaust survivors was crushed by the workshop and the professor, all of whom thought it was a dud for myriad reasons I don’t recall now. I felt horrible because while I believed the story was breaking new ground for me in terms of the subject matter, nobody that afternoon in Amherst saw it the same way as I did.

But I believed in the story because I had written it with the input and guidance of my college writing mentor over the course of forty-eight intense hours, phoning her with each new section and reading it to her for feedback, which had always helped me before. And so, shaken but not crushed, I entered it in the MFA program’s writing contest. Lo and behold, the story went on to launch my career. 

Martha Foley, renowned editor of STORY and then-editor of The Best American Short Stories anthologies, awarded it First Prize a few weeks after the disastrous workshop. I told her the workshop hated the story and in her smoker’s voice she growled, “Don't change a goddamned word!”  It was eventually published with minimal editing by Redbook, a magazine that at the time had 4.5 million readers.

At the next workshop session, the professor loftily said, “I hear you won a prize,” which was kind of hilarious because he’d actually been at the awards ceremony with the other faculty. “Well,” he told me, “it's still shit, but it’s shit with a prize.” Today, his arrogance is almost funny. But back then, it was both needlessly hurtful and frankly on the edge of being scary.

What did I learn? To trust my instincts. I felt convinced that this story wasn’t just the best story I’d ever written but it was pointing me in a whole new direction. Over the next two decades of publishing stories in a similar vein I became known as an American pioneer in writing about what’s called The Second Generation. My work has been anthologized, written about by academics in articles, conference papers, and books, and I’ve spoken about it at venues in many countries.

I have also learned that when you’re asking for feedback, it’s important to be specific in your request. Focus on something concrete like diction, flow, dialogue, characterization, setting, rhythm of the prose, or imagery. Asking for global help might bombard you with too much information and leave you overwhelmed. Make the questions you want answers for narrow. Like: Is the opening a good hook? Is the dialogue natural? Is the scene-setting too brief or too involved? How does the narrative arc work? And what about the ending—is it too obvious or too ambiguous?

The best way to be a part of any kind of editing/feedback exchange is having a clear agenda. Keep it simple along the lines of “I wonder what people think about ---?” or “I think I might need help with ---. What do you all think?” This can focus the feedback you elicit and also make you sound (and maybe even feel) confident and professional even if you’re uncertain or insecure.

I would also suggest being especially careful in a writers’ group or writing workshop when you don’t know who these folks are, what they write, and what their style of critique is. If you join a writers’ group, it’s a good idea to not share your work immediately. Wait a session or two (or more) until you have a sense of what the different members tend to focus on and determine whether that can be helpful you. It might not be. After all, groups of writers, whether in an official workshop or otherwise, can include people who aren’t there to be helpful. They may want to show off how astute they are or simply undermine whatever you’re sharing. If the vibe in the group is not constructive, then it might be a good idea to bow out. That’s easier to do if you’re not enrolled in an MFA program as I was but participating in something shorter-term.

If you find a program, workshop, or writers’ group that doesn’t seem to be constructive or conversely is all sunshine and rainbows and doesn’t offer useful insights, leave. Why should you pay, financially and/or with your time, for something that isn’t constructive? If it’s an informal group without any money involved, that’s even easier to exit without regrets. 

But even if you’ve paid for it, there’s no reason to keep working with other writers who will not be helping you improve your work. The same goes for workshop leaders. If they’re overly critical or simply not critical enough, leave. If they’ve set the wrong tone for you, you can always drop out. You have the power to determine how you want to be treated as a writer.

When you make an exit, it’s important not to be combative, but to be clear that you think you need a different environment to be working in. You are not required to be more specific than that and it’s crucial not to get caught up in anyone else’s psycho-drama. You may be pressed for details or even harangued into not leaving—don’t let that deter you.

One of my writing students actually quit an expensive workshop in Paris. She felt that the celebrated writer leading it was commenting in destructive ways and it left her and fellow writers there in tears. She dropped out and spent time taking care of herself by visiting museums, walking through the city, and otherwise enjoying her time abroad.

Figuring out what group or workshop will help isn’t easy—you simply can’t predict in advance what it will be like. The leader could be a well-known writer you admire, but that doesn't make that person a good teacher or editor. Likewise, workshop or writers group participants may be handing in work you admire, but their feedback on your own writing could be anything from useless all the way to harmful.

The feedback that I find most helpful in one way or another is feedback that inspires me to get right back to my PC and edit. Feedback from people I feel safe with. If you’re a writer who’s starting out or are very sensitive about your writing, it might be helpful to think of initially keeping your shields up as in Star Trek.

I’m at the stage in my career where I like to picture myself as being permeable, shields down. I also envision one of those wide, gorgeous, marble staircases from a French chateau with no crowds in my way as I climb higher and higher.

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