Welcome to our weekly column offering perspectives on lit mag publishing, with contributions from readers, writers and editors around the world.
When I first began writing, I was not only protective but defensive of my work, even when I wanted the audience to read it. So, I guarded it like a kid with new toy, wallowed in self-pity and self-rejection, and many times gave up on some stories because I was afraid to hear opinions on them. With some stories, I am still like this.
But that doesn’t really help when you are trying to write, edit, submit and repeat the process without wanting to give up on your passion itself.
“Keep your feedback loops shorter and faster,” I heard Tanmay Bhat’s advice on podcast, Tanmay reveals 0 to 1 million content creator path with Varun Mayya, “to strengthen your ability to exercise judgment.” This advice changed everything for me.
I knew I had to apply this to my own writing process if I wanted to get better at my craft without wondering and agonizing over the quality of my work.
However, apart from my one willing cousin, who only had high praises for me, and another who didn’t like anything I wrote, I didn’t have any other outsider’s opinion on my stories. How could I know if my pieces work or not? The months of waiting to hear back from Editors that often end in form rejections didn’t help.
So, over the years, I have tried various other things to put out my work in a manner that allows for shorter feedback loops.
It includes:
1. Submitting to publications with quick response time first rather than ones that take six months. Can you imagine waiting for months, only for a story to be rejected by the publication and then in two days you have acceptance from another? I would rather save myself the wait.
2. I published my first two novels chapter by chapter every week at a website called Booknet that ran contests with deadlines. I was getting weekly feedback in form of comments and likes which also helped me in plotting and editing further chapters of the books.
3. I had already started putting out the pieces that didn’t find any home in traditional media outlets in my own newsletter on Substack. Now I post such stories regularly.
4. I plan to start creating short content on Instagram to keep writing daily, putting it out and getting instant feedback.
Here are some ways in which the advice and the practice of keeping the feedback loop shorter have helped me immensely.
1. It has motivated me to write more.
The loop of getting constant feedback is addictive in the sense you seek validation (be it in form of likes, comments or shares), and you keep working for it. If the audience likes something, you want to do it better and surprise them with something else. And if the comments are negative or your piece falls flat, you try again and again to figure out where exactly you have gone wrong.
The fear of failure also goes away or at least lessens as you generate more chances for yourself. So, you are motivated to write more.
It is one of the main reasons that I try to write weekly on Substack, even when I am otherwise busy, writing for publications or working on my book, because that is the only source of regular feedback for me right now. You need to find such a source too, even if it is a private community of writers just exchanging their work and feedback.
2. It has helped me to try new genres with an audience that is transparent.
Prajakta Koli, an Indian content creator said something interesting about honest feedback from her audience in a podcast called Wtf does it take to build influence today? on Nikhil Kamath’s channel. She gave an example of how she once posted a no makeup, sit-down video as “Real Talk Tuesday” that got a lot of love. It came after she had done a series of professional photo stuff which saw a dip in engagement after the first post. She noted here, how the audience will tell you everything you need to know about the direction of your content, and they are not subtle about it.
Similarly, when you are writing more, you also tend to experiment more as I did. The feedback started with one or two likes, then comments and shares. Now, I have the statistics on what kind of stories people like better. Yet, I still have the opportunity to try out new content with an audience that is transparent in its opinion.
I never thought I would write something in Sci-fi genre, but I did write a piece of flash fiction, and the audience appreciated it.
Similarly, I only started writing non-fiction and then even funny personal essays because I now have the playground to experiment and the audience to tell me what works and what doesn’t. Now, I also have the confidence to pitch such essays to traditional publications with wider readership when I would have never done so earlier.
3. It has also helped me to build a disciplined approach to my work.
The desire for constant feedback has been game-changing for me. I still submit to markets for the feedback from seasoned Editors. However, the continuous touch with a larger audience has helped to build a disciplined approach to my work.
The only reason I could finish my novels in three months each was because I knew I had to write and publish weekly to beat the deadline of “The best Billionaire romance novel” competition on Booknet. And even though I did not win the contests, it helped me immensely.
I knew the pulse of the audience, what worked, what didn’t, whether they liked the pets as characters in their own right, whether they cried during the emotional scenes and whether they liked this character better or that one. This is gold when you are just starting out and trying to build the habit of writing since you are doing it not just to keep with the deadline but also to connect with the audience.
Now also, I like to keep publishing on Substack. My favorite part is the comments and building community around my work.
The continuous touch with a larger audience has helped to build a disciplined approach to my work.
4. It helps to develop better skills as well as judgement.
Imagine someone writing in a vacuum. That person would not have the tools to get rid of their own objectivity to judge their work. Then how would they improve?
Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones said, “A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.” And I would like to add, “writers need feedback” to sharpen their skills.
Isn’t that the reason authors make use of beta readers, and Editors to go through their work before sending it to agents? To figure out the weak points in their stories that they might be missing out on. After reading your own work tens of times, you lose the eye to catch smallest of mistakes. And here, the outsiders’ view helps.
Karan Johar, producer and director, in an interview, FC producers adda noted the importance of feedback on movies with test screenings, and third-party services. He talked about how it helps in not only the editing stage when the movie is already made, but also at the screen writing stage when it can be molded still.
In the same way, I know that my personal essays with comedic gags are bound to be more liked by the people and find a wider audience than my short stories. And it is because I have the feedback and data to gauge the performance of my work.
With time, as you keep getting feedback and writing more, you get better. Not just at writing but also to recognize what works for you as an artist as well as what can work for your audience. It will, at least, help you weed out the ones that belong in the bin.
So, if you need some extra motivation or added discipline, try the method of writing and getting constant feedback, preferably from a wider audience than your family and friends.
 | A guest post by
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The problem I see of using submissions, substack and other places like that to get feedback on your work is that by posting in open places, you are technically publishing your working disqualifying it for about 90 percent of the lit mags out there. Yet, I agree that feedback is extremely important not only for motivation but as a way to improve ourselves. So try instead a workshop. For the longest time, one of the best workshops was sponsored by Francis Ford Coppola, hidden behind the website for his studio and Magazine, Zoetrope. And while the magazine had little to do with the workshop, in the early 2000, it even published an online extra, where Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie got her start. The beauty of workshopping in such environment is that is private so your work is not considered published. Last year, after 25 years, they closed the Zoetrope workshop. But there are others. Look at your local market for one. I am in Atlanta and we have here over 20 different workshops. I also participate in one out of Iceland, and yes, it's in English, Critique Circle. In that place, the critique is like money, it gives you points, that then you use to pay to load your stories and chapters to be critiqued. To this day, ALL my stories have been workshopped at least twice. And because these places are private, your work remains unpublished and available to all lit mags.
I’ve submitted pieces to journals and paid for editorial feedback with varying success. The Masters Review gave feedback from three readers, whose comments were insightful and helpful. In contrast, I just got feedback from Chestnut Review that made it clearly that the reader fundamentally misunderstood my nonfiction essay.
Chestnut Review reviewed the reader’s work and said they acted in good faith and according to the journal’s guidelines. I noted that it wasn’t the reader’s good faith I doubted, but their ability to understand what they were reading.
Chestnut Review was gracious and refunded the money I’d paid. But I sure as hell won’t be submitting there anymore.