There’s an Art to Providing Feedback

Over the last two weeks, we've been talking about feedback: how to handle feedback and how one might go about finding critique partners. But there is another aspect to this equation that also needs to be covered. I'm talking about the act of actually providing feedback to other writers.

It's all great to be given feedback, but when the tables are turned, you'll be asked to give feedback too. However, providing feedback is more than saying what it is you do and don't like about a piece. It's about more than just pointing out the grammatical errors. And there is a trick to providing that feedback, so you can stay true to yourself while providing honest, useful feedback, but avoid crushing the souls of other writers.

So, let's get started.

The Different Levels of Feedback

Your fellow writers might seek your opinion on their writing at almost any stage of the process. Understanding what level of feedback is sought will have a direct impact on what you have to say about the writing that comes your way.

There are roughly four different levels of feedback:

Conceptual Feedback

This is when someone has an idea, but they would like opinions on whether the idea (or premise) is even worth exploring. Is there anything in particular that they should consider when writing their piece?

Broad Overview

This is when you are looking at the overall writing, be it for plot structure and character development, or simple reader reactions. For those providing feedback as beta readers, your comments (for the most part) will fall into this category.

More In-Depth Review

This level of feedback will take the broad overview approach, but delve a little deeper into narrative structure, dialogue, chapter connections, etc. This is the level of feedback that I tend to provide to my clients, as most clients of Black Wolf seek manuscript evaluations.

Nitty-Gritty Feedback

This particular level of feedback will look at wording choices and phrasings, as well as any grammatical issues. Substantive line editing, copyediting and proofreading are all editing types that fall into this particular category, but focus on different things.

Before You Start...

Before you start reading through a piece that you're to provide feedback on, be sure that you understand the level of feedback sought. You don't want to waste your time to provide the nitty-gritty feedback when all the writer is after is conceptual feedback.

Understand when the feedback is required, but be honest about the amount of time you need. If you can honestly believe that you can have a 100k-word manuscript critiqued within one day... sure, go for it. Meanwhile, I'll stick to my one-month standard turnaround time on a manuscript of that length.

If you are sent files via email, create backups before you start digitally annotating the files. Let's face it, MS Word has a bad habit of crashing and corrupting files.

I would also recommend making comments directly into the files you're sent. Use track-changes in MS Word. You can also add comments to PDF files. If you're sent an ebook file... well, you'll just have to do the best you can.

As you read, make notes. What was your first impression about a passage? Did you have any strong feelings about something? Did anything stick out as odd? Were you confused? All of this information is useful to a writer.

What to look for...

Regardless of the level of feedback you're providing, there will be a few things that you need to be on the lookout for. These include believability, social sensitivity, consistency and terminology.

All stories should be believable within the world that is presented in the story. Every world, including the fictional ones, have rules. As a writer, you need to ensure that the rules of your worlds come across on the page. If those rules are broken at any time, without a story/plot reason for it, then the believability factor will be affected. To complicate matters, a reader will apply their norm to everything that is not explained. For example, our norm is 24 hours in the day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year, but on Jupiter, the time factors for the day/week/year are completely different. Any writer setting their stories on Jupiter needs to work within those time constraints and spell them out to the reader (if they're important to the plot).

When providing feedback for believability, point out anything that you either don't understand or simply isn't right based on the rules of the world presented. If things are different to the norms, but it's not important for a reader to know why at that point, encourage writers to "hang a lantern" on the known differences. Example: forest to desert terrain in real life is a gradual transition, but you might want it to be a sharp transition. As such, Jerry stares at the line. "How odd." He shrugs and the action carries on. The reader will too, because you've pointed it out that you know it's not the norm.

Some subject matters are socially sensitive. It's important to highlight any potential issues that need to be addressed or could have negative backlash on the social side of things. (But writers do need to understand that they can't please everyone.)

Point out any inconsistencies that you might encounter. Eye color shouldn't change from one chapter to the next, unless there is a plot reason (umm... Twilight...). And of course, it's important to actually land that helicopter before everyone jumps out of the passenger bubble, or they might just go splat on the concrete (Prey by Michael Crichton... You naughty writer/editor. That should have been caught before you published it!).

And of course, not everyone understands every acronym used, and the local colloquial terms often can lead to a bamboozled mess. Terminology is a nightmare on this front. When providing feedback, if you don't understand it, assume others don't either, and point it out. It's better to point out a potential issue of confusion and discover that everyone else but you understood it, than to have it slip through the entire editing process and the writer gets hammered for it in the reviews.

Actually Providing Feedback

When actually providing feedback, there are a few guidelines that you'll want to follow.

• Be true to yourself.
• Word your feedback how you would like the feedback worded if it was given to you.
• Make the feedback about the writing, NEVER the writer.
• If you didn't like a piece, be honest, but try to explain why.
• Provide information about things you liked in addition to what you felt needed work.
• Don't panic about the possibility of hurting a person's feelings.
  • Accept it now: feelings will get hurt, because writers are emotionally attached to their writing.
• Don't be malicious in your comments.

In addition to the general guidelines above, I would add a few, because of the nature of the writing community.

• Don't talk to others about someone else's work in a way that identifies the writer without the writer's permission.
  • There is an exception to this: you loved the work so much that you can't wait for it to be published and want the whole world to read it too. (I do have a few pieces that I've worked on that fall into this category, and I'm biting at the bit to share what I know about the work with the world.)
• Remember that we are all writers still learning our craft, even those of us who have been writing for years.

When you really feel that something isn't up to snuff...

Some writers live by what is affectionately known as the feedback sandwich: something positive — what needs work — something positive. As a scout leader, this was something that we were told as well: commend, recommend, commend (CRC). I try to do this too, but I will admit that there are times when it feels like it's not possible. That's when you need to focus on how difficult it was to actually get to the point that the other writer is in and the massive achievements they have made.

The simple fact that a writer had the courage to share their writing with you is a massive step forward. For some writers, this particular step can be debilitating. Praise them for having that courage.

The fact that they might have actually finished a full manuscript draft is something worth celebrating. Trust me! So many writers start that manuscript, but never finish it. Never look down on that momentous feat.

Were there any sections that made you laugh for all the right reasons? What about the tears? Tell them! Emotional response is precious feedback.

Trust me, if you look hard enough, you can always find something positive to say.

Feedback from the Black Wolf Editor

So, I've given you some general guidelines for providing feedback, but I can hear a few of you asking what type of feedback a writer can expect from me.

Well, as mentioned above, I try to employ the feedback sandwich. That being said, I am blunt and honest. If I don't like something, I will tell you, but I will also explain why. At the same time, I will provide my reader reactions too. If those waterworks were flowing, you need to know. (I dare you to make me cry, laugh, cheer, fell sick to my stomach, or any other reader reaction that you might hope to elicit from me.)

I employ a mentoring style within all my editing. I will deliberately take that extra time to ensure that clients understand what it is I'm suggesting, explaining the terminology and the mechanisms behind the concepts. This is commonly done by way of example, using your own words, but shifting them into a way that demonstrates the writing technique that I'm talking about. That being said, for those whom I've worked with before, I will hold you accountable if I believe that your writing isn't up to your usual standard (and those accountability sessions can be brutal).

Where possible, I'll share what industry knowledge I have. You will find a mountain of information on this blog, and during our mentoring sessions (all editing packages come with at least one), feel free to pick my brain. The offer is the same, if you manage to catch me on Facebook or Twitter. There is so much information is in this head that I struggle to get it down in a form that others can make use of it.

Through Black Wolf Editorial Services, I provide a range of editing and mentoring packages, ranging from the short story through to the full length novel, but I also provide feedback and mentoring for those online platforms. I am here to help. All you have to do is ask.