So this weekend I attended another online writing class, this one from author Stephen Blackmoore (of the Eric Carter series) on how to give and receive feedback in critiques. I've been exchanging feedback with other writers for a while now, but never really had any instruction on how best to do it; my techniques have been cobbled together from blog posts and Litreactor guidelines. I wanted to see if, frankly, I've been doing it right, or if I've been failing my fellow authors by giving them the wrong type of feedback.
It was Blackmoore's first time giving the class, so it went a little longer than anticipated: 2.5 hours instead of just 2. But those two-hours-and-change were packed with excellent advice.
Some of it I'd learned the hard way, like focusing on the positive when pointing out problems. Or remembering that at the end of the day, the story belongs to the author, which goes both ways: you don't have to act on all the feedback you get, and you can't expect other writers to act on yours, either.
But the vast majority of Blackmoore's advice were things that I had some sense of, but didn't have a good way of thinking about. Like how you should treat each work not as good or bad, but as either complete or incomplete. A story that doesn't seem to be working isn't garbage, it's just a piece that needs polishing. The difference between bad and good isn't necessarily one of value (in the work or the artist), it's a matter of time and effort.
All in all, I took almost twenty pages (!) of notes. Blackmoore did more than cover general ways to handle feedback, he also did a detailed break down of six different aspects of a story to examine when offering a critique, and ways to identify -- and talk about -- problems in each one.
In short, it was a fantastic class, and one I wish I'd had years ago, before I tried to offer any other writer feedback on their work. I highly recommend taking it if you can, when he offers it again. And I'm going to start incorporating his advice into how I give critiques to others going forward.
