Welcome to the Writing with Coach McCoach Podcast. A podcast for busy writers who want to cut through the fluff with exact strategies for launching their author career. I'm Katie McCoach, your book coach, guide, unqualified therapist, and cheerleader. Since 2012, I've helped hundreds of writers become authors, gain confidence, and grow their best stories yet. Let's do the same for you. This is the Writing with Coach McCoach Podcast.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Writing with Coach McCoach Podcast. We're going to do something a little different from here forward with the podcast. I'm pretty jazzed about this direction, but what I want to know from you is if this new series and direction resonates with you. So if you like what you hear, please leave a review or rating for the podcast in the app that you're listening to this on.
My goal, be very honest and sound, this can sound huge, but my goal is to help 10,000 writers by this time next year. As I record this, it is currently August of 2023. So by August 2024, I want to have reached 10,000 writers. I know it sounds huge, but I think it's important we put our big goals out to the universe. I want you to come up with one that's same, something really epically huge.
And how can we reach that goal? How can you reach your goal? How can I help you reach your goal? How can you help me reach mine? Because this goal isn't, it's not just for me, obviously. I'm doing this so I can help so many writers reach their lofty goals and their big dreams. I want us to come together and give each other the power and space to grow as people and as writers and share our stories and our truths around the world. So it's a huge goal. I know it sounds really, really lofty.
I really hope you can help me. If you do ratings, reviews on the podcast, share on social media, that will be a step towards being able to help more people like you. Of course, if you hate this new direction, totally fair. Feel free to also say so. Also feel free to find someone else because there are so many great people out there who are helping for free.
This is how I'm going to do it from now forward. I hope it works for you. I hope you'll stick with me because I have a lot that I want to work with you guys on. I really have so much to talk about. And I'm just here for you.
I'm doing it. I'm putting it down. So you all know this podcast is going to be one of the top priorities in my business from here forward.
I'm going to give you a little backstory real fast. I officially launched the podcast in September of 2022. So practically a year ago, I was sort of doing it on a whim. I was just like, let's give it a try. I kind of want to see, and I did it. And if you look back at the episodes, they think this is going to be episode 18. So I've not done that many within a year. I went through a lot of stages of like, I'm imposter syndrome. Should I even be here? Should I even been doing this? Self doubt, like, do I have anything useful to say? I really got in my feels. And I also didn't build out systems to make sure that I can stay consistent and commit to you through this modality.
And so I've worked through some shit. Number one, really working through that self doubt. So go and listen to some of my past podcast episodes, because I talk about self doubt a lot, because I was dealing with it too. I am still dealing with it, but doing the steps, literally the stuff I told you is stuff I'm doing. And so, and it's working. I'm getting through it. And the other thing I want to do is I, which I have done is I've hired out some help. So someone else handles the post production aspect of it. Thank you so much to my production editor, because when I was trying to do it, it was, it was too much for me. It's not, it's not my medium, right? I'm here to help authors. Yes, it was something I could do. And it shows that you can be a total beginner at something and you could still do something. And you can still provide value and can still show up. But there comes a point where you kind of decide, is this something I want to keep doing? And is that worth my time and my energy and my effort? Or is it better utilized when I give that to someone else so I can focus on what's a little more important, right? So I am really glad that I have decided to get some help on that end. And this is another way to ensure that I show up for you every single week.
And I have some awesome stuff coming out. I am really excited.
So briefly, here's what's in store for the Writing with Coach McCoach podcast. I'm going to have a different series of topics we're going to explore on the podcast. It might be a two episode series on one thing, or it might be 10 episodes on something. We will do deep dives into the things that writers face. And it's all going to run under this umbrella of what the fuck is a writer supposed to do?
Oops. I probably should have warned you that, yeah, from here forward, I'm going to be cursing. If you don't like cursing or you've got kids around, just be forewarned. If I'm going to be here to help inspire you to tell your stories in your way and write as your true self, then I better show up exactly as myself too, right? And to be honest, that's a little sass, laughing at my own jokes all the time and a sprinkling of fucks and damns, because it's just part of who I am. It's how some of my passion and energy comes out. I like a good curse word. I do. It's not going to be all of this, but I'm not going to hold back from doing it. And if it's not your jam, totally no hard feelings. There are some fabulous coaches out there who give you wonderful advice and who don't curse.
But this is kind of part of the theme of where I'm going with this. My podcast moving forward is going to really focus on what the fuck are you supposed to be doing as a writer? Like what the F doesn't mean to write a good story? What the F doesn't mean to have a strong character? What the fuck does it mean to get a critique? What is a critique partner versus a beta reader versus a sensitivity reader? What are all these things that we're supposed to understand and know and do? There's so much coming at writers all the time, and I'm here to help break it down for you and kind of put it to you in a way of being like, yeah, this is a lot of shit.
Let's work through it together. I don't want you to be alone in this anymore. So I'm not going to apologize for being me. And just as an aside, please, I do not want you to apologize for being you either. Let's all just be who we are. And if we can learn something from someone when they are exactly as they are, hell yes, right? I want you to embrace this sort of mentality too, because being a writer is so personal. It's so tied into who we are. And even when we're writing fiction, we're like, that has nothing to do with me. Those characters have so much of us in them, right? And so your stories are a huge part of you. And I want you to get really clear on your vision and your voice and who you are and who you want to be in this career as you show up as a writer, as an author. If I'm going to try and encourage you to do that, then I got to do the same, right?
Here's the other piece to this. I'm not going to stop being encouraging. A huge part of who I am, and I'm just going to own it and just kind of do a little humble brag, maybe not humble at all, just say that a huge part of my style is to be encouraging and to give you that power back and to let you know you can do this and to give you all the tools and strategies so you feel like you can do it too. And so I'm not going to stop being encouraging. I'm going to be totally honest. I'm going to be encouraging. My sass is not going to take away from the encouragement. And so I just want to remind you that my encouragement is not going to go away if I throw in a few fucks here and there, right? This is all for you because I believe in what writers can accomplish so much. It can be so powerful. And I want that for you.
Now I really started thinking about this doing the What the F series because honestly, writing is just, it's so overwhelming sometimes, right?
And I want to break down this barrier of the information and give you the power back so you can move forward pursuing your author career exactly how you want to. Not just because it's been told this is how you ought to pursue your career, but because it's fully aligned with you. And so I want you to have all of the tools and information so you can make that decision yourself. What do I need to know to move forward? And if I move forward in one direction or the other, how is this going to stay aligned with my goals and what I want out of my career as a writer? I also like to think about what I would want to hear from someone if I were in your shoes. If I decided I'm writing a novel or memoir tomorrow, what would I need someone to help
me work through so I could know in the deepest part of my soul that I had it in me to do it. And that is what I'm here for. I'm here to help you know your power, believe in your ability to gain knowledge and apply it like a badass and be the best damn writer you want to be. Be the writer you love showing up as. That's going to pull you through any goal and vision for the future.
So as I thought about the hundreds of topics that could start this new direction with, which I literally next to me on my whiteboard, I have so many to go through the series with the so many ideas of things I want to talk about and things I could, I mean, I could go forever, right? There's so much for writers, but I just kept coming back to this one thing that I think boggles us all at some point and as a source of contention and joy and hate and love and challenge and exhaustion. And it's not even the actual writing itself or even the editing. It's the feedback, the constructive criticism, the critiques, the reviews, the edits, the comments, the rejections. It's what we hear from everyone who isn't us. And sometimes for some of us, it's internalized and we start to hear our own voice give us feedback that's not useful. To have a career as a writer, you're going to face feedback of some kind at some point, no matter what, even if you don't subject yourself to it, even if you don't ask for feedback, you're still going to find yourself at the end of it somehow. And I believe that feedback can absolutely be the best tool in the world to have in your back pocket because I believe that the ability to take feedback and apply it in a way that works for you is so good for your career, for your writing. But it's not easy to develop. It takes a lot of people years and years and years.
So don't worry. Through this series, I'm going to give you all the tools and strategies for how to take feedback, to sort it, to crap on some of it and be like, no, thank you, to apply it, to even give feedback in return and how to love the process of it. As someone who has provided feedback to authors for over a decade and received it myself, I know this process can be, for lack of a better word, a bitch. It really can. But there's so much that I've experienced in giving feedback to authors, I mean, literally every day, to how I felt on the other end, to what I see my authors feel and the times where I can see the difference between them saying, I don't know if I can do this to, oh my God, of course I can do this. This is exactly what I'm able to do. I know, I believe in myself I can do it, and then I watch them do it. So there's so much I've seen and experienced myself through working with writers and writing my own and sharing my stuff that I know I can take you through this process and get you to a place where constructive criticism and getting feedback is not going to be this thing that you're like, that's a one day problem, or I don't think I'll ever be able to handle it, so I'll just never share my book.
No, we're going to make sure that you get to a place where you're feeling really comfortable sharing your book, where you know how to take the feedback that works for you and run with it. And then also when you know how to be like, yeah, F that, I'm not listening to that. That's really hard to develop, right? And so I'm here to help you get through it a lot faster, a lot smoother, get you to a place where you can make those decisions and know without a doubt you're making the right decision for your vision versus really struggling with what to do, which is the place I've been and I know so many writers get into so many times.
Today in our What the F is constructive criticism and what do I do with it? We're just going to first start with, essentially, we're going to start with what the F is constructive criticism. What the F do I do with feedback? How do I get it? What type is there? Who do I get it from? I'm going to go through an overview and then the future episodes, we're really going to dive into each thing, but I am going to start you off with a few tools so you know just how to initially kind of work with it and what to expect out of the situation because you're going to be in it at some point. So first of all, we're going to break down some of the feedback that you can expect to get through your career and the importance of it or not of some of it.
So let's start with what is, when I talk about feedback, what am I talking about? And when I talk about constructive criticism, these are pretty much the way that I'm talking about it hand in hand. I'm talking about constructive criticism you receive on your work, but we're also going
to talk about some other things.
There are other types of feedback you'll get. Typically though, as I talk about the feedback you receive, how do you take feedback? How do you deal with it? I'm really pretty much talking about the constructive criticism that someone has provided to hopefully help you grow as a writer.
First of all, then let's dive into what the heck is that, right? And what is constructive criticism? Remember that criticism and constructive criticism are two very different things. Criticism by definition is the act of criticizing unfavorably, just like crapping on stuff, right? Like we're just being very critical and we're picking it apart. Constructive is an adjective meaning it's promoting improvement or development. That is what constructive means. So without being constructive, criticism is just cruel and unnecessary. That's not what we're here to talk about. That's not what we want. If you are in a situation where you feel you're just getting criticism, get out of it. If it's not constructive, it's really not that great. Now we will dive into a lot more later in future episodes of really how to go through and pick apart this constructive criticism, this feedback. But here I just want to talk about what this really is, right? So when we talk about constructive criticism and feedback we receive on our writing, we're talking about feedback that someone provides on your writing and story that is usually helpful in addressing the strengths and weaknesses of your work.
I don't like the word weakness when talking about writing, but let's be real, we all have them, right? They're parts of our stories that need further development, parts of our skill set that look like they need to be developed. The major thing to remember is that it's okay. We're all going to have something that we need to work on. I've said this is kind of the cool thing about writing and also sometimes it can hurt when you think about it is you're always going to be learning with writing. You can always learn something new, you can always grow. And so sometimes that's kind of enlightening, right? It's like, cool, there's always something to keep working for and to develop and you'll never just stop growing.
The other side you're like, damn, I'm going to be working on good and better for the rest of my life. But the thing is you will always, if you're working on it, you're always going to get better and it's going to feel amazing. So don't think you're less of a writer for having weaknesses as I air quote, because again we all have them. And the great thing is we also all have strengths. We have these places where we're doing really well and knowing your strengths is going to be a very important part of getting feedback. And I'll get into that in future episodes too, but just remember to always look for, this is just like one thing I want to preface with, especially if you're just in a situation like Katie, I need one tip right now that I can handle this constructive criticism. I'm about to read an edit letter from someone. The one thing I want you to take with you is to remember every time you get feedback, look for the strengths that they're talking about of your writing. So it's so easy to land on the critical stuff to be like, oh, they said I can't do this, this and this, or they really wish I was better at this, this. And hopefully it's a little more tactful than that. Hopefully it's a little more like, I would love to see you develop this aspect, but we're so quick to just, our eyes even scan to find like, what are the things I have to fix? What do I have to work on? I want you to slow down and really ask, what are they saying I do well?
What are my strengths? What do I know my strengths are? What have people said my strengths are? And how can I keep that in mind as this is something that I can lean into, or I don't need to develop as much because as I develop these other things, those strengths will come out stronger. And then the things that aren't as strong are going to come out stronger. So it's just going to look amazing in the future.
Keep in mind you have strengths. It's good to lean into them. It's really important you recognize them and look for the great things people are saying
too. All right, I want you to have that just in your back pocket. As we talk about feedback is typically used in the writing world to help you become a better writer, to grow your skillset and talent and abilities. And the goal of constructive criticism is to help that process a lot. Now that you have a better idea of what constructive criticism is and what sort of feedback you can expect at some points, we're definitely going to dive into the nuances between different types of feedback and who you get it from and what you should expect. I'm going to break that down in future episodes.
Like for example, I'm just going to briefly give you a little heads up. You could get feedback from friends and family. That's going to be very different than feedback from a critique partner versus a beta reader versus a book editor versus an agent versus judges of a contest. And then later when you're published, you're probably going to get feedback you didn't ask for sometimes from book reviewers and bloggers and readers.
So there's many different types of feedback. There's nuances of them all. And there's a time and place for each piece. They all have their important parts and they all have their pros and cons. This series is going to discuss each of these pieces. And then we're also going to give you some very strategic tools on how to make the most out of each situation. Your first introduction to feedback probably looked, or if you haven't yet gotten there, might look something like this. Let's say I'm you. Hey mom, a friend, husband, wife, partner, I wrote a book. Will you read it and let me know what you think? It's probably one of your first things that you'll ever experience with feedback is sending it to someone close to you, friends or family.
Now not everyone will go this route. Of course, some are terrified to send it to people they know. So they actually avoid it at all costs until they find like a stranger, an editor. And then there are others who will exclusively use friends and family. But at some point after you write a book, or even after you just started your book, you'll realize you can believe all you want about the story, but until you know what others think, you won't know how it's being received. And that's really important in deciding what you'll do next. Now you might be like, Katie, this literally contradicts kind of what you were saying earlier, like be true to yourself. So as much as I want you to always have your vision in mind, I want to make sure you're reaching your vision and you're being true to yourself. As I just said, you don't really know how something's being received if your vision
is lining up with what's on the page until someone else reads them. So you might be saying, I know I'm putting it out this way, but then someone and many someone's might read it and say, I'm getting something totally different. So the best way to make sure that your vision is reaching your audience the way you want it to is to get feedback, especially before you publish it to see, okay, what's not connecting? Because no matter what you do, there are things that are in your head that are not ending up on the page. There are things you think you're expressing that not everyone's going to get. And now you cannot make everyone happy.
Please keep that in mind. There's no way you'll ever please everyone. Even if you look at Harry Potter outside of JK Rowling herself and her current shit, let's just say that, you can look at Harry Potter and there's going to be people who are like, no, I hate Harry Potter. I hate the book, or I hate this character. I hate this thing. I couldn't stand this. I wish I would have done this differently. So you could still have a book that so many people love, and there's still going to be people who are like, no, I didn't get that from that. I don't know how you got that from it. So just keep in mind, you can't please everyone. You also cannot force everyone to see the same thing that you want them to see. However, with feedback and getting a consensus and really establishing what are people seeing when they do read your work, you will have a much stronger sense of, is my vision making it to the page and are people able to pick it up and see what I intend them to see? So it is important.
So it's not that what they think about your work is necessarily should influence what you think about your work, but what they perceive to be what you're putting out there is going to help influence how you can revise and edit. So you're making sure that what someone's getting out of it is aligned with what you want them to get out of it. We can do a lot to make sure we get as close to that as possible, even if we can never perfectly do it, right? Because it's your words. It's not someone else's words. So everyone's going to come to it differently. Again, we'll tap into that for sure soon as we talk about how to take feedback and how to use it and apply. Yeah.
So a lot of us will start with some people close to us a lot of times because we know deep down or at least believe and hope that these people who are close to us want to see us succeed. And if we show it to people who want us to do well, then we get that boost to keep going. However, unfortunately, the feedback you get from this experience is usually the least amount of helpful feedback you'll ever get beyond. I would say this, so this is like your first feedback is the least helpful. And then your last feedback, which is book reviews that are posted online. These are the two least helpful pieces of feedback you'll ever get for your story. Because one is from people who are unable to truly express what they feel because they're protecting you or because they're super supportive or because they just don't really, it's not their way of communicating. They just don't really know what to say.
And then there's the people who are posting reviews online. And one thing I want you to also remember and that I've heard over and over is book
reviews are for the readers, not the author. So it's really not for you. And there's not much to do about it. So those are your two, your beginning and ending pieces of feedback can be the least helpful feedback you'll ever get. Right. However, it's still good to understand the experience and go through it, I believe. Unless you know, you're really lucky and your friend is also a book editor. But in that case, maybe you should probably pay them. It might be a little better. They might not really want to do that for free.
But all that being said, it can help just to hear from someone close to you just to get that little boost. If you need that little boost, don't hesitate to get the boost. If you need some confidence and you know, if I send this to my mom, she's just going to say amazing things. Send it to your freaking mom. Just get the boost and move forward with the boost. Like I am all about doing whatever to get you to move forward. You might though hear things like I liked it. I will keep going. And it was fun. I mean, I didn't love this character, but like it was good. A lot of times it'll be like, I don't really know what to look for. So I mean, I don't know how much it can help, but it was, it was good. So some it's can be really hard when you get feedback like that. And some folks are really lucky that their family members and friends might be really useful and amazing to share their work with and get feedback and support. But I found that that sort of useful advice from people so close, it doesn't usually come
unless the person who's giving you feedback, unless your family member or friend knows how determined you are to keep going on this and doing whatever it takes to make this work. So if you're casually saying, Hey, I wrote a book. Will you look at it? They might be afraid to say too much of anything because they don't really want to be the one to tell you to stop. Or they sometimes want to say, you know, maybe you should take a writing class or they might even be afraid of being the one to be like, this is some great, keep going. Knowing that there's so much they don't know that they can't help you with. And so they might just not know how to support you in the way you need to be supported.
A lot of people I know who have family who is really helpful. Just because it's already established to everyone in their life. This is something I'm doing and my goal is to get really freaking good at it. How can you help me do that? And they'll get a lot more useful advice that way. Just something to keep in mind. Now, great thing about feedback from just your general anyone in your life is it can be useful because it can do one of two things that can one expose you to hearing what others feel about your story beyond you as a person or beyond how you feel about the story. So you get to actually hear out loud like what is someone else feeling or even just the very base first emotion that comes up like that's good. You get to see like what reaction does someone have.
And that's a really big step for you. It's important to experience putting your work in front of someone else. And then you can ask like do others experience what you hope they did or are you disappointed that it didn't seem to connect. If that's the case, guess what? You've got steps ahead of you. You got tools for working through that. And the other reason this can help is because it can boost your confidence. Even if they weren't helpful at all, guess what? You let someone see this piece of you of something that's important to you and you survived it. Your mom read your book and maybe she even hated it, but you survived. You're still standing. Congrats. Now you can decide to do what next. Do you want to listen to her and put it away forever or find out what to do to make it better or don't listen to her at all and get feedback from someone else and then decide what to do.
But you survived if you put it out in front of anyone and you received any verbal or written piece of feedback in any way from that experience. That is awesome. You're building confidence even if it doesn't feel like it because you survived. That means you can do it again and probably it'll be a better experience in the future. And as I said before, this is important to just like go through the experience because at some point in your career, you're going to get the feedback no matter what, whether you ask for it or not, book reviews, contest judging, like you're going to hear what people
think about your work no matter what. So I recommend starting early on and starting before you're ready with someone you can trust, but use some of the tools in your back pocket for how to deal when it does happen for when it gets tough.
It is important that you just kind of, at some point you just kind of launch forward. Right. I know a lot of people who are so afraid to share anything that they won't move to the next step. And unfortunately, what are you going to do if you can't share your work with someone? How is anyone going to benefit from it? How are they going to read it? Right. You might be a perfectionist. That's not going to get you far because it's going to take a lot of work before your book is ever perfect. It's one of those horrible things about writing is that it doesn't come out perfect the first
time. And I know from experience, I hate that. Right. I'm like, I just want it to be exactly how I did the first time. That's how it's supposed to exist because that's how it came out. That's not the case. It's not. Sadly, we need to redraft. We need to rewrite. We need to revise so we can really make sure the words we use are doing what we want to do. And the best way to get more comfortable doing that and knowing how to do that is to get feedback from others that you can learn to apply and say, oh, that's what's missing. That's what I need to do. If you try to avoid feedback at all costs, just keep in mind, you are setting yourself up for pain, lots of pain later.
More so you're ignoring someone who is very important. Your reader. If you want to write for yourself and no one else, that's fine.
You can go for it. Go ahead and write for yourself. Don't let anyone see it. But don't ever expect anyone to read your book and have feelings towards it if you're unwilling to share it. If there's a part of you that's like, I guess I wrote this for myself, but I really, I know someone will get something out of it. That's your reader. That's your person who you want to see this book. That person is out there in the world. They want this book.
They might not know it yet, but they want it. And if you are unwilling to do the steps ahead of getting it to them, you could send it to them and they could be like, this could have been exactly what I needed. But there were so many things that could have been done ahead of time before you gave it to me. If you want that reader or someone else to share in the feelings you hope your book gives, then you will want to go through Fee-Fay because you want those readers. You want to connect with those people. And remember that readers have opinions and expectations. So if you can kind of filter through a lot and like, make sure you don't upset your reader later on and you do the hard work up front, getting feedback and making sure that you
are thinking of your reader, then your reader is going to be so happy and they're going to enjoy it so much more. So getting feedback on your work before it's published allows you the best chance of having the career you desire and the best chance of satisfying your readers and making them
want to come back for more. So getting feedback and constructive criticism allows you the chance to grow. We are ever-growing human beings trying to gain more wisdom, more grace, more awareness in the world. If we want to be the best versions of ourselves, we have to be willing to open ourselves up
to change. The same is true for your writing.
I want you to publish your book with such feeling of holy shit, I did this. It is the best thing I've ever done. I want you to know you gave it your all and you're so damn proud and you know someone else is going to love this. But to get there, it's important to understand where things are, where they're not working in your book, where your vision for your story isn't making on the page and what you can do to get it there.
So who are some of the people you get feedback from? Here's the list. It might not be the most exhaustive list, but there's at least can get you started on like where am I even going to hear from these people? Who are they? Before you publish, you'll likely have friends and family read at some point, critique partners and critique groups, beta readers, sensitivity readers, maybe book editors, proofreaders, agents, possibly contest judges.
Some people share their work to writing forums. They get reviewers there. And then after you published, you will get our creators or ARC readers, advanced reader copies is what is sent out to several people and they share the advanced edition before the book is in print and released to give advanced reviews. So you'll have those readers, you'll have probably book reviewers, book bloggers, bookstagrammers. You might get reviews from places like publishing magazines, places like Kirkus Reviews, and then just your readers, your average readers will post reviews on Amazon and Goodreads and wherever else. And then you'll have people who talk about your book, right? Book clubs and bookstores, librarians, so many different places where you can hear what people think about your work, right? And some of you have to tune out, but some of it, I highly recommend you don't, especially the before published.
So the place where I really say, listen to the feedback is all the work you're going to do before you get published. It's the working with critique partners and beta readers, sensitivity readers, and editors and agents. This is when you're going to really be like, what can I do to make the story as great as possible? And then keep in mind for the most part, these people who are doing this with you and for you, it's to help you. It's helping you become the best writer possible. It's helping you tell the best version of this story. The one that you know is like, this is the epic story.
This is what I need to tell. This is the story that's begging to be told. They're going to help you get it there. The people who read your book after it's published, they're not there to help make the story better. They're there to judge the story as in its form, right? They're reading it.
They're what they experienced from the final product. You can potentially learn some ways from that to maybe you might want to do different in
the next book. But for the most part, this feedback you really need to listen to is the ones from people before you publish, because these are the people who want to help you and want to see you succeed. There is no point for me to just give feedback and be like, well, that kind of sucked and
good luck. What is the point? Because everything that I care about is when you succeed and when you're telling the story of your heart and you're like, finally, it is reaching people the way I wanted it to. That to me is the most amazing thing in the world.
So keep in mind if you're surrounding yourself with people who are giving you feedback that is just making you feel crummy and you feel like they're tearing you down, cut them out. Don't use them. In a future episode, I'm going to talk about really how to find the best critique partner,
beta readers, editors to make sure that the feedback you get and the way you get it works for you. There's different literal different types of formats. So there are pros and cons to all these feedback people and options. There's different ways to take and apply feedback. And there's literally different formats of how you can give feedback like dialogue or in writing. It could be professional. It could be just jotted notes.
It can be a conversation. It could be line edits. There's so many different ways to get feedback.
I'm going to talk about the different kinds so you can see what is going to be the kind that makes me feel most empowered. That's what I want for you.
As we go through this series, these are some of the things that will help you answer. When is it the right time to send to which person? What can you expect from this type of feedback or reviewer? Why would I use that type of reviewer feedback? When can I ignore the feedback? How do I sort through it? How do I know what to listen to and whatnot? How do I not take it personally? What format does the feedback come in? How do I untangle the jargon?
How do I even find these people or reach out to them? How do I know when to break ties with someone? How do I make sure my expectations are met?
And what questions do I need to ask to get the answers and the response from their reading that will actually help me? And much more. We're going to tackle all of this.
So meet me back here next week for the next episode in our What the F is Feedback series. Get ready to untangle the complex web of constructive criticism so you can move through it empowered instead of fearful. I know that today was kind of an overview. I just really wanted to get you used to this format, used to what we're talking about, and set you up for this is the series to come. This is where we're going to spend the next few weeks, maybe longer. You'll see to really dive into this topic. If this isn't something that applies to you, wait until we're back with something else
and shoot me a note and be like, Katie, I really want to hear about this thing. Might be the next series I talk about. I do love answering listener questions and I like hearing directly from you, of course. So if you have burning questions on this topic or other writing topics, then please use the form. I'm going to link it in the show notes. There's a form to submit your questions.
And one of the things I'm going to also be doing is I'm going to be sharing bite-sized bonus episodes in the future. They're going to be like really quick, you know, five, 10 minutes max answers to listener questions that are sent to me. So any question you have, put it in the form, fill it out and send it over to me and I will bring it up on one of the bonus episodes and I will answer your question. Stay anonymous. Give me your name. Either way, I'll talk about, I'll give an answer. And who knows, your question might even spark an entire episode or series. So please ask if there's something you really need to know about constructive criticism, giving, receiving, taking feedback, how to use it. Send me a note, tag me on social media too. You can always tag me on social. So it's at Katie McCoach on Instagram and threads, at Katie McCoach on Twitter or X, whatever you use in these days. That's where I'm going to mostly hang out. I also have a Facebook group. So it's called writing with Coach McCoach, same as this podcast, and it is a free Facebook community. So join our group and then just post a note and post a question and ask me, what do you want to know? Or what is bothering you? What are you trying to work through? Even if it's not on this topic, send me a note anyway, and it will come up in one of our reader or bite-sized bonus episodes.
This podcast is for you, writer. So let's untangle the ever tightening vines of chaos that is surrounding how to be a writer so you can grow into the author you are meant to be. Let's unfuck all of this shit.
Please rate and review this podcast. Your reviews help our podcast reach more writers who are eager to grow into their full potential and it's free. So what a great way to help others to help you. If you tag me on social media with your review or email me a screenshot, I will send you something a little fun in return.
So I had such a blast doing this. I hope that you're into this new direction and hope you are eager to follow along. So until next time, writer, keep growing.
