Welcome to the Writing with Coach McCoach Podcast. I'm your host, Katie McCoach, book oach, confidant, and cheerleader. Since 2012, I've helped hundreds of writers become authors, gain confidence, and grow their best stories yet. Together, we'll untangle the vines of chaos and uncertainty surrounding how to be a writer so you can grow into the author you are meant to be. Let's dig in, writer.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Writing with Coach McCoach Podcast. I am so happy to have you here again today. We're continuing the What the Hell is Constructive Criticism and What are you going to do with it series. On today's episode, we are going to twist this a little. So instead of it just being about receiving feedback, we are actually going to talk about how to give feedback, how to stop giving crummy advice and become a damn good critique partner. I'm going to first start off with what's the point? Why should you even bother becoming critique partner or get good at giving feedback and what will it do for you and your career and your own personal writing? And then of course, I'm going to go through seven tips on how you do this.
How do you become a damn good critique partner? How do you give constructive criticism? Because we've talked about how to receive it and how difficult that can be at times, but how valuable it is to learn some tips for that. So you can listen to the past episodes on this topic, but now we're going to twist it and really focus on how can you give constructive criticism?
Look here's the thing, giving feedback and receiving it is crucial to your career. So either way you are going to be in the position that you are going to get feedback all the time, no matter if you ask for it or not, but also you're in a position to give feedback and being able to do this well is only going to benefit you in the long run. So being a good critique partner will just only set you up for success. It'll create better relationships and it'll give you the opportunity to get better feedback in return. Plus without fail, any author who says community was a strong factor in their success, it's because they had a community people they could rely on, who supported them, who lift them up and who do not try to compete with them or take them down. They think that some folks tend to get nervous entering critique partnerships or groups because they think I'm going to get crummy feedback. I'm not really comfortable giving feedback and I'm competing with these people. These are my competition. So why would I help them out?
I want you to remove that idea in your mind of you guys are competition because the more that you support others, the more that you'll be supported and it's karma. It's good vibes in the universe, whatever you want to call it, but readers love to read. So if they find a book they love, they're going to be like, okay, what else would I love? If you and someone else are writing similar stuff and you guys are both lifting each other up, then when that book comes, one of your books comes out and a reader says, gosh, I love this. What else is there? Then they find you because you're connected and you're supporting each other. And it could be just immensely more powerful than saying, let me put someone down because they're going to take my spot. That's not how it works. We don't take up spots from people. Anyone can write, anyone can publish. And just because there are a ton of books out there doesn't mean you're taking room of someone else. There's always going to be a ton of books. So do you want yours to be up there or no? I have heard numerous times that when people say community was everything for me, it's because they had people who really supported them. And a lot of times people say my critique partner was the key. They were the best person to have in my corner throughout my career. I want this for you, but it doesn't work if you have a great critique. That's great. If you have a great critique partner who you can rely on, they support you, they give you the best feedback. Wouldn't it be good if you were also doing the same for them? Because you don't want them to be like, I'm not getting much out of this. I think I'm going to leave this relationship. So make sure that you are really good at giving feedback.
Now, if the community aspect of giving feedback, you're like, I don't really care, Katie, I'm just not going to connect to people. I don't really do community. I'm a solo author. If you think this doesn't appeal to you, that's not a good enough reason to want to be good at giving feedback. Then here's what I'll say. Giving feedback, being able to give constructive criticism is going to do a lot for your own personal writing. This is not just to make you a better critique partner. And that's not just that the only people who are going to benefit are people who are in these community relationships. No. If you want to grow as a writer, being able to give feedback is going to immensely help your craft. I promise you. It can be difficult to voice your thoughts in a constructive manner and to step outside of your way of writing and to see someone else's vision. But I believe this discomfort is really good for us as writers. It challenges us. And being challenged as a writer is the best way to improve our craft.
Side note, being challenged in general is a great way to grow as a better person. So not only is developing the skill set going to help you write better and possibly give you better relationships with other writers, but it could also make you a better freaking person. Because when you can give constructive criticism, how is that not something you can apply to your whole life? If you're really good at giving constructive criticism, feedback, advice, analyzing other people's stuff, why would that not help you in so many areas of your life? Right? So there's many reasons to get good at this.
So let's do it. Let's give you some tips. And I also want to say here's how this is going to really help you and your craft. Right? I want you to really understand the practical nature of where is giving feedback actually going to be a game changer in my own writing? First of all, giving feedback helps you gain clarity on your story. It will begin to open you up to things that you hadn't considered. You are in the reader's position. So you get to enter the space of being a reader who gets to give someone advice. But not only that, like notice of, oh, you know what, as a reader, this stood out to me. So you get to help someone in the process that they wouldn't normally get until after the book is done. So it gives you a chance to be like, oh, as a reader, what is catching me up? What are the sticky points? Why am I struggling a little bit in the story? Or what do I keep noticing about this author or the writing itself or the storyline? What do I want more of? And that gives you the chance to look back at yourself and say, oh, okay. So this is interesting. Like there is a lot that I want to explore here. There's a lot that I could do on my own writing that I didn't realize before until I started analyzing other people's work. Giving feedback can also help you with understanding the nuance of certain phrasing.
So sometimes when we give feedback, we're trying to be delicate. We want to be careful how we say things. Or we might use buzzwords that sometimes you hear them enough times, you're like, that means nothing to me anymore. Or you hear it for the first time, you're like, I literally don't know what you're talking about. But when you start giving feedback and you find yourself latching on to certain phrasing, you will start to be like, oh, I see why someone said it that way to me before. So it really helps you open up to the awareness of the way people phrase things, because sometimes giving it is so uncomfortable. We tend to, especially if you're like a very empathetic person, you tend to be concerned about how the other person's receiving it. And so we're constantly trying to figure out what's the best way to phrase this. As you work on doing that yourself, you'll begin to really see what people are trying to do when they give feedback to you. So it helps you understand the feedback you receive.
Giving feedback is also going to help you realize when it is not personal. And that's really hard to see when we get feedback. We think that it's all just freaking personal sometimes. If you're lucky, you're really good at being able to say, no, I don't really care. It's not personal. But a lot of us are not very great at that, especially because our writing is so tied into us. So when you give feedback, you start to be like, I'm not bothered by the writer. This is just something that I noticed. This is just something they might want to know. And you start to realize when someone does the same to you, oh, wait, maybe that wasn't that personal, but I thought it was. So it really does help make receiving criticism or constructive criticism, hopefully, more relatable. It's a lot more like, okay, this is not just a constant pummeling on my manuscript and myself. This is actually ways to like, hey, let's just do a couple of these things. And we're just lifting you up. We're lifting you. But sometimes we feel like we're being knocked down if we're not as comfortable getting criticism. But again, getting criticism, constructive feedback, I should say, will be easier when you start giving it to.
And I feel like I already said this, but just to make sure I do, it really begins to help you critically analyze others' work. You begin to actually look between the lines. You actually start to see what is actually not being said. And am I getting the message to offer? Am I getting the message to author intended? Like I said earlier, it'll help you become aware of the sticky points as you analyze someone else's work. And you're reading and you're like, oh, what got me caught up? You start to see what do readers get caught up on? Do I do that? What patterns do you notice in someone else's writing? Maybe you're guilty of doing it as well. And I will say that sometimes when you have more of a reaction to someone else's writing, it actually might be an alert that there are things that person does that maybe you do too, that you didn't recognize, or that you're more bothered by someone else doing it because deep down you're like, oh crap, I do that. Shit, now this bothers me more. Right? So sometimes it just really kicks up the awareness. And when you see what works and doesn't work in other people's writing, you begin to apply that knowledge to your own work.
And lastly, another reason that this is so important is you also begin to see where preferences lie and what they're based upon. So I think it's really good to know your personal preference as a reader. And you might not know that at first. You might be like, I love reading everything. And then you start being a critique partner and you begin to develop more of a nuance of what you like and what you don't like and what your expectations are for reading. And the more you become aware of your expectations as a reader, the more you begin to understand why reader expectations as we talk about with the markets and tropes are so important. For example, when we talk about tropes or certain genres, there are certain expectations readers have. For example, when in romance, your standard contemporary romance, Regency romance, especially typically, you have two love interests. The romance category, the romance genre has a very clear expectation. These books end in a happily ever after or a happy for now. If they don't include a happy ending, then you are not fitting the romance genre expectation and your readers are going to be pissed off. So yeah, you can write a book that has romance that does not have a happy ending. It's not going to be considered a romance novel by the industry standard. That would be more like regular fiction, women's fiction. I know they're getting out of saying women's fiction, but it comes down to it would be likely women's fiction, commercial fiction, literary upmarket. It would be these others that don't linger on. They don't have that. I need this to end with a happy ending. But when you pitch your book as romance, I wrote a romance novel. It has to have a happy ending. As you become more aware of where your own preferences lie and where your expectations are, you begin to see why it's so important to meet the reader's expectations or if you're going to not meet them to give them a way to be fully satisfied.
So as you get new perspectives, a new awareness of your own preferences, as you put yourself in the reader's seat, hopefully it gives you more understanding of why people have their preferences too. And then it helps you also see, as I've mentioned in past episodes, especially how to get feedback and how to not lose your shit. It does help you see that preferences sometimes seem personal, but they're not. And so when you begin to have that distinction between, oh, the person who's giving me feedback is actually, they just have a personal preference. You can begin to say, is that something I need to listen to or no? Is that right for my readership or no? My target audience. Okay. And then lastly, very straightforward, being able to see other people's stuff will bring new perspective to your own views and get you thinking outside of the box. That's awesome. That's always fun. It gets you to see things you wouldn't have seen before.
And so developing the skill set is going to do so many things for you. I don't know how you could argue me that that wouldn't be helpful because it absolutely freaking well. I have been doing this for over 10 years when I started giving feedback now. So even before I had my business and I'm giving feedback in peer workshops in college and in critique groups outside of the academic setting, every time that I gave feedback, it helped me learn something about something else. So it wasn't that I was just giving feedback on someone else's story, but it was helping me learn how to see mine in a different way or to understand why things stood out or what phrasing works. And that helped me become the editor I am today where I'm able to read someone's book and spend 90 minutes being like, all right, let's get down to it. And giving someone the space to feel comforted, encouraged, and still ending with the awareness of, okay, there are things I need to change, but I can do it. I totally know I can do it. So if you ever thought, I want to be a book coach, I want to be an editor, well, it starts here. Okay, so start developing this skill set, and that could be down the line for you. But also this is just really good to be a really great writer. This is going to help you.
Before I dive into the seven tips to be damn good critiquer, I also wanted to quickly give you some places where you can develop the skill. So you might be like, I literally, how do I do it? How do I develop the skill, Katie? Well, number one, if you're a community person, that's going to be fairly easy to figure out. So you can join some writing communities, join Facebook groups. There are so many Facebook groups. I have a Facebook group. It's a free Facebook group. It's called Writing with Coach McCoach. And you can meet other authors there and say, hey, I'm looking for a critique partner, or I want to build a critique group. You can join organizations. Many of them have critique partnership building or matching in there. They also sometimes just have critique groups, local organizations. There's so many local and online places where you can begin a critique group or partnership with one person. You could also offer to beta read. So if you know other people who are writing and be like, you know what, actually, I don't want to do the back and forth critique thing, but hey, let me read your book and give you feedback. That's a great way to begin to develop the skill. I think you should look at it as like, how do I develop this skill? And maybe you spend a season of your writing career on it, where you really put a lot of focus in it and say, you know what, for this season, I'm going to get really good at critiquing because this will help you overall. And it's something you can really put a lot of development into. So figure out all the ways you can amplify this, right? How could you do a lot of it? So become a critique partner, be a beta reader, join critique groups in person and online. Another place is to be a reader judge of contests. So a lot of times contests need your base readership to just do the initial grading factors. And those are anonymous. So you could be an anonymous judge for reader contests and so volunteer time. And that'll really help you also get used to seeing things where you have no idea the person and you're just getting like this specific container and looking for certain things. Usually in contests, it's looking for certain expectations. There might be like 10 questions, there might be five, there might be a scale for reading. So it helps you begin to see, oh, when I am going to give my rating and feedback and thoughts as a judge, what am I considering? So then if you ever put your book in and you get feedback in return from a contest, you can be like, oh, I understand why they would do that. Or I can understand the nuance to this. So those are some great places that you can begin to develop the skill.
And then the other way, if you're like, Katie, I am not going to talk to anyone. I don't build community. I'm not doing it. Then you can do this on your own with books. Just read some books for fun and ask yourself a few questions afterwards. Like what were the sticky points? What caught me up? What were patterns I noticed? Was there any point I stopped reading? Why didn't I want to read? Highlight things that stood out to you, times where you found yourself needing to go back and reread something. And maybe make a quick list or just go through all your highlights later after you read it and be like, oh, that's so interesting. That is what caught me up. So you can do this on your own with books that you read all the time. You could join online book clubs. I mean, even a book club is a way of developing this. It might not be that you're giving that person the feedback, but you're developing the skill on how to get clear on your thoughts. Start writing book reviews. I used to write book reviews for my blog all the time. And those were great because although it wasn't necessarily me giving feedback, it was me getting clear on how I felt about something and being able to express why. And that alone was so helpful for a lot of my audience, actually, for a lot of my clients and potential clients. They liked being able to say, oh, I see why Katie would say it that way. Or I understand what she's saying. I didn't realize that was something before, but that makes sense. So those are some ways to really develop the skill set.
Now let's freaking dive into the rest of the episode. I want to give you seven tips. So now you can go, you're like, I know. All right, Katie, I believe you. I'm going to go develop the skill, but how? So here are seven tips for giving feedback. So you can be a really damn good critique and a better writer. The very first thing that you need to remember when you give feedback is to remind yourself, this is not your story. This is not your book. When you're reading someone else's work, it's so important to remember that this is their story, their vision. You and that writer will never tell the same story in the same way. It's important that you value their vision, understand that what they're doing might not be what you would do, but that's okay because what they're doing is right for their work. And something I like to tell writers to keep in the back of their mind is how does this feedback serve their story? What is their vision? Try and see if you can get an idea of like, what are they trying to achieve? What story are they trying to tell? And then when you're thinking about your feedback, be like, how is this going to serve their story? How is this going to help their story? Is this just feedback to tell them something that they don't need to hear? Is this just being an asshole? Is this just a personal preference? And even if you're an even personal preferences can be important to make note of, but maybe phrasing it in a way of, you know, this is something that I haven't quite been able to express if it's a personal preference or if it's something that is more related to the story, but here is something that stood out to me, or this was a sticky point to me. Remember that this is their book. It's not yours. And keep in mind what they are trying to do. So this is like your biggest thing. Just constantly remember this is not my book. It's not my book. It's not my book.
Okay. The second, of course, be considerate. So, you know, we're young and our parents and teachers were like, treat others the way you want to be treated. The same thing applies here. Consider how you want someone to give you feedback and do that for them. I mean, simple as that, be kind, be encouraging, be supportive and respectful. Remember, this is a vulnerable situation for all involved. The person who's getting your feedback, they've spent time and effort on this book, just as you have with yours. So there is nothing to gain by breaking someone else's spirit. So just don't fucking do it. Be considerate. Know your limitations.
List number three, know your limits. Even if we're not aware of them, we do have limits. And I want you to start getting more and more aware of your limits. So one thing to consider is what genres do you know better than other genres? What personal preferences do you have that might cloud your view of someone else's work? What do you know about yourself? What expectations do you have? And are they fair expectations for what the other person's writing? Like I had mentioned earlier, you know, if you never read contemporary romance, then you might not know the expectations of the readers in that genre. So maybe don't give feedback on that or make it very clear to the writer. I don't know the expectations of the genre. These are the things that stuck out to me, but I'm not a heavy reader of it. So I can't say for sure if this is the best advice or not, but I'm bringing up so you at least know what stuck out to me and you can make the best decision from there. And they might go on and be like, this is something I actually do with a lot of my authors. They will give, come back to me with their beta feedback or critique partner feedback and say, Hey, someone said this, what do we think? And we'll work through it together. So that is something where the sub person can say, you know, they don't read this genre, but they did say this, is this something I should be concerned about? You know, if you hate paranormal romance, it's not fair to tell the author you hated their book. You are never going to like it in the first place. So keep that in mind too. If you're like, I'm really freaking hate horror. Don't tell the person you didn't like their book. Don't either pass on reading it. Like don't put yourself in the position of reading it. Or if you must then be clear up front and say, I don't normally like this genre. So XYZ. But if you're fine, if you're just giving feedback, that's like, I didn't like it because I don't like horror. That's not helpful at all. I don't even, there are no words. That was a scoff. There's no words except scoffing at that.
You know, sometimes in a critique group, you don't have a choice in what you have to give feedback on. So I would just be honest, let the writer know you have these limits, but still try to be useful in the input. You could say something like, this is what I liked. This is something I noticed. This is what stood out to me. This gives them the opportunity to hear fresh perspectives with the background knowledge that this isn't from their standard reader. So it's still helpful to have those fresh perspectives sometimes. So don't say, oh, I'm not going to give any feedback at all. If you feel like I actually do want to say something, but yes, I also am not your target audience. So take it with a grain of salt.
So we've got number one, we said, we're going to remind ourselves this is not our book. Number two, you got to be considerate. Three, know your limitations.
Now four, this kind of goes with be considerate, but four is more strategic, more like practical. Here's what I would say to do. Always start with the strengths. This is super hard because sometimes we want to just be like, well, what are the things that stood out to me? Right. But when you work to find what's good in something, the strengths of something, it is really developing that skillset for you of how to give feedback or how to begin to even see the good in your own stuff, right? Like it's important that we really can take time to think about what are the strengths, because that helps you see more positively. And you might think, well, how's that helping? It helps so much. It helps you and it helps the other person. Knowing what is done well is just as important as knowing what's not. So by spending time focusing on the strengths of someone else's work, you'll also see what parts of a story writing stands out in a good way. What are the positive things that really come of reading? What is important as a reader? What makes you want to read more of a story? These are things you can apply to your own writing as well. This helps you understand what makes the story great. How do I make mine better? How do I make mine great? It's also important that writers are reminded of their strengths so they can feel validated. This allows them to be more open to hearing the harder critiques. And also it helps them to know, okay, well, I don't have to stress out about fixing this. If I know what's working, then I won't accidentally edit that away. Because that's sometimes what happens is if someone doesn't get an idea of what is working well, they will hear all this feedback and they'll change all of it. And then they lost all the stuff that was working. That is tragic. I don't want that for you. I don't want that for other writers. So getting clear on the strengths and really trying to find the strengths, even when you're like, I, this book is so difficult. I don't like it at all. There is always something. And it really is important to begin to look for those.
Now, number five, don't just say it was nice. Oh my gosh, that is probably the least helpful advice ever, right? That's what you're going to hear from like your mom and your sibling. That is not what you want to tell another writer. That's not what you want to hear as a writer. When you're saying, Hey, I really want some good feedback here. Do not just say it was nice. That really gives nothing. How much has that ever helped anyone? Right? You and another writer entered this partnership because you actually both want to grow as writers. You wouldn't want to be robbed of that opportunity. So why would you do that to someone else? Right? So I feel like I don't need to expand on this. Don't, don't just say it was nice. Give actual feedback. And then how do we do that? Right?
So number six, give concrete examples. This is going to really be useful when you're trying to get feedback. And especially if you feel that you're struggling for it to land, or you don't know if this is like, sometimes if we have a little more personal preference or the way we feel about something, and that's how we're talking about it, it might not land to the other person. They might be like, well, that's how you feel. So I'm just going to ignore it. Right? When you give concrete examples, you validate, right? Your feedback, you basically say, look, I feel this way and here's why. And when you do that, the writer can say, Oh, okay, well, is that what I wanted it to do? Is that something I want to change? Is that something I want to change? So it's so important to understand the reason. This is, I think, what makes editors stand out as being so helpful, to be honest, because we're able to say, here's what would be a sticky point for your reader. Here is why. Here is exactly the places that it's happening. And this is, this is what you're telling. This is the message you're sending. So if you, you know, for example, if you're like, I hated the main character, take yourself out of it and be like, well, why did I, you know, really analyze why did I hate that character? Was it a specific way they acted? Was it an internal thought they had? What are the things that made you go, Nope, I hate this person. When you provide those specific reasons, moments, examples, it gives the person you're the writer of the book, right? It gives them a chance to say, Oh, shit, I didn't mean to do that. Or, Oh, I thought it was going to give this feeling and it did the opposite. So they begin to see what did I do in that moment? That was not what I wanted to do. Or is that what I wanted?
It might be even helpful if you give some brainstorming ideas for how it could be improved. Now, not everyone would appreciate this. So I would maybe get clear ahead of time with the person you're giving a feedback to, is this something they would want? If not, you can always just say, here's some potential ideas and list out some ideas and they can take them or leave them. But the reason I think brainstorming and giving a few ideas is helpful is because not that it means, Oh, the person should take that idea. It expands upon what you mean when something's not working. So if you're like, it's not working because XYZ, here are some ideas. What if you consider doing ABC instead? And the writer can say, Oh, okay. So I see, even if we're like, no, none of that makes sense. They can go, I see what you're trying to do with ABC and what you're trying to express. So even your ideas alone are helping me understand what you're trying to do and why you think that would be helpful for mine. So even if it doesn't, it's not like an idea they use, it helps them spark another way of thinking about things. And a lot of times brainstorming helps other people think of the better ideas. So my favorite thing with clients is when I'm like, what if you did XYZ? And they come back and they're like, I actually did D and I'm like, Oh, okay, let's see it. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is perfect. Because they were sparked to see a different way, they were able to see outside the box and then come up with the idea that was like this, this, this was the winner. So if you're struggling, here's a pretty straightforward way of thinking about constructive feedback. Maybe you say something like this. It looked like you were trying to do X, but I felt it didn't work because of Y. Maybe you consider doing ABC instead. That can be a great way to kind of frame your work.
And also number seven, always remember that constructive criticism is meant to help a writer grow. If you are using giving feedback as a tool to put someone down, please remove yourself. And please don't do that to someone that's really not useful. It's cruel and it's not making you a better writer. So let's help each other grow. You help yourself grow by getting good at giving feedback. You help someone else grow by giving them feedback that helps them. Okay. So let me just quickly go over them. And then you're on your way to being a damn good critique partner.
So here are your seven ways to be a badass critique partner. Number one, remember, this is not my book. This is not my book. Number two, be considerate. Number three, know your limitations. Number four, start with the strengths every time. Do a little compliment sandwich. Those work wonders. Honestly, they really do. Number five, I want you to do not just say it was nice. Number six, give concrete examples. And number seven, as always, remember constructive criticism is meant to help a writer grow.
All right, guys, I am super excited for you to go and be a badass critique giver and receiver. And I hope this series has done wonders for you and you feel stronger sense of why is constructive criticism important? Why should we ever deal with feedback? Who are the people we can get it from? And how can we be awesome at giving it in return? Until next time, writers keep growing.
