Processing Feedback
how to handle the help you're given
A writer brings their pages to a workshop to get feedback, of course, but very often, what they hear is diverse and even contradictory. This can be confusing. Having a strategy for reviewing the responses and deciding which advice to take is crucial if the writers is come away from the workshop with a positive experience and be motivated to undertake the next round of revisions.
I suggest taking notes during the workshop discussion, if there is one, and using the commenters’ initials to keeping close track of who said what. You want to get a sense of which readers’ interpretations and remarks are going to be most constructive for you. Next, go through all sets of comments and marginal notes you’ve received fairly swiftly — in one sitting if possible. If your manuscript is too long to do that, then break it up. For a novel with chapters, go through all sets a chapter at a time, so you can aggregate the opinions and start to get a sense of the trends. Don’t worry about the small stuff — typos or finicky line edits — at this point. Save decisions about those sorts of changes for a second pass.
As you review your readers’ edits and suggestions, make some sort of shorthand record of only the responses that are most interesting to you. Feel free to disregard any that seem wrong to you. You can keep this record in new document, a spreadsheet or on a notepad. What do I mean by interesting here? I suggest you include everything you agree with and definitely want to respond to, plus everything you’re not sure about but may decide to take action on, plus whatever especially irritates you — comments that seem to misunderstand what you were doing. You probably won’t directly take the suggestions from this last category, but again, you may want to make changes of your own to preempt future readers from going down this path. Say you have a complicated multiple-point-of-view scene that seems to have confused or lost some readers, who suggested you consolidate to just one point of view. But, as a writer, you have a strong interest in the ideas that arise from the multiple points of view. You won’t take the annoying suggestion to do away with it, but you might need to reexamine your execution on a granular level — looking at paragraphing, punctuation, transitions, clarity of antecedents — to make it work better for the doubters.
Consider organizing your notes into columns where you list the issues people bring up and tally the number of readers who respond in certain ways. Do most people agree on certain issues? You may want to go with the majority. Let’s call them Group A. But it’s also possible that the majority is guiding you toward the most obvious resolution and you have something fresher, more unexpected you’re trying to achieve. Of all your readers, perhaps there are only a couple, or even just a single one, who seem to understand the project for what you intended it to be. Call that cadre Group B. In that case, you will want to prioritize Group B’s notes while keeping mind that you do hope to reach the A readers, too. There may be ways you can satisfy the A readers without compromising your vision. Maybe their suggestions seem wrong for you, but nonetheless make you realize how you could avoid certain misunderstandings by setting up a certain scene or relationship or situation earlier.
Once you’ve gone through all the notes and gleaned the most important ideas, put the marked up manuscripts away somewhere, in a separate file or drawer, and let the suggestions and responses settle in your mind for a little while before you go back in and tackle making the changes. When you do begin your revision, do it in a new file, distinguished by the new draft’s start date or some other clear marker, so you can easily go back to the old version for reference — or if the process of revising takes you somewhere you don’t end up liking. Finally, save implementing any fine level edits for after you’ve done the larger scale work, in order to save yourself the time and effort of editing prose that may be cut or substantially altered.
Good luck with your next draft!