Friday, 14 March 2025

Giving and Receiving Feedback - shared by Ruth Broome


I am aware that I mentioned a while ago that I would share some reading I did on ‘How to Give and Receive Feedback’ on your writing.


The main points were (in the words of the expert writing the blog):

- I encourage all writers to be open to feedback, it will help them to bring their vision to life and push their craft further.

- For those receiving the feedback I counsel against what I call the ‘Franken-poem’ - an assemblage of other people's ideas. You can’t, nor should you try to satisfy everyone else in the room. You have to weigh the various questions and suggestions against your own vision for the piece.

- Ultimately the decision about what you write is your own and you have to be able to stand behind those decisions.

- There are various models of giving feedback for the writers' workshop. The classic model requires the writer to be silent while the group discusses their piece. Another allows the writer to introduce the piece and ask certain questions they want answered by the readers/listeners. The discussion can begin with the aspects of the piece the readers admire and thought were working well, followed by then addressing the questions and making suggestions for revision.

- It's not about fixing the piece. Asking questions of the writer is often more valuable and better received than critique. Such as;
Why did you choose to begin the story/poem here?
Why this title?
Why this sequence of events?
Why this ending? 
What do you think the effect would have been if you had done X or Y?
What do you want readers to take away from this piece?
How do the craft choices/techniques reinforce that takeaway? Or undermine it?

- Questioning helps the writer to pay attention to and articulate the craft choices they have made. It allows them to hear how those choices impact the reader. The author then has a choice to consider/reconsider, revise or see again the choices they have made.

- This pushes the writer further forward in their writing as it enables them to consider how these choices of craft can be applied to all their work, not just the one piece. And it encourages the writer to ask questions of themselves whilst they are writing.

- Constructive feedback helps writers recognise their strengths and weaknesses, consider new revision strategies and think about how their work is part of the literary conversation.

- The most helpful feedback I have received has been phrased as an offering or invitation;
“I think you can say less here. Let the image do the work”
“The ending of the poem happens too quickly. I could use more time here to absorb the ending so maybe divide the last sentence into two shorter sentences?”
“I get really invested in the writing of the third paragraph so maybe move that material up?”
“I could use some back story here. Nothing much just a sentence or two of context”.


Hope that can be put to some use/be helpful for the group.
Ruth

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well done Ruth. Thanks for sharing that model insight - hopefully we can all apply it or at least be kind to each other in our critiques.

John Ayres-Smith said...

My comment above (John)

Irena Szirtes said...

Thankyou 😊