Guest Blog

How to Incorporate Feedback Without Destroying Your Story

By Chandra Shekhar, December 6, 2021

Feedback tells us what we are doing right and what we could be doing better. The advice and suggestions we receive from beta readers, fellow authors, and other sources can help us transform our flawed-but-promising story into a publishable piece or even a glittering masterpiece.

   Ideally, the process will be almost painless.

   The reality, however, is quite different, as any author who has ever attended a critique session can attest. You go into the session expecting to receive little criticism and lots of praise, but often it turns out to be the other way around. You find yourself assailed from all sides by brilliant suggestions that have one simple flaw — they will require you to completely gut your story and rewrite it from scratch.

It is a chastening experience. Even the thickest-skinned writers can’t help but feel disheartened at moments like these and fantasize about skinning their colleagues with a blunt knife.

   What’s the solution? How does a writer handle adverse—but well-intentioned—criticism?

   I don’t have an answer for this in the general case, but I have discovered one trick that’s helpful in certain situations when a reader points out what appears to be a serious or even fatal flaw in your text. This trick not only makes it almost painless to fix the flaw, it actually deepens the plot and strengthens the story.

   The trick I’ve found is to fix by incorporating. Let me explain with a couple of examples how that works.

   Example 1: Let’s say you’ve written a play in which the following dialogue appears:

                John: We should leave soon.

                Jane: Leave where?

                John: Where? To the reception at the Chamber of Commerce, or course.

                Jane: Oh.

                John: So will you go and get ready? It’s getting late.

                Jane: Let’s just stay home.

                John (staring at Jane): Are you kidding? Don’t you know how important it is for my job that I show my face at this event?

                Jane: Screw your job.

Someone in your critique group tells you that the dialogue doesn’t ring true, because Jane is not the type who will swear at her husband. The criticism is valid, you feel, and wonder whether you should change the dialogue slightly:

             John (staring at Jane): Are you kidding? Don’t you know how important it is for my job that I show my face at this event?

             Jane: Stop worrying about your job.

This addresses the criticism, but at the expense of losing some punch in the dialogue. Here is a better way to rewrite the dialogue:

                John (staring at Jane): Are you kidding? Don’t you know how important it is for my job that I show my face at this event?

                Jane: Screw your job.

                John (open-mouthed): What’s the matter with you? I’ve never heard you swear before. At least, not at me.

                Jane (beginning to tear up): Sorry, John. I’m not myself today. Ever since I got that letter from Cecilia.

                John: …

See what I did there? I incorporated the criticism into the dialogue, and by doing so, I not only fixed the flaw but also deepened the interaction between John and Jane.

   This is a simplistic example chosen for the purpose of illustration, but the point it makes is broadly valid. Whenever you encounter criticism that rings true but would be painful to address, try to incorporate it into the text itself. This will make your text critique-proof, at least as regards that particular flaw. The process will be relatively painless. And it will add depth to your narrative.

Example 2: This is a paragraph from my first draft of a short story about a serial killer:

      With the remaining officers out on emergency patrol, Fiona and Prince were left to man the precinct office. Prince moved his desk closer to the heating vent while Fiona kept her overcoat on. Both kept glancing at the loudly ticking wall clock, anxiously waiting for midnight.

In the story, the above scene takes place in a US city in August. One reader wondered why Fiona would wear an overcoat in mid-summer. For some reason, I had overlooked this very obvious flaw. Unfortunately, the plot requires the event to happen in August and Fiona to have her overcoat on. How to reconcile these two conflicting requirements?

My first impulse was to relocate this story to the southern hemisphere, where it would be winter in August. Then I realized many other elements in the story would make no sense if I did that.

Then I came up with this simple fix:

                With the remaining officers out on emergency patrol, Fiona and Prince were left to man the precinct office. The weather that summer had been unseasonably cold, and as the sun set and the evening shadows crept over town, the office grew chilly. Prince moved his desk closer to the heating vent while Fiona kept her overcoat on. Both kept glancing at the loudly ticking wall clock, anxiously waiting for midnight.

Adding that single sentence not only addresses the (valid) criticism but also brings in an eerie element that contributes to the feeling of dread that pervades the story.

                Mission accomplished!

 

Chandra Shekhar came to the US from India in 1987 to study Artificial Intelligence. After a decade of work on self-driving vehicles, facial recognition, and video surveillance, he switched to the less lucrative but more benign field of journalism. After studying science communication at the University of California, he worked for several years as a freelance writer for the Los Angeles Times, Cell, Princeton University, and other outlets. He taught for a year at the writing program at Stanford University, which inspired him to write his first novel, Mock My Words, and launched his career in fiction writing. 

   He is currently working on Thirst for Power, a novel about the intertwined lives of an idealistic young man, a scheming politician, a romantic professor of English, and an enigmatic social worker, set against a background of political, social, and climate change.

   Chandra is also a prolific writer of short stories, flash fiction, and humorous verse. An illustrated collection of his shorter works titled Unintended Consequences, Illogical Extremes, and Other Ironies of Life is in progress.

Here are links to his novels: 

Mock My Words and Unlight, both on Kindle 

 

Creating Grandpa: Guest Blog

 Dr. Michael P. Riccards, educator, administrator, three-time college president, and ex-Executive Director of a New Jersey think tank, is our guest writer today. Notably, Mike has written and published over thirty books and numerous plays, some produced on stage. He has written about Presidents and met some. His stories are interesting, varied, true life or fictional. 

CREATING GRANDPA

I always used to avoid fiction.  The best of it seemed wordy, overly romantic, and generally hard to follow from one day to another.  It took me a year to read  MIDDLEMARCH.  So I stayed with my major interest: political history and biography.  After I retired I decided to write a personal memoir which was moving slowly until I saw in the Hamilton NJ Public Library a notice on a bulletin board near the men's room for the establishment of a group of people interested in memoir writing led by Rodney Richards.  

I joined the group. At times I would grow weary of retelling my life and even was going to ditch the whole thing and go back to the American presidency which was the area I was most at home in.  When I got a note of congratulations from President Bill Clinton, that only solidified my dedication.

So in the group, I read short segments of my memoir, sometimes with minimal enthusiasm.  The group, especially the American consul to Trenton from the Italian government, Dr. Gilda Rorro, was especially wonderful in her critiques, especially on my Italian American roots,  Suddenly I decided to finish up my life story just after my retirement, which was on my birthday, October 2.

The group continued on, and some of my colleagues asked me to read their life stories and even offered to pay me for that review. I insisted that I did not charge friends and was pleased to take several of those fine pieces with me for a long boring winter in Florida. I was delighted to see them published as well over the coming years.

The group continued on and began to change: it became more interested in the genre of fiction, exactly what I had so avoided.  But I decided to start with a simple short story about my maternal grandfather who was born in Naples and came over to the United States in 1898 at 16.  As I searched out more information, I suddenly found that he developed a character of his own, as he faced the trials of living as a paterfamilias in the twentieth century.  I freely mixed fact and fiction, and in the process members of my family said they remembered this or that particular incident about Grandpa.  How could they?  

One cousin even told me that his funeral was interrupted by a poor woman whom he had given vegetables, wood, and flowers to in her later years.  She came to a sacred funeral and screamed out "God bless him, we shall not see his likes again."  That was not how I wrote, but it came about in real life.  When I showed Grandpa in one story in a less than flattering light, one of my fellow students complained that this was not in character for him, so I should changed the story.  Actually, it was a true story, but by then Grandpa had become a real persona in her mind, someone noble and decent and paternal, the way men used to be, or so we thought before the fractures our time.  

Anybody starting fiction should give it some time to grow.  I try to create characters and also have the stories end with some moral for our confused lives.  Sometimes the moral is too subtle, but such is life.  Give yourself a chance to make mistakes, for that is realism.  Look around at the symbols and metaphors that exist in your vision.  Grandpa had a tiny rosebush in the middle of his garden.  Surely it was out of place?  But I learned that he planted it when his 25-year-old daughter died unexpectedly.   That was how he remembered her.  

It really happened.  

"The Ordinary Duties of the Day": The Collected Grandpa Stories

by Dr. Michael P. Riccards and Ms. Cheryl A Flagg is available on Amazon

Some others on Amazon are 

The Odes of DiMaggio

The Ferocious Engine of Democracy: A History of the American Presidency (Volume 1)

The Collected Plays of Michael P. Riccards https://www.amazon.com/Collected-Plays-Michael-P-Riccards-ebook/dp/B0795857SJ/

And his autobiography A Hero of My Own Life https://www.amazon.com/Hero-My-Own-Life-2015-08-25/dp/B01K3JKEOE/

More of Mike's books and plays can also be found there.

Writers love their words too much when...

The one thing all good writers and poets seek out before they publish is feedback on their work. They know it catches mistakes, identifies misconceptions or confusion, offers better word choices, improves clarity, or cuts needless words. Also, when written well, critique offers confirmation.

  Writers know they can't please everyone, yet should want to reach as many readers as possible. But readability, regardless of subject matter, is in the mind's eye of the reader. At times we can forget that.

  Writers always, always, can accept or reject criticism. But sometimes we writers can be so invested in our work that we cannot acknowledge our own mistakes or what needs improvement.

  Based on my experience in over 3,000 writing and poetry critique sessions and working closely with authors, I've come up with the following stumbling blocks or traps some writers fall into:

Writers love their words too much when…

 

They ignore suggestions to switch POV or tense

They like excessive dialogue tags with adverbs

They use adverbs instead of verbs to show action

They skip necessary punctuation or have too much

They insert too many exclamation points

They insist on twenty-five cent words no one understands

They fall back on tired old cliches

They tell what happens instead of showing it

They pooh-pooh the idea of changing words or phrasings

They think their writing is perfectly understandable

They explain and defend what they’ve written

They know their book will sell well when published

They think they’ve told a brand-new story

They can’t see why their writing is boring

They refuse to cut out vague or extraneous words

They use the same pronoun to start every sentence

They care little about metaphors and similes or use too many

They don’t appreciate that criticisms are meant to help them

They think beta readers are overrated

They won’t spend money on a good editor

They believe the book will sell itself

 And the number one reason writers love their words too much is because…

  They are in love with themselves and not the reader

Know your target audience. Be in love with those readers. 

How to Detach from Our Writing Using Stephen King

 

Introduction

 

Writers must choose between attachment to what they’ve written and detachment. Attachment means we are satisfied with our word choices and stop there. Detachment means we are always looking for better words or phrases to convey our meaning. Stephen King, in his interwoven memoir, part craft book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, lays out his advice to writers. I’ve chosen some of his quotations to show the benefits of detachment over attachment.

 

Reasons for attachment or detachment

 

When we’re alone writing, we usually have a goal, purpose, theme, plot, or audience in mind. We write and write and write, then edit and revise. We can be obstinate or stubborn when it comes to altering the words we’ve written. This may be for valid or not so valid reasons.

   Valid reasons: They say what I am trying to say.

   I understand what the words mean.

   I don’t care what others think.

   I think or feel they are the best words I could have chosen.

   Invalid reasons: Everything else.

 

   Let’s debunk the so-called valid reasons.

   1. The words I’ve used say what I am trying to say.

   That may or may not be the case. It depends on your target audience.

   Do you have a target audience, or is this something you feel or believe? If it is something you feel or believe, then I have no right to tell you to change your words. Just like you have no right to tell me to change my feelings or beliefs. You or I can be closed about this, not wanting to hear or read something that might change our minds, or we can be open to other viewpoints and at least listen.

   I’m not talking here about what is right or wrong, simply the feelings or beliefs themselves. They may be based on three foundations: education and facts, prejudice or ignorance, or experience. I believe education and facts stand strong and firm unless changed by updated education and facts. Ignorance or prejudice is the lack of updated education and facts. Experience can go either way. It is a teacher but can turn out wrong.

   Regardless, assuming the words I’ve used express how I feel or what I think, they are true for me. Does that mean other people understand them the same way I do? As writers, it’s not enough to write what we feel or believe if others are unsure of what it means, or worse, are confused. The goal of every writer and poet is to be understood by the reader, whoever the reader is. That’s why every writer needs to find out their target audience.

   The key to effective writing is clarity. Clarity for the reader, not just you.

 

2. I understand what the words mean.

You may well understand the words because you’ve lived them, or know the definitions, or think a reader should understand them. That doesn’t guarantee a reader will. The only way to be sure is to ask. Writing groups are great for this, or a beta reader. You share your work and receive comments. The comments tell you if your words and meanings are clear or not, or if there are gaps. If you write solo without feedback, you risk not being understood. You won’t know what’s good or bad or should be changed.

   We writers write to be read. If not, then no one cares what we write or how we say it.

   It depends what your goal is. To produce something readers will understand and want more of, or to make a statement and be done with it. Anyone can share their views, which may or may not hold weight. It’s harder to produce a piece or book readers enjoy, praise, want more of, or share with others.

3. I don’t care what others think

Then you may be a writer, but few will appreciate your work, want more, or share what you’ve written. If you ignore others’ views and feelings and merely spout your own, readers will not feel a kinship with you. They will think you only care about yourself and not them. Readers need their feelings and experiences validated and recognized. The lone wolf is left in the forest alone to howl, drawing no response.

4. I think or feel they are the best words I could have chosen.

The English language has over two million words. Do you know all of them?

   Words often have more than one meaning or context, and there are synonyms with slightly different or more distinct meanings. That’s why there are thesauruses and other people, especially other writers, to help find more accurate, more meaningful words. MS Word has a Thesaurus built in. Mark Twain said, “The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter—it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” - Letter to George Bainton, 15 October 1888

   Words are symbols for something abstract or concrete, have context and syntax, and can fire one’s imagination or dull it. Words have the power to change hearts and minds or cause action.

   Let’s talk about readers.

   Every writer should write to the intelligent reader. What does that mean?

   One definition might be that reading is an active dialogue between the author and the reader, and the basic tool for learning in all subjects, entertainment, even enjoyment. To be an effective reader, comprehension is a necessity, because if one understands he or she can then construct judgment. These judgments result from critical reading; it occurs only when comprehension is fully realized. Every normal-functioning human possesses imagination, thought, comprehension, memory, and a common faculty to connect the rational mind to external elements.

   Therefore, words and phrases chosen by the writer to tell a story are critical to a reader’s absorption in it and of it. For example, if reading an Agatha Christie murder mystery, the intelligent reader looks for clues too, because they also want to catch the murderer.

   If a writer cannot detach from their word choices or phrases, they will not change them for better ones. Words are a double-edged sword — they can unite or divide the reader’s attention. The writer must choose. To do that, the writer calls on vocabulary to help state the writer’s thoughts or feelings clearly or tell the story such that the reader is invested.

   In Stephen’s opinion, “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.” I agree, and wish I read more, although articles on the Internet keep me busy. Both reading and writing increase vocabulary for sure.

   He also wrote, “Words create sentences; sentences create paragraphs; sometimes paragraphs quicken and begin to breathe.” They come to life, what we want as writers, and that is not always easy to do. That’s why writing is really editing.

   And, “Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.”

Often what is not said on the page is just as powerful as what’s there. Since we know our reader is intelligent, we know they can fill in all the things we want them to. Understanding imagination is key to writing good stories.

 

How Do We Become Detached?

 

Stephen King, one of the most successful authors in the world, has also advised writers to: “Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”

   The reality is this: words may mean something to you but mean nothing to anyone else unless they are shared. We all need a beta reader at least, and Stephen’s is his wife, Tabitha. To be an excellent writer you must consider your reader and audience. That doesn’t mean you have to lie or hide the truth as you know it. It means you give that truth in a way that the reader can accept it or be willing to consider it. Like Stephen’s novels, the worlds he constructs and his characters are believable.

   Stephen: “In many cases when a reader puts a story aside because it ‘got boring,’ the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling.”

   He also wrote, “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”

   And “The most important things to remember about back story are that (a) everyone has a history and (b) most of it isn’t very interesting.” That means our own or our character’s.

   When writing, our uppermost thought should be, “Does this move the story forward?” If it doesn’t, it should be omitted. To Stephen’s points above, I agree,

   Following these basic rules and others, we become detached and can look at our story objectively with the reader’s, not ours, eyes.

 

What Happens When We Use the Right Words?

Again, Stephen has advised, “Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well.”

   If we write to keep the reader engaged, or to sway them, or to affect how they view a thing or even life itself, or leave an impression, and our writing does that, then our purpose is achieved. If we also raise a call to action and the reader responds, we have succeeded. If we make money too, we feed our family.

   Closing with Stephen’s words, always focusing on vocabulary and word choice to determine the effectiveness of any piece of writing, he writes:

   “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others:

read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.”

   He also wrote what writers strive for: “Books are a uniquely portable magic.”  That “magic” is grabbing the reader’s attention and their imagination, for no matter how well we craft words into images, they will never be as concrete as a reader’s heart and mind.