Kind, constructive feedback on your writing
My mentee Catherine Cawley and I are up on the #WriteMentor Blog with this Q & A about our mentoring experience.
One of Catherine’s short stories will feature in the new issue of Paperbound which is another awesome and inclusive member of the #KidLit community – providing opportunities for children’s writers and illustrators to publish their work.
Feedback. On your precious writing. Also known as critique, constructive criticism, edits, thoughts, comments, disemboweling, soul crushing … I’m talking here about those written reports, emails, notes, track changes etc, which might be given by relatives, friends, critique partners, tutors, mentors, competition readers, agents, and editors, to you, on your full or partial manuscript.
Never mind that you asked these lovely people to review your manuscript for free; or paid them for advice; or have a contract that shows they already love the story – giving your work to someone else to read can be heart-shakingly hard. You may have spent three years getting this story up to scratch, and then a person reads it in less than a day and tells you lots of things they think are wrong with it. HOW you respond to feedback may vary depending on the WHO, but trust me, it’s going to involve emotional turmoil of some kind.
