Armour Up!

Don on Your Emotional Armour

Stock up on chocolate, coffee, wine and concrete. To embark on this journey you’ll need all the armour you can find. And don’t forget the Kleenex, because it’s also okay to cry.

Have you ever been told to ‘take the emotion out’ of a situation (at work, at home, in an argument etc.)? Ignore that advice. It’s human to react emotionally. We are emotional beings. Emotions are a creative’s gold. How else could we win over a reader’s heart and keep them reading? It’s also okay to be emotional about negative feedback. This is your book baby after all.

But how do we deal with the battering of emotions that come from a negative review or feedback? I’ve given you the physical tools, now let’s deal with mental support.

Cry and Stamp your feet: Get the emotion out of the way. Throw a tantrum, kick a box (but please don’t kick the cat or dog!) Have a good cry if you need to, that’s why I gave you Kleenex. Whatever you do, resist taking your emotions to social media. Bagging a reviewer publicly may only cause more harm. I know … it’s hard. The temptation is huge, but all that will do is wake up the trolls. Have some chocolate instead. The important thing is that you allow yourself to feel first so that you can move on to the next step which is to see the feedback more clearly.

Put aside your ego: Put aside your writerly ego for a moment. Feedback is not about you as a person, and it doesn’t mean you’re a bad writer. Feedback is how the reader (be it an editor, a competition judge, critique partner or reviewer) has perceived the story. Let the feedback rest for as long as it takes to get over it, then come back and analyse it logically when the emotion is spent.

Phone a Friend: Let’s say you’ve entered a competition, and the feedback you’ve received (while hopefully constructive!) isn’t quite what you were expecting. Critique partners and beta readers are gold in this situation, and I would advise on using them before you submit anything to a publisher or competition entry, or consider self-publishing. Have someone you trust (who can see things objectively) read over your manuscript, review or entry feedback. Often they’ll see the things you can’t because you’re too close to your story.

Understand that you can’t please everyone: Your style won’t suit every reader. And not all feedback will be gospel. Editors, judges, critique partners aren’t always right. The trick is to know when they are. The important thing is to identify the helpful points out of that negative feedback and turn them into a positive development for your craft.

Remember readers aren’t all necessarily writers: They may not have the same gift for words that writers do, and often they don’t think about how they’re phrasing their feedback. They react emotionally to the story. The author is an unknown entity, a name on the cover. They may not recognise or think about the fact that behind that book is a human being who has spent months/years bleeding their life blood onto the page. They don’t know you. Don’t take it personally.

Never forget who you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armour and it can never be used to hurt you.

George R.R. Martin