While couched in terms of spotting toxic feedback, this piece (which originally appeared on Jane Friedan's blog) is a pretty good guide to those who give feedback of what not to do. https://janefriedman.com/how-to-spot-toxic-feedback/
Edit: I'm sorry for the tone of this post, Ed. The article REALLY irritated me. None of the irritation is directed at you. Wow, what a crock of shit. I opened this expecting to find it interesting because I've been thinking about this lately but... wow. She comes off in turns ungrateful, entitled, and arrogant. If she knows it all, why is she seeking readers (giving her their valuable time for free) and paying editors? It's the author's job to filter critique, not the reader's. Well, of course. Even though you agree she identified, correctly, that the conflict and resolution were paced incorrectly, her advice ("It would be helpful to draw a simple outline: Conflict; Plot point 1; Plot point 2; Plot point 3; Resolution of initial conflict.”) was "toxic" and "rookie". ...? Oh, I didn't realise it was an editor's job to suggest a fix that would require no effort or rewriting from you. I thought there would be some work involved from the author in making those changes. But I guess I'm a toxic rookie... Dear lord.
No need to apologize. She did come off as very self-righteous, but I guess I sympathized with the points she made because I'd experienced some of them myself. I agree that it's the author's job to filter, but a reader who insists on trying to turn what I've written into something (s)he would have written is inherently unhelpful. Ditto with suggesting overly simplistic fixes. I find that the most helpful critique comes in identifying what's wrong. Let the writer decide how to fix it. A good friend of mine once told me that she thought asking writers to beta-read for you was a risk just for that reason - they'd be too interested in making your writing their writing. She preferred to get a reader's perspective. Of course, the risk there is that a non-writer might not be able to identify the problem. As the king said, "is a puzzlement".
I think that's something new and impressionable writers have to be worried about. Many of us are inclined, when we start out, to think that every other writer is better than us and if they don't like something we must change it right away until they do like it. But as we progress from that I think filtered feedback is less helpful than someone saying, "This is what I didn't like and why. I would've liked it better if you did this." That's exactly the feedback I want, because readers who buy my books and then maybe put up a review are not going to be worrying about their biases or style or preferences. They're going to tell it straight. It's up to me to decide if I want to change things and how, or if I'm happy that my book is hitting the right notes with the right people. It's fine if somebody is still in that first stage... but the author of this article is published, and should be able to evaluate feedback without needing to convince herself that her readers are wrong and she's right and they just can't appreciate her brilliance.
I think perhaps the article's title was misleading. When I saw the title I thought it would be about critique-givers who deliberately attempt to sabotage a piece of work for either personal or troll-like reasons—and how to recognise when that is happening. I do think there is a difference between 'toxic' and simply 'unhelpful.' I also think there is a difference between feedback you get from a volunteer beta reader and a paid editor. You pay an editor, and you expect them to engage with the story and offer solutions, at whatever level you've agreed beforehand. This article touches on all of these subjects, but somehow loses focus a bit, in my opinion. However, she does bring up points that are worth thinking about. The main one, for me, is filtering feedback so that I take everybody's remarks on board, but make changes based only on what I feel will improve my story. It's important not to get spooked by personal prejudices or preferences the beta might have brought to the piece. It's also important to me to write my own story, and not what somebody else would prefer it to be. It's a balance between sticking to my guns and allowing myself to realise what is actually not working. I guess that's where more beta readers are a great help. They offer balance.
When it comes down to it, I am brutally honest. That is the best policy, being honest when reving or critiquing an-other's work. So if you can't handle the heat, get the f*** out the kitchen! I would not simply diss someones work to make them look bad. I would destroy it based upon personal observation and how well/ill it is written. You can't please everybody all the time. Though I have been a harsh critic since the whole 'Ashley Black' thing, and she freaking disappeared on amazon, despite having across the board 5 star ratings. (While as a side note, I have yet to have a rev of my own works, but hey that would mean somebody takes me even a minuscule fraction seriously, to actually say anything relevatant about my non existent works. ) So all you will get from me is the cold honest truth, if I am interested enough to read what you have all the way through. ( E L Fudge withstanding due to being a piss poor example of good writing.)
Six of one, half a dozen of the other. You gotta target your critique to suit the reader. Sugar-coating is always harmful- always- it reinforces bad technique; but if someone is clearly new to receiving critique, you can couch your criticism in a positive manner. i.e. "This is all bad, but if you were a better writer, the idea might be good" joke. If you are receiving critique you should be gracious and appreciate the time someone has spent. We have all received those critiques where someone is shooting above their ability and trying to tear your piece apart with little knowledge as to why; you just place them to one side, thank them and move along.
I read this article before I saw this thread, and my reaction to it was similar to @Tenderiser's. When I read the "as a freelance editor myself" line I felt like I'd found the source of the bad taste - the article just feels like someone bitching about other people not doing the job the way she does the job. Personally, I'd be totally fine with an editor saying a character of mine seems like a total airhead - if that's the impression given, I want to know that. If the author finds the truth to mean that her work has been "disparaged or degraded," I'd be suspicious of a bit of Golden Word syndrome, myself. Not to say that there aren't some valid points buried under the snarkiness. But the tone made the article pretty hard to read, for me.
This article, I believe, is more about how a writer should TAKE the criticism they receive. If somebody is 'brutally honest' about your writing, what is your reaction? And where are these critique-givers actually coming from? What is their agenda? That's the decision you need to make, as a writer, before implementing any suggestions they may make—whether they are 'experienced' writers and editors, or simply people who like to read. Are they pig-headed about a pet peeve of theirs? Or personally malicious, in a deliberate attempt to upset you? Or plain stupid? Or nasty and arrogant? Or snooty and dismissive? Or ...are they realistic about what your story is about, and helpful when it comes to improving YOUR story—instead of telling you to write theirs? Did they like your story but had problems with certain parts of it? Did they dislike your story, but give you good reasons why? Does the critique make sense, and is it helpful? This is the determination all writers need to make before they take criticism on board. Otherwise writers can end up wrecking their story, or—worse yet—giving up on it.
Well for the limited ( and I mean limited) amount of criticism that I have gotten back toward the only project that I have put any effort into (so far). Has made me go back and look harder at what points are in need of a good reworking, so they don't make the whole look over the top, or absurd. Only seen one story so far, that has pushed every button in the book that screamed : Excuse me but how in the hell did you think this was a good idea? Other than that, I doubt I have made much of impact on anyone as they are riding the wave of good crits, to really care what I have to say. We all have those that just show up and nit-pick the hell out of everything, because they 'know' what is best for every story they read that will make it better. While no one will just come out and say it, the style of my first two can be a bit jarring due to not being written in a common fashion. From the two people to look at the latest part as betas, one has backed out, and the other well IDK. Makes me wonder whether looking again once it is in a more complete state, to get any feed back on it, when things like that are going on. So one has to assume it is just that bad due the types of reactions, because there has been nothing said to indicate otherwise. After all that mess, I don't know what to think considering there hasn't been much if anything said one way or another, out side of a few minor tense issues due to it being in present with limited past tense usage.
She's got a bunch of good advice/ideas, but they're handed down from on high as if anyone who doesn't love her work is either an imbecile or not fit to even eat her old typewriter ribbons. Take the first point, readers not being a good fit for your work. That's legitimate; I like SF and write horror, so I think I could offer intelligent critique on stories in either of those categories, but if you were to ask for my help on your romance novel, I'd wouldn't feel confident doing anything more that looking for SPAG errors (as I noted when I reviewed the Colonel Sanders book). But: Oh my lord, you are just so bloody important, I bet Babs Kingsolver has you over for tea on the weekends, doesn't she? The whole "Projection of Personal Issues" sounds like a pretty strong projection of a personal issue in and of itself. Somebody's interested in a part of your story that you aren't? Obviously their so-called "writing" is done in crayon on toilet paper... Seriously, that bit pissed me off so much that I couldn't read the rest of it objectively. I'm just going to stop here.
And just to confuse the issue, there are apparently two different Jane Friedmans deeply involved in the publishing business, this one and one who was formerly the CEO of HarperCollins....
The article wasn't written by Jane Friedman. She simply hosted it on her blog. It was written by Susan DeFreitas.
This pretty much sums up my take on it - she comes off as extremely entitled and unpleasant in this article.
Exactly. The types of critique the author mentions are, for the most part, toxic only when the writer takes them on wholesale and doesn't consider how to get the good out of them. The strongest personality in my face-to-face critique group has definitely failed to understand my intent for my second novel, and keeps demanding I make certain changes that would make it into the genre of book she seems to think it should be. I won't do that, but I will think hard about what the underlying problems with it might be and work to solve them. What's grieving me in that group is that Strong Personality and her closest ally (both unpublished) keep speaking authoritatively on what agents and editors will and will not buy, and telling everyone they should rewrite their stories accordingly. I smile and take such comments with a huge grain of salt: how do any of us know what any given editor would like? (Besides, what care I for agents and editors?) But the others, even Strong Personality herself, keep changing things based on such criticism, and have, in my opinion, hurt their work. But what do I know? I'm untested in the publishing world, too.
It always surprises me when people seem to want a particular type of story, and won't accept that other kinds of stories exist and are valid. Bias is fine, if you're only a reader. But dishing it out as unassailably correct writing advice isn't necessarily helpful. Show me a book —ANY book—published or unpublished—that everybody loves. Nobody has all the answers. That being said, it's good to hear what other people think of your book, even if it's not flattering. It gives you an idea of how to target what you write, and how to improve it as well. The only advice I've totally ignored comes from people who want me to change my basic story to suit their preferences, or want my characters to have different personalities than what I've written them to be. That's not going to happen. I might work to make my characters more understandable, if the problem is that the beta doesn't understand their motivations, etc. But I'm not going to change their personalities. Their personalities are vital to the story, as I've written it. If you want to read about a different sort of man or woman, then read a different story.
My crit partners, two of them anyway, keep telling me my MC is too snarky and therefore unsympathetic. They want me to rewrite her to be inwardly and outwardly nice . . . which will make things difficult at the climax of the novel when she bursts into a murderous rage. As you say, not going to happen. However, it's certain people who trigger her cynicism, not everyone. So I'll go through and remove the snark where she's interacting with people she has no reason to be snarky towards. So to that extent the critique has been useful.
Unlikable characters are often more interesting than bland audience surrogates. Stick with it, the faults are what make the character interesting.
Personally I think most of the article is on point - I've been researching developmental editors and most of the stuff about editors is stuff that more experienced editors will say to less experienced editors (and also that editors writing on editing tend to advise authors to look for when hiring freelancers). It's generally seen as a big faux pas on behalf of and editor to try and reshape a book in ways that do not comport with the story the author wants to tell - the ultimate should be that you have both an author who is willing to take harsh feedback and work hard to integrate tough edits, along with an editor who agrees with the author on what the goal is for the book and works toward THAT rather than re-writing the book. Are there plenty of snotty authors who don't take advice or critique? Yup, I've met lots of them, the "old hands" at my critique group have a list of serial offenders who come up at near-weekly gripe sessions after meetings. That said, that existence of snotty authors does not mean that there's n such thing as a bad editor or a bad critic. That exercise of "Draw a line, 1-2-3" isn't a horrible exercise, but it's it's both a simplistic cookie-cutter and not universally applicable - and she's right that, for instance, the Hero's Journey is not universally applicable (Three-Act is a bit more universal but not entirely). And yes, writers and editors brainstorming ideas for new scenes could be a good thing, but obviously if an editor tells you something like, for instance, "your villain's views are actually right, remove said villian, reverse the moral polarity of the plot and align it to my politics," you have a problem. I think there's a lot of self-righteousness in all corners of the artistic community (of which we are a part), but there is something to be said for telling artists that standing up for their vision is actually an essential part of the business - and laying down some ground rules on where and how to stand up for that vision (and how to take good advice without fighting) is really helpful to people trying to break in. I know I'm getting to the point where I'm at least THINKING about what it would might be involved in getting an editor (in addition to more money than I currently have) - but I certainly have a wish list of things I am and am not willing to compromise, and I know enough to know that those should probably be things that get talked about on the front end. Yes, the author should probably be willing to put a lot on the table, but not EVERYTHING should be on the table (in fact, being willing to re-write a futuristic Hard-SF into a YA book about dinosaurs would probably not be a mark of a good author.) In my case, I'd probably have some eccentric ideas about length and cast size that I'd want to talk to an editor about up front. My entire goal is to write a book that has a larger-than-normal cast and works as a cohesive unit at about 130,000 words (and there are some reasons I think that's important for this particular book - the form is the goal). I also take a pretty dim view of tech development in the future and am very committed to having both heroic and villainous characters on all sides of the ideological spectrum. So, I'm willing to make a lot of sacrifices, dump characters, add scenes, cut subplots - I'll do whatever I need to make this thing tick within those specs. But I don't necessarily think it's a smart idea for me to go for the editor who says, "Okay - we need to do whatever we can to get this sucker down to a salable 90,000 words - so we're going to have to get this down to four main characters - and while we're at it we're going to need to ramp up the tech development to body implants, and we're getting rid of the leftist villain and replacing her with a corporate fat cat." That might even be good advice in terms of making the material more marketable - but there's nothing inherently wrong with a writer saying that's not the project they're working on and exerting some control over the base idea of what the book looks like.
Sure. I agree with that, and much of what you said (truncated the quote for length). But your points are very different from the article's.
I like long posts when they're interesting, which yours was. Even though I'm one of those 90s kids who, according to some, have the attention spans of goldfish on acid.
