The simplest form of feedback
Give someone your work to read and ask them what they’ve understood rather than inviting them to give an opinion. Making this clear at the beginning avoids the situation where they may feel that they have to say they like your work even if they don’t. Do you get any surprises? Do they think an old man was a young man, for instance? Do they find your story funny when you had meant it to be deadly serious? Is the picture you have in your head as you wrote the same as the one they get in their head after they have read your work?
Critique groups
These are really useful but it is important to find the right one. Do you just want to celebrate each other’s work? Do you want some aggressive criticism? Or something in between? Do you need to be genre specific? You will find a list of UK based writers’ groups at https://www.nawg.co.uk . There is an added bonus in using this site to find your writing group. Groups listed here will be member of the association and that offers even more opportunities.
It’s a good idea to find a genre specific group e.g., writing for children, poetry, science fiction, memoir etc. However, joining a mixed group is also useful as looking at different forms of writing can be enlightening. Is this an argument for belonging to more than one group?
A workable pattern
Critique groups work better if you all negotiate the rules first. This is one I like: you send your work to each other in advance. Everyone reads everybody else’s work and points out:
· What works well
· What works less well
· What the writer might do to improve
· Sometimes a writer may have asked you to look at some specific aspect of the text, so you comment on that.
It’s best to only make a few points for each section. It becomes a little like peeling off layers. You might correct typos and spelling mistakes etc. but perhaps you won’t mention these when you give the feedback.
You go round the group. Each person gives a little background to their work, then going round the table three people give feedback but avoid repeating anything that has already been said. After three people have given feedback anyone who has more to add is invited to speak.
If you’ve annotated the text, and I recommend that you do this, give it back to the writer at the end of the session.
The group doesn’t need to be large. In fact, an hour and half for a group of about eight working as described above is just right.
How to react to feedback
Try to resist defending your work. Just listen carefully to what each person tells you. You may find that you can’t agree with the suggestions. This is fine; it is your work and it is yours to do with as you please. But if several people are saying the same thing, it’s probably wise to listen.
You may find that people are saying different things. For example, one person may ask you to make a small character more significant and someone else may tell you to get rid of that character altogether. This can be confusing. In this case they may be saying the same thing: the character doesn’t seem to have a role. Give them one or get rid of them.
You will often find that your critic is right that there’s something out of kilter with the text but their suggestion about how to fix it may not be right. This is where you need to take your work back home, study all that has been said about it and then make your own mind up about what to do. This is also good practice for working with a publishing house’s editor later.
Beta readers
You use these to test out a whole manuscript. They should be the type of people who would read your published book. So, you may be looking for someone who likes romance, someone who is interested in antiques or someone who likes fell-walking. It all depends on your type of book. They read as if they had bought the book and let you know what they think.
Again with these you might ask them specific questions about certain aspects of the text.
Professional edit
These aren’t cheap. They are essential if you are going to self-publish. Getting a professional edit will give your manuscript a much better chance of being accepted by a publisher and some of them actually have a relationship with agents and publishers and may recommend your book.
Cornerstones https://www.cornerstones.co.uk/ is one of the leaders in the field. Check out also my Dream Team: http://www.gilljameswriter.com/p/my-dream-team.html Two other sites that may be helpful are: https://reedsy.com/ and https://www.fiverr.com My business partner Debz Brown also runs her own editorial service: https://debzhobbs-wyatt.co.uk/
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