Episode 088 - How to Receive and Give Critique with Tiffany Yates Martin
July 13, 2021
Tiffany Yates Martin shares best practices for how to give and receive critique … and cites some pretty harrowing examples to illustrate her points. We look at the value of formal critique groups; the fact that all input is opinion, not fact; and tips for how to weigh how that input aligns with the vision you have for your work. We talk about whether reading your reader reviews is a good idea, and when you just have to pour yourself a bubble bath and have a glass of wine.
Tiffany Yates Martin has spent nearly thirty years as an editor in the publishing industry, working with major publishers and New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling, award-winning authors as well as indie and newer writers. She is the author of the Amazon bestseller INTUITIVE EDITING: A CREATIVE AND PRACTICAL GUIDE TO REVISING YOUR WRITING. She's led workshops and seminars for conferences and writers' groups across the country and is a frequent contributor to writers' sites and publications. Under the pen name Phoebe Fox, she's the author of the Breakup Doctor series and her most recent release, A LITTLE BIT OF GRACE.
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[00:00:00] Matty: Hello and welcome to The Indy Author Podcast, today my guest is Tiffany Yates Martin. Hey, Tiffany, how are you doing?
[00:00:06] Tiffany: Hey, Matty. Thanks for having me on again.
[00:00:08] Matty: I am pleased to have you here. To give our listeners a little bit of background on you, Tiffany Yates Martin has spent nearly 30 years as an editor in the publishing industry, working with major publishers and New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling, award-winning authors as well as indy and newer writers. She's the author of the Amazon bestseller, "Intuitive Editing: A Creative and Practical Guide to Revising Your Writing." She's led workshops and seminars for conferences and writers’ groups across the country and is a frequent contributor to writers’ sites and publications. Under the pen named Phoebe Fox, she's the author of the Breakup Doctor series and her most recent release, "A Little Bit of Grace."
[00:00:46] And Tiffany is a three-time guest. You're right there with the front runners, Tiffany. She's a time guest. She has been here for Episode 74 Perspectives on Personal Branding, Episode 65 X-raying Your Plot, and Episode 56 What Authors Can Learn from TV and Movies.
[00:01:06] And so we're going to be talking today about how to give and receive critique. And actually I want to rephrase that. We're going to be talking about how to receive and give critique. And I think we'll talk about later why I'm saying it in that order.
[00:01:19] I love that you're doing this topic. This is something I think so many authors struggle with both giving and receiving. And I like that you're starting with receiving. Cause as you said, that's how most of us begin to learn it. And it's also, sometimes it can be the not only the harder way to do it, but also you need to be in the hot seat and know what it feels like, I think, to become an effective critiquer.
[00:01:43] The way that I learned to do it, which was probably the best thing I could ever have done to hone my skills at it was to join a critique group when I moved here to Austin, and this was maybe 2007 ish. And it was a terrific group. It was very well attended. Often there would be like 25 people there, so you can imagine how much going on there when you get that many different people's feedback. It's both useful and incredibly overwhelming.
[00:02:11] But there were also really strict rules for it, which I thought was a terrific way to frame the expectations for the people giving their critique and also the people receiving the critique. So let's start with receiving. ...
[00:00:06] Tiffany: Hey, Matty. Thanks for having me on again.
[00:00:08] Matty: I am pleased to have you here. To give our listeners a little bit of background on you, Tiffany Yates Martin has spent nearly 30 years as an editor in the publishing industry, working with major publishers and New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling, award-winning authors as well as indy and newer writers. She's the author of the Amazon bestseller, "Intuitive Editing: A Creative and Practical Guide to Revising Your Writing." She's led workshops and seminars for conferences and writers’ groups across the country and is a frequent contributor to writers’ sites and publications. Under the pen named Phoebe Fox, she's the author of the Breakup Doctor series and her most recent release, "A Little Bit of Grace."
[00:00:46] And Tiffany is a three-time guest. You're right there with the front runners, Tiffany. She's a time guest. She has been here for Episode 74 Perspectives on Personal Branding, Episode 65 X-raying Your Plot, and Episode 56 What Authors Can Learn from TV and Movies.
[00:01:06] And so we're going to be talking today about how to give and receive critique. And actually I want to rephrase that. We're going to be talking about how to receive and give critique. And I think we'll talk about later why I'm saying it in that order.
[00:01:19] I love that you're doing this topic. This is something I think so many authors struggle with both giving and receiving. And I like that you're starting with receiving. Cause as you said, that's how most of us begin to learn it. And it's also, sometimes it can be the not only the harder way to do it, but also you need to be in the hot seat and know what it feels like, I think, to become an effective critiquer.
[00:01:43] The way that I learned to do it, which was probably the best thing I could ever have done to hone my skills at it was to join a critique group when I moved here to Austin, and this was maybe 2007 ish. And it was a terrific group. It was very well attended. Often there would be like 25 people there, so you can imagine how much going on there when you get that many different people's feedback. It's both useful and incredibly overwhelming.
[00:02:11] But there were also really strict rules for it, which I thought was a terrific way to frame the expectations for the people giving their critique and also the people receiving the critique. So let's start with receiving. ...
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[00:02:23] The number one rule was that you couldn't speak during your critique. The reason being that the common instinct for a lot of authors is that as soon as people start saying, this wasn't clear to me or I didn't understand this or this didn't really feel as effective to me as it could, our instinct is to start explaining why they're wrong or what our intentions were. And the truth of it is that if it's not on the page, it doesn't matter, right? If a reader is not getting it, a reader is not getting it. Moreover it's subjective. All critique is opinion. So one reader may have had a certain impression, different readers may have another impression. If an author starts, especially with 25 people in a group, if an author starts engaging with every single person, that's going to slow the process down.
[00:03:10] And it also, I think it keeps you from being in receiving mindset. When you're getting a critique, it's really a gift. It may not always feel like that. It may not usually feel like that. But it is someone holding up a mirror to your work and helping you understand how much of the vision in your head has actually made it onto the page.
[00:03:30] So if you're getting like a written critique from people or your critique group or anybody the first thing I advise is say thank you. I even send little gifts to people who critique for me or thank you notes, because it's your test audience. It's the equivalent of the focus group that a lot of products will conduct or the test drive of a car. You're not asking anybody to tell you what is right or what is wrong with your work or be the expert and give you prescriptive feedback on how to fix it. All you're asking them to do is hold up a mirror to your work and tell you what they see. So take that in.
[00:04:11] And then you have to know what to let go of also, because as I said, it's really subjective and not everybody will have the same opinion. Not everybody is your target audience. Not everybody is as adept at offering critique. So you have to learn as the author how to weigh which critique fits with the vision you have for your work and what may not resonate with your vision.
[00:04:37] Every time I return an editorial letter, I tell authors, read it. Read through all the embedded comments. This is a lot of feedback all at once. It's I don't know how many thousands of words, but the editorial letter alone is at least 5,000 words. I think almost every time I've done 10- and 12,000-word editorial letters. And then in addition, there are hundreds and hundreds of embedded notes. And it hits like a plank in the face, no matter what, no matter if it's mostly good, whatever, getting that much feedback is incredibly traumatizing. So the first thing to do is just kind of sit with it. Read through it and then leave it alone for a day or two and let it percolate. A lot of times you will distance yourself from it and be able to objectively weigh what works for you and what doesn't.
[00:05:22] So the first thing authors will usually do is often there'll be a visceral reaction against certain pieces of feedback. And those may be darlings that need some killing, or it may be that particular critiquer is offering you something that does not resonate with your vision, and that's why you're having this visceral reaction. But giving yourself that time to sit with it lets you evaluate which it is unemotionally. And just like with editing your own work, which is really what a critique is, it's somebody offering you that objective editorial feedback. And in a second, I'll talk about the difference between editing and revision. Critique is not a function of revision, it's a function of editing. And it's someone helping you get that objectivity in the same way that you will get that objectivity on the critique they offer if you just give it a little space and let it sink in.
[00:06:14] Matty: I wanted to talk a little bit about separating the critique group experience from the having a professional editor experience. So is joining a critique group something that you advise for all your editorial clients, or are there certain characteristics of a writer that make you think, oh, a critique group is going to be good for this person, but not good for this person?
[00:06:36] Tiffany: I do think probably different people would work better with one than not. It also depends on the tenor of the critique group, on the demographics, on the makeup, on the genre preferences, on the level of experience. You don't want to be the very best one in the group necessarily. You don't want to be the most experienced. You also don't want to be so out of your depth with a group that's much more experienced than you that you get discouraged. So you have to find the people who are on your same level.
[00:07:05] I do think any kind of objective feedback is powerful. I have a weekly blog and once a month I do a feature called "How Writers Revise," and as part of that, I talk to writers about their journeys. And I was just talking to Lyn Liao Butler, who is a debut author whose book "The Tiger Mom's Tale" is coming out. By the time this airs, it will have come out on July 6th. But at any rate she was talking about with her first manuscript, she didn't know anything about writing. She just had written a blog and thought, well, I'll turn this into a book. She said she didn't let a single person even look at it before she turned it in to an editor or an agent. And so she got total radio silence. Like she didn't even get rejections. She got absolutely nothing.
[00:07:44] And she realized looking back, once she started to learn more, you have to have some kind of reflection back to you of what has made it onto the page. We're all filling in the blanks because we know our work so well. So you have to practice getting your own objectivity, which I've talked about, and I have an online course about, and I post things about that a lot, but you also can use the resource available to you of hand selected people who are your beta readers, your critiquers, it might be a partner. It might be a critique group. It might be fellow authors. It might be trusted friends who are broad readers in your genre. Whatever feels right for you.
[00:08:22] I will say the critique group I'm talking about, it could be pretty intense. And it daunted a lot of the writers who were in there. I've written about this in "Intuitive Editing." The leader of the group would start all of her critiques with what page of the submission she stopped reading on. Which I understand her point. And I think her intentions were good. She wanted to let the author know, here's where it didn't grab me. This is where I let go and wasn't invested as a reader. But there are more constructive ways to put it. And I watched it shut a bunch of authors down. So it's important to pick a good critique group or whatever source of input on your material is going to be effective and constructive and actionable for you.
[00:09:08] Matty: So if someone finds a critique group on Meetup, let's say, and they show up and it turns out to be a difficult or traumatic experience for them, how do they weigh whether that's just because that's how that can be or that the group is sort of toxic for them, and they should look elsewhere?
[00:09:25] Tiffany: Well, first, I'm always a big fan of trusting your gut. And we are sensitive. All artists are, all people are, but particularly artists where you're presenting what really is your naked soul for people to criticize. And I'll talk in a minute about the difference between critique and criticism, because it's not the same thing, but sometimes some critique groups will confuse it.
[00:09:46] And maybe that's one way to think about it. If you're getting criticism and not critique. So what critique is, as I said before, it's holding up the mirror. It's saying, here's what I saw on the page. So let's say you have someone who didn't feel invested in a character. Let's say the example I just gave you, with, I stopped reading on page whatever. There are ways to say that. That's criticism, that saying you lost my interest. It's putting someone on the defensive, whereas it would be easy to say, and it sounds like a nicety of phrasing, but it's more than that. You're offering your perspective.
[00:10:18] So you might just say something like, I didn't feel as invested as I could in the character, and I wondered if there were ways where you might let us see more what's motivating the character, which is the benefit of having writers as opposed to lay people, because lay people don't know how to put it in craft language. Writers might. And so they might lose investment and realize I don't know what this character's goal is. I don't know what their motivation is. This character was not engaging to me. Why was this character not engaging? They might be able to offer the kind of feedback that is a little more actionable to you than a lay reader.
[00:10:52] But lay reader feedback is also valuable because as a writer, you can interpret what they say and put it into actionable language. But also, I advocate especially with lay readers, but with any critique reader, offering a questionnaire, specific questionnaire, where you can guide them toward the kinds of input that's going to be helpful to you.
[00:11:12] Matty: I think in that scenario, this doesn't cover the providing actionable detail, but even if the input was, I lost interest on page 10, versus, you lost my interest on page 10, the first one is a little more easy to absorb than the second one is.
[00:11:28] Tiffany: Yeah. Even if we know we shouldn't, we all associate ourselves with our art. So the slightest, like you said, just the tiniest little tweak of phrasing like that can make it feel like a personal attack rather than somebody offering their personal impressions.
[00:11:43] I always liken it to, if a friend asks you, what do you think of a movie, you're probably not going to say, boy, that filmmaker sucks. You might review your impressions of it, you know? Well, I didn't really, I didn't really love it. It didn't engage me, or I didn't like the characters or the ending. I figured out the ending halfway through the movie. But it's always about how you felt about it, what your impression of it is, and that's what you're offering as a critiquer for someone else.
[00:12:10] Matty: I think it's also an interesting example, because if you think about even giving a negative review of a movie, I don't think anyone is saying, I hated that Steven Spielberg movie, they're saying maybe they're saying I hated the movie, but it's not an attack on the person who created it.
[00:12:27] It might be an attack on the thing they created, but we may be, we'll talk about this a little more when we talk about reader reviews, but the fact that a reader is rarely going after you personally, even if they're going after the work in a way that feels personal.
[00:12:42] Tiffany: Yeah. sometimes they are, we've all probably done that. Let's use Steven Spielberg, even though I do not think he sucks, I'm sure there are people who think, Ugh, that guy sucks.
[00:12:50] I hate his movies. Yeah. It's easier to do it with somebody we don't know like a celebrity, there's that depersonalization. And you see it a lot in reviews of books on Amazon or any other site where people can get a little bit personal and nasty. But especially as authors, critique unto others as you would have them critique unto you.
[00:13:11] I've realized that creativity is an unbelievably fragile thing. And I always say it, it doesn't respond to the stick, it only responds to the carrot. Which doesn't mean you have to blow smoke up anyone's butt. It just means you want to present it in a way, there's a difference, think of your relationship with your children or your spouse, there's a difference in saying, you're an idiot, I can't believe you forgot the milk. And, oh, I really was hoping to have the milk this morning. I understand you forgot, however you want to phrase it that makes it more productive.
[00:13:40] Matty: Yep. When I was early on trying to decide if I wanted to use a critique group, I've only had very limited exposure with critique groups because early on, I knew I was going to get a professional editor, even for my first novel. And I was trying to avoid the scenario where I didn't know enough to be able to sort through critique input in a way that I thought wouldn't bog me down.
[00:14:06] And then once I had started working with that editor and understood what her priorities were and what her direction was and the kinds of things she was going to tell me to do and not do, then I didn't really feel a need to go back to the critique group. And also once I started getting reader reviews on retail platforms, then I felt like I was getting the market research side of critique groups out of those reviews. Is there an aspect of critique groups that I'm missing that I'm missing a benefit that I could be tapping into?
[00:14:39] Tiffany: I think the benefit, especially if you're working with a professional editor, when you spend thousands of dollars to bring in a professional, you want to give them something that is as absolutely polished as you can possibly make it on your own. And I think it is useful to have input for doing that because you want to get the most bang for your buck. So you want to have had as much input as you can get to polish this sucker to the best of your abilities before a professional comes in and helps you dig even deeper with it. And one way to do that, this is a great function of critique groups in my opinion, is before you get to the editorial process with a professional.
[00:15:18] So while you know perfectly well, I'm sure most of your listeners do as well, that your first draft is not your finished draft, and it's probably not even close to the draft you're going to turn into the editor. You're going to do a bunch of editing and revision. And as I said, critique is a function of editing.
[00:15:34] So one of the hardest things as an author is to get the objectivity to assess what you have on the page and see how effective it is. That's where critique partners can be brilliant. Before you ever get to the editor, you can test market it like we were talking about a minute ago and say, how's it coming across to you? And that'll start to pinpoint for you any possible areas that you could strengthen and clarify and develop and deepen on your own. So that by the time you get it to the editor, she's got the most polished version that you're able to give her. And then you guys can dig out even more nuance and depth.
[00:16:09] Whereas if you haven't done that, okay, it would be helpful at this point to talk about the difference between editing and revision. The easy definition that I always use is editing is assessing, revising is addressing. So what that means is, as an author, you have to do both those things and you can't really do them at the same time as effectively as separating them out.
[00:16:28] Editing is that first step of what do I have here? How effective is this on the page? Have I conveyed my vision? Are all the loopholes tied up? Is it as strong as it could be? Is it as airtight as I can make it? Have I resolved everything? Do the characters have arcs?
[00:16:44] Once you know the answers to all of that, that gives you the roadmap to what should be revised. So in the editing process, you might go, oh, I lost track of this character's thread. Or I realized this character is not as well developed as she could be, and I need to deepen her because she's a major character. Then you go and you revise that. But the editing is just the identification of what the problem is. That's where I think it's helpful to bring in some outside perspectives.
[00:17:11] The hardest thing as a writer is to step back from our own work and see it through fresh eyes. It's not impossible. And I talk a lot, I've mentioned an online course I have called "How to Train Your Editor Brain," I know you and I love talking movies and TV. You can do it by practicing with things you're watching. Things you're reading. Learn how to analyze and assess something with that analytical, objective mindset, and you will get better at doing it in your own writing. But it's such a great shortcut to doing it if you have these trusted critique partners or beta readers who can offer you that and jumpstart you if let's say you have four different people tell you one certain area of your manuscript, that's a pretty good indication that that might be an area of weakness that needs shoring up that maybe you're blind to.
[00:18:01] If one person says it, maybe it isn't. Maybe they just have a different vision for your book. That's where you have to find your feet in your own story and assess it as you have to assess the objective input with that same objectivity, as I said before, and know when to stand your ground on your story, and when you're getting feedback that may be typical of your intended audience.
[00:18:25] Matty: It's interesting as you're talking because I realized I actually do you have some of the support structure you're talking about, but I would never call it a critique group.
[00:18:34] Tiffany: So what do you call them, like a writing partner or something?
[00:18:38] Matty: Writing partners or beta readers or my author support group. I refer to them as my author support group because there is a group of four other authors who all write in the general crime genre, and they'll often read an almost complete draft and I trust them because, one, I've read their books and I like them, so I know they're talented authors. They're familiar with the tropes of the genre, so they know what to expect and what readers will expect. And they have exercised those themselves, so they themselves are experienced in exchanging this kind of information, so they're all quite proficient at doing that in a palatable way. But I think it's even the difference between criticism and critique. I don't know that we've actually addressed that directly, but even "critique" is a little bit uncomfortable.
[00:19:26] Tiffany: It's always uncomfortable. Nobody wants to hear their baby is ugly in any small regard. All of our babies are perfect. And so it always hurts to hear it.
[00:19:42] Matty: It's even just the word, like even completely separate from the experience of getting that input, just the word critique is almost as creepy as the word criticism.
[00:19:52] Tiffany: That's kind of why I separate out criticism and critique. And by the way, going back to your group of author friends who are your writing partners, I have news for you. That is a critique group. Yeah.
[00:20:01] Matty: Yeah. I just had never really thought of it that way.
[00:20:04] Tiffany: Yeah. It doesn't have to be formal. And I'm using "critique group" as a broad umbrella to include anyone who gives you that objective feedback. I think people do think of a critique group as maybe more prescriptive in their feedback, but I don't feel that's the proper function of any critique group. That's the proper function of almost no one except possibly a professional editor, professional agent, or your publishing editor. And even with that, and by prescriptive, I mean, you know, like that old Neil Gaiman quote, which I'm going to horribly mangle, but it's something like, when people tell you something is not working in your manuscript or not effective for them, they're usually right. And when they tell you exactly what it is or how to fix it, they're usually wrong.
[00:20:49] So by prescriptive, I mean someone telling you what the problem is exactly and how to fix it. The exception being trained professionals who have experienced in doing that. But even so the prescriptive information, even my editorial letters are not prescriptive in the sense of here's what you should do. Here's what the publisher wants.
[00:21:08] Here's what the market demands. Whereas a critique group might say something like, I didn't understand the character's motivations in this part of the story, and so my interest flagged a little bit. And notice, again, this is all about your reaction. It is not a statement on the work and every bit of critique and feedback is always subjective, including from the professional. So that's what a critique group might tell you.
[00:21:31] A professional editor might say something similar, but they might also say, I wonder if there's a way to indicate more specifically the fact this is an example I used in a blog post that you inspired actually, when we talked about this topic last time about criticism versus critique. So a professional editor might say something like, we don't quite understand here, her desire to pursue art and her husband's lack of support for that. What if you showed a scene that indicated that specifically, like maybe she's working on a canvas when her husband comes home and she's proudly trying to show it to him, and he barely glances at him.
[00:22:09] It's a for instance, right? I'm not saying do that. It's not prescriptive in the sense of this is the right way to do it. There is no right way. There is no right way. It's your story. And it's a subjective, creative field. So there are no right answers. There's only, what will your target reader respond to the way you hope for them to respond?
[00:22:30] Whether that's an agent who you want to offer representation or an editor at a publishing house you want to offer you a contract or your target reader?
[00:22:41] Matty: The last question I had about critique groups is, are there any cautions that you would have or any tips that you can think of that would help a writer who's receiving a critique from a group sort out the gems?
[00:22:59] Tiffany: Yeah. I wrote some of these down because I didn't want to forget them. We've touched on some of them. The first thing I would say is, try to be receptive. No, it's going to hit you like a Mack truck in the face. And be kind to yourself. You know, I have a friend who used to say in moments of difficulty, have a glass of wine, Sugar. So when you get your critique back, pour yourself a bubble bath if you like and have a glass of wine, Sugar. And just relax. It's meant to help you. Even if it is a poorly executed critique by someone who is not doing it constructively, at the core, they took the time to read it and they want to help you. So try to receive it in that spirit.
[00:23:41] And then leave it alone, let it sink in. And then after a day or two, especially with these long editorial letters I was telling you about, I've always told authors, it will start to coalesce. Like you get this wall of words, and it just feels like, holy crap, everything is wrong with this story. And I will never climb Revision Mountain. And then as you step away, you realize, oh, it's really just these three specific areas. I try to be exhaustively thorough in my edits. So I will explain exactly where something may not be as effective as it could and why it's not and suggest some possible paths for addressing that and support my reasoning for it.
[00:24:19] And so it just winds up being, it looks like more than it usually is. And it almost always coalesces into specific, actionable areas of craft that you can then go, aha. Okay. I know how to do this. And you do know how to do this. And then remember that all critique is opinion. I cannot overstate that honestly. And it is not only opinion, but it's opinion based on the market, how many other titles or similar books in your genre an agent or a publisher may already have, reader expectations and preferences, mood. You know, on one day you may enjoy something that on another day you just can't even begin to get into. It could be something as ridiculous as your character reminded them of their ex, and so they're not feeling it.
[00:25:07] So keep in mind that most of it has nothing to do with you. None of it really is any kind of a statement on the worth of your story. It's simply someone saying here is how it did or didn't affect me. And that's all you need to know because you're trying to figure out how to successfully manipulate your target audience, which is really what we're doing. We're telling a lie to achieve a certain effect that we want to manipulate you to feel. And so you're just getting the information of how well you're succeeding at that with this particular person who may or may not be reflective of the people you're trying to reach.
[00:25:46] And then as I said, if something hits you, if something hits you the wrong way and makes you violently angry or make you feel like, that person is just an idiot, keep in mind that those really emotional reactions can often be indicative of a darling that may not be serving the story, but that you're wildly in love with. But I will say, it literally always hurts. I am an editor. I've been an editor for almost 30 years, and every time I get an edit, my first reaction is, they don't know what they're talking about.
[00:26:18] And this was from my editors at my publisher. And so then I will let it simmer for a day and I'm like, okay, maybe they kind of have a point about this one thing. Let me go look at that. And then I swear by the end of a couple, two, three days where I've actually started marinading in it, I realize they're right about absolutely everything they said. It's just hard. It's hard to hear it. And we have to give ourselves the space and the kindness to be able to receive it. And we have to understand it is what it is. It's not a reflection of our talent, which I think is why we get that visceral reaction, because it feels like, well, if it's not perfect, I must suck. And we're all so fragile in our, many of us are so fragile in our confidence in this subjective arena anyway, because it is so naked and close to our hearts.
[00:27:09] When I was an actor, boy, you'd be in the middle of an audition in the middle of a sentence and they'd go, thank you. And you'd have to leave the room. And I knew it wasn't about me. It's about whatever, you're not what they're looking for, and they knew that the second you walked in the room, and they were nice enough to let you speak for three minutes rather than none, but it still feels like that every single time. So just know that it's going to and accept that and then take a deep breath and carry on.
[00:27:37] Matty: And I think that if it's not a person you have to listen to , like you might have to listen to your editor at your publisher, that at some point if you're in a critique group and there's someone whose input is always more painful than anyone else's, then it could just be like a toxic situation too. And I think that people depending on their goal for their work should feel free when they get to that one in the pile, it's probably okay just to flip it over.
[00:28:06] Tiffany: Completely. Yeah, completely. We had one person in that group, again, meant well, but he was an unpublished author, just like the rest of us, was no farther along in his journey, and he would literally, this was so long ago, Matty, that we had printed pages. So he would show up with his sheaf of printed pages, which was much bigger than the original submission and clunk down on that table and then say, I made a list of all the areas where this needs to be improved. And you just started to realize, this is about him. It's not about the work. It's how he needs to, whatever it is that gave him. And you learn to tune that right on out.
[00:28:48] Matty: Yes. I think protecting ourselves from those kinds of people is, as you said, a legitimate decision.
[00:28:53] Tiffany: Like you would in life, right? I mean, if you have a toxic "friend" who's always making you feel terrible about yourself, you start avoiding that person. Just don't take it personally. That's their deal.
[00:29:07] Matty: So that we don't become that person, are there any tips that we should talk about? I think we've discussed a lot of the details of accepting critique and many of these you can just switch around and obviously the tips for giving a critiquer clear based on looking at it from the other side. But are there any general areas that you feel like we should still cover for that scenario, like a critique group?
[00:29:29] Tiffany: Yeah. It's funny how often this is my first advice in this field: Be kind. Be kind to the person. Like I joked a minute ago critique unto others as you would have critiqued unto you. Keep in mind that they are as sensitive and fragile and hopeful about their work and proud of their work as you are. So take the time.
[00:29:52] One thing I learned as an editor is that it's a big job, right? Every time you're working on something it's 80,000 or more words, and it's a lot. And the temptation is to take a shortcut, especially with authors, I still do it sometimes, and I have to remind myself not to, with authors I've worked with before or who I know to be experienced enough that I can shorthand something and go, motivation unclear, or I don't know, there's the temptation is to shorthand the feedback because you know that they can take it or that they know what to do with it.
[00:30:25] Resist the temptation. Take the time, rather than saying, this doesn't make sense, which is the shortcut thing, and also not subjective. That's an objective statement of worth of what you're reading rather than you didn't understand it. And so take the time to phrase it that way. And be specific. There's nothing to be lost by doing that except a little bit of extra time. And you're providing much more actionable feedback for someone who presumably will either be reciprocating that for you or somebody that you know and care about, or you just want to be a good citizen of the writing community and take care of one another, the way that hopefully others will be gentle and take care of us.
[00:31:11] You know, how you feel when you read one of those horrible Amazon reviews that's just a brutal attack or the comments of a newspaper article, right? Where somebody is just being incredibly personal and unkind, how your whole body just recoils. Imagine hearing that and trying to do something creative and constructive with that as the person on the receiving end. I don't think it's possible. And I don't think any of us would want to inflict that on somebody else.
[00:31:41] Matty: It makes me think, just stepping back for a moment to the receiving critique, that I suppose that there's the, everybody gets together in the bar, when we're starting to do that and hands around the pieces of paper or opens up the email that it has been sent out in and has that discussion there.
[00:31:59] And then I guess there must be critique groups where it's more, you're receiving the input out of the public eye. And so you're having that opportunity to absorb it before you get together with a group or talk about it with that person. And I would think that second one might be a good steppingstone. Like if you think in the moment, if you're sitting at the bar and somebody starts telling you everything they think is wrong with your story, and let's pretend they're one of these people who doesn't really know how to do it well, that it's harder to control yourself in that moment when all eyes are on you, than if you are getting that input at home and then you can go have the glass of wine and a bubble bath to decompress.
[00:32:40] Tiffany: Yeah, that's true. It would be hard, it was hard because the critique group I described to you, you got it in person. And you're right, that doesn't give you the space and time. So if you know that's something that might put you in an overly emotional situation to hear it live, just don't put yourself in that situation. Ask to have it.
[00:33:00] We talked a little bit ago about a questionnaire. That's another really good way to guarantee you get the kind of feedback that's going to be effective for you. And it also is very helpful to the critiquer because especially if it's someone who is not necessarily experienced at critiquing or an author themselves and know how to give constructive and actionable feedback, it is a guide for them.
[00:33:22] So rather than saying, what did you think or how did you like it? Maybe it's, did the story engage you throughout? I literally create a printed questionnaire, and I send it out to my beta readers when I'm using them. And I know the things I'm looking for. So for example, let's use "Intuitive Editing," cause that's the most recent one I did, I had a questionnaire that said were all of the chapters clear to you? And they're broken up by areas of craft. Were there any specific chapters that did not feel as developed or that left you feeling confused? Don't ask necessarily all yes or no questions. Give them specific things. Did your interest flag at any point in the story and if so, where, and do you know why?
[00:34:05] If it's an experienced author or critiquer, they may be able to say, yeah, I didn't understand her goal there or the urgency flagged, or momentum lagged. But even a lay reader might say something like, I don't know, I just put the book down at that point and I just couldn't remember what she was doing at that time, and I forgot what the important thing was that was driving her to do it. And then as an experienced author who knows craft, you can take that input and go, aha, that's urgency. That's motivation. That's whatever it is. But guide them with a questionnaire so that you are encouraging the feedback you want and discouraging the kind of feedback you don't want.
[00:34:44] The first time I ever gave my husband, bless him, something to read and critique for me, which we have never done again, and I went, so what'd you think? And he goes, it was good. And I said, okay, but could you be more specific? Like, what did you like about it? What worked for you? What was effective? I liked it. It was really good. You've got to give people parameters, a guide almost, of what it is you're looking for.
[00:35:15] Matty: One thing that I love, and my first editor, the editor of my first couple of books did this and I thought it was just what everybody did and then when I found out it wasn't, I've asked subsequent editors to do this, but she would put kind of her stream of consciousness, total reader, not editor thoughts in the book. So I could be reading through, and she'd be like, correcting my use of a comma or making editorial kind of comments. But every once in a while, there'd be something like LOL or, I'm so not liking this person right now, or I'm pretty sure I know who done it, or just these kinds of things. And I think that of all the editorial input I got, those have been the best, those totally, this is just what popped into my head at the moment, or, you know what I laughed, and I want you to know that I laughed. And it's really a great way to read into, okay, the motivation must not be fully explained because she couldn't tell why this person was doing what they were doing.
[00:36:13] But I have found that after that first editor, I've always had to ask editors to do that because they wouldn't necessarily do it. And then I can glean a lot of the things that they might otherwise have to flush out in other kinds of editorial input from that.
[00:36:26] But it's actually also quite fun because it gives them an opportunity to comment on the good things in addition to the things that need to be fixed. So I might never have known that somebody was laughing at that section if they hadn't noted it.
[00:36:40] And another editor was by his own admission, not really good at saying the good things. And so he got all done and his cover letter said, you know, it's well put together. He did say some general nice things. And he said, there's some lovely moments in here, and then here are the things that need to be fixed.
[00:37:01] So then I met with him, he's nicely meets with me in person, and we went through all those things, and we got to the end, and I said, so what were the lovely moments? And he said, what? And I said, you said in that letter that there were some lovely moments. What were they? I said, just give me one or two. And he was like, it's been like three weeks now since I read it. And I was like, okay, but next time when you come to a lovely moment, could you just make a note so that I know you thought it was lovely?
[00:37:27] Because it's helpful not only to know what you should stop doing, but if he thought that moment was lovely, can you give me a hint so I can do it again in the next book? And he was very good about that. The next book, in fact, he was very careful to do that.
[00:37:41] And I would also add that he gave the critique part, the things that had to be fixed, in a very sensitive and supportive way. So it was a great experience all around. But in the end, I do want to hear a couple of things that were lovely.
[00:37:55] Tiffany: Well, I love that you said that, actually, because that's one of the most important things about giving critique. And you said two things that I think make a critique especially helpful. That is be specific. And that's part of what you're saying. It's not enough to just say there were some lovely moments. We all want to know what's working really well. I do smiley faces a lot, and I can't tell you how many authors will tell me, oh my god, I live for the smiley faces?
[00:38:18] But it's really helpful, especially when you're getting a lot of feedback that may be more pointing out areas that could be strengthened, it's incredibly helpful and bolstering to know what's already working really well. And the thing about editing or critiquing or any of it is that I always tell authors as an editor, I'm like a building inspector. I guess my job isn't to go in and go, what a beautiful home look, how great the wainscoting is and the crown molding, and gosh, you've decorated it so gorgeous. It is to take a spotlight to try to find every little thing, every little corner I can, that might have something that needs addressing. So editors, critique partners, even your agents, they don't always get the opportunity to tell you how much of the story is already working. And most of it probably already is.
[00:39:11] The other thing is that that specificity, so the positivity is really important because have you heard the term, I think it's called a negative sandwich? It's almost a cliche, but, and it is a cliche, but for a reason, because we hear things let's say again, let's use a relationship, a spouse or something. If you walk in and say, you left your underwear on the floor again, immediately they're going to close off. They're not going to hear another thing you say because you've started with an attack. But if you say, do you know how much I appreciate you always making the bed. I know that's not your bag, but you always do that for me. Thank you so much. Do you think it would be a pain in the butt to pick up your underwear too? I'm sorry to ask because I can see how much you're trying, and you already do so much for me. So I've started with a positive and I've ended with a positive and I have a negative sandwich, my little request in the middle, but it's psychology, right? It's how we work. We're we do not respond to the stick; we only respond to the carrot with creativity. So start whatever feedback you're offering, start it with a positive end, with a positive and offer the stuff in the middle.
[00:40:15] But also those specifics. It's not enough to say, the character's motivation isn't clear. This is why when I edit, I really like, and very few critique partners will be able to do this because it's a major expenditure of time, but the sort of overall feedback is great. But if you can go in and in specific places call out, this was hilarious. This particular moment was when I started wondering what the heck she was doing, and I wasn't sure I could relate to her as much as I had been. I cried in this part. Then you have specific feedback that is more actionable than those generalized ones.
[00:40:51] Matty: I also liked the idea and I think you cannot do this with a group, I think you can only do it one-on-one or with a small group, that once you've gotten the input and you've absorbed it and you've had that kind of resting period, having someone who will talk through that with you is gold. Because again, I'll use another example of some input I got from my editor, that he felt like there was a sub storyline that just petered out and didn't come to a satisfying conclusion. And I said, yeah, but I haven't been able to think of a way that seems plausible to bring that sub storyline to a satisfying conclusion.
[00:41:25] And we were brainstorming some ideas and he was suggesting things that seemed completely implausible to me. And one of his points was, you're writing a thriller. So, you know, is Tom Cruise really going to leap from the cliff top to the wing of the plane? Not in real life but people like seeing that who are watching that kind of movie.
[00:41:44] And so he said, you have to adjust your level of plausibility a little bit. And it was great because we were able to talk through different approaches, and I finally got won over to his plausibility level and added something that in fact I did think was a huge benefit to wrapping up the end of that, and that I think would be really fun for the reader. And so I think in that case, it's a matter of making that distinction between arguing with the person and engaging them in discussion about it, if they're willing to do it, and once you've had that cooling off period, so you're not reacting as emotionally, as you might otherwise.
[00:42:18] Tiffany: Well, the difference is you're not explaining why you're right. You're going, okay, I see that whatever area was not working for you, you said right at the beginning, you also knew that was already a weakness in your story. So he put his finger right on something super valid. It resonated for you. His suggestion for how didn't, and that's okay. It doesn't have to. Like I said, it's not prescriptive. But in the course of bouncing ideas off of somebody, often that will spark something in you. I build in follow-up time for that reason with every contract that I offer and I'm frequently shocked how few authors take me up on it. Because it's someone who knows the story at that point, almost as intimately as you do, that you can, like I said it's not that you're looking for them to give you ideas, and I think sometimes that's why authors are leery of it. I think sometimes they feel like, oh, if I need so much help, there must be something wrong with me as an author, which is never the case.
[00:43:12] That's part of the process writing is revising. But that process of just talking it out loud with someone and batting ideas around, I've seen that ignite absolute brilliance in authors, not because the editor or critiquer or agent said something that was so brilliant, but because something they said sparked something in the author where they went, okay, I agree with you that this area needs work. None of your ideas are really hitting it, but you've just given me an idea that will. And you don't really get there without that kind of back and forth sometimes.
[00:43:47] Matty: Yup. And if somebody offers it to you, grab it.
[00:43:50] Tiffany: Oh my gosh, take it. It has no reflection on you as an author, whatever help is offered to you. It's so valuable.
[00:43:57] Matty: I do remember early on my editor making a suggestion for something I could do. And I thought, well, sure, that's a good idea, but now it's her idea. So I have to think of something different, that's not that, so it's my idea. But now I'm happy to use other people's ideas if they're offered.
[00:44:15] Tiffany: Because there's nothing new under the sun. We are all borrowing ideas. I have a friend, Deb Courtney, bless her, if you're listening, hey girl, she has this habit of going to public places and just listening to people. And then she will completely lift what they're saying if it's excellent. She calls it conversational shoplifting. Does that mean it's not her idea? She's the one who just, it was sparked something creative in her and she used it in a way that was all hers. But that's part of the process, too. Think of another career or pursuit, raising your children even, or what you do with your job or learning how to swim, anything where you would go, no, no, don't tell me anything. I'm going to figure it all out on my own or it's not valid. That's how we get better.
[00:45:02] Still make it yours. That doesn't mean it's not yours. I could give someone the whole plot. Like I can talk them through the entire story and go, do this, this, do this, do this, do this. And it's still going to be different when they write it than it would when any other person wrote it.
[00:45:16] Matty: Yeah. It's always the joke among writers that when someone comes to you and says I have a great idea for a book, and if you use it and write it, then we can split the money. And it's like, coming up with the ideas is not the problem, the execution of the idea that's the problem.
[00:45:31] Tiffany: And you know what? How about you write it and then I'll come in and edit it, and then we'll talk about splitting the money.
[00:45:36] Matty: Yes, exactly. So as a final wrap up, I wanted to ask you if you have any advice specific to people who are reading reader reviews on retail platforms, social media, anything like that, should they do it? And if they do, any tips?
[00:45:53] Tiffany: You mean reading their own? Yes. I'm going to give you my short answer, which is don't do it. I know it's tempting. And I'm going to also tell you that I'm a big fat hypocrite and I read my own, but there's nothing to be gained out of it. You're the creator. So your job is done when you have created.
[00:46:10] The only other job you have is try to get it into readers' hands. But anything that happens to it, the same thing we were talking about with critique, all it is is someone's opinion. Nobody's right and nobody's wrong. And anybody who writes something scathing, that's not about you or your work, that's about something they're going through. They're just not able to receive your work and not able to offer anything constructive. And they felt it incumbent upon them to hurt someone else for whatever reason. You don't know what that is and reading it accomplishes nothing for you.
[00:46:41] And the other thing is that we all have this negativity bias which psychologists have studied. And it's this inborn tendency that, if you get 10 pieces of positive feedback and one piece of negative feedback, human nature is that we obsess on that one negative one as if those other ten aren't weighted as heavily. So that's what happens when we read negative reviews. We go into a tailspin. It may send us into self-doubt. It may fill us with rage or pain. Nothing good comes of it. It's not like it's going to make you a better writer. So I will read my reviews. I always read anything three stars and above. I generally, if I see that it's one or two stars, I just, I try not to even look at it because nothing is to be served by that.
[00:47:28] When I first started, bless my husband, this is how he made up that critiques snafu to me, he would read the reviews for my first book, and then he would say, okay, you can go today and you should go look, or today? Not so good. Don't go there.
[00:47:44] Tiffany: There's nothing productive that's going to come of that. It's not like it's going to make you a better writer. All it's going to do is make you feel bad. And their opinion, I don't mean it's not valid, it's valid for them as their opinion, but it's not valid for you as an artist and a creator. All that means is that was not your audience, that it was not for that person. Move on.
[00:48:05] Matty: Well, Tiffany, thank you so much as always, it has been a lovely pleasure to speak with you.
[00:48:11] Tiffany: I love talking to you, Matty. Thanks for doing this podcast. I love the things you tackle, and I love the way you always approach it. It's always so positive and constructive.
[00:48:22] Matty: That's a wonderful way to end our conversation. I appreciate you saying that. So please let the listeners know where they can go to find out more about you and all your work online.
[00:48:30] Tiffany: Probably the best place is just my website, foxprinteditorial.com. You can sign up for my newsletter if you want to, and every week I do a blog post where I do actionable craft posts. I talk about challenges in the writer's life. I have a monthly feature called "How Writers Revise" that pulls back the curtain on how a lot of published authors have learned to do a lot of the stuff we've talked about here, assess feedback, and how to put it into practice.
[00:48:55] And I talk about their writing journeys, the challenges that they faced on the way to publication. And I also have a 13-page guide for authors called "Get It Edited." If you're looking at hiring a professional editor, it gives you a lot of specific places to look and what to look for, what red flags, what positive things, how to find the best fit for you, what it should cost. That's also where you'll find I have a whole page of free resources for authors and online courses, and you name it. It's a kind of a big media clearing house for authors.
[00:49:25] Matty: Excellent. Well, Tiffany, thank you again. This was great.
[00:49:28] Tiffany: Thanks Matty.
[00:03:10] And it also, I think it keeps you from being in receiving mindset. When you're getting a critique, it's really a gift. It may not always feel like that. It may not usually feel like that. But it is someone holding up a mirror to your work and helping you understand how much of the vision in your head has actually made it onto the page.
[00:03:30] So if you're getting like a written critique from people or your critique group or anybody the first thing I advise is say thank you. I even send little gifts to people who critique for me or thank you notes, because it's your test audience. It's the equivalent of the focus group that a lot of products will conduct or the test drive of a car. You're not asking anybody to tell you what is right or what is wrong with your work or be the expert and give you prescriptive feedback on how to fix it. All you're asking them to do is hold up a mirror to your work and tell you what they see. So take that in.
[00:04:11] And then you have to know what to let go of also, because as I said, it's really subjective and not everybody will have the same opinion. Not everybody is your target audience. Not everybody is as adept at offering critique. So you have to learn as the author how to weigh which critique fits with the vision you have for your work and what may not resonate with your vision.
[00:04:37] Every time I return an editorial letter, I tell authors, read it. Read through all the embedded comments. This is a lot of feedback all at once. It's I don't know how many thousands of words, but the editorial letter alone is at least 5,000 words. I think almost every time I've done 10- and 12,000-word editorial letters. And then in addition, there are hundreds and hundreds of embedded notes. And it hits like a plank in the face, no matter what, no matter if it's mostly good, whatever, getting that much feedback is incredibly traumatizing. So the first thing to do is just kind of sit with it. Read through it and then leave it alone for a day or two and let it percolate. A lot of times you will distance yourself from it and be able to objectively weigh what works for you and what doesn't.
[00:05:22] So the first thing authors will usually do is often there'll be a visceral reaction against certain pieces of feedback. And those may be darlings that need some killing, or it may be that particular critiquer is offering you something that does not resonate with your vision, and that's why you're having this visceral reaction. But giving yourself that time to sit with it lets you evaluate which it is unemotionally. And just like with editing your own work, which is really what a critique is, it's somebody offering you that objective editorial feedback. And in a second, I'll talk about the difference between editing and revision. Critique is not a function of revision, it's a function of editing. And it's someone helping you get that objectivity in the same way that you will get that objectivity on the critique they offer if you just give it a little space and let it sink in.
[00:06:14] Matty: I wanted to talk a little bit about separating the critique group experience from the having a professional editor experience. So is joining a critique group something that you advise for all your editorial clients, or are there certain characteristics of a writer that make you think, oh, a critique group is going to be good for this person, but not good for this person?
[00:06:36] Tiffany: I do think probably different people would work better with one than not. It also depends on the tenor of the critique group, on the demographics, on the makeup, on the genre preferences, on the level of experience. You don't want to be the very best one in the group necessarily. You don't want to be the most experienced. You also don't want to be so out of your depth with a group that's much more experienced than you that you get discouraged. So you have to find the people who are on your same level.
[00:07:05] I do think any kind of objective feedback is powerful. I have a weekly blog and once a month I do a feature called "How Writers Revise," and as part of that, I talk to writers about their journeys. And I was just talking to Lyn Liao Butler, who is a debut author whose book "The Tiger Mom's Tale" is coming out. By the time this airs, it will have come out on July 6th. But at any rate she was talking about with her first manuscript, she didn't know anything about writing. She just had written a blog and thought, well, I'll turn this into a book. She said she didn't let a single person even look at it before she turned it in to an editor or an agent. And so she got total radio silence. Like she didn't even get rejections. She got absolutely nothing.
[00:07:44] And she realized looking back, once she started to learn more, you have to have some kind of reflection back to you of what has made it onto the page. We're all filling in the blanks because we know our work so well. So you have to practice getting your own objectivity, which I've talked about, and I have an online course about, and I post things about that a lot, but you also can use the resource available to you of hand selected people who are your beta readers, your critiquers, it might be a partner. It might be a critique group. It might be fellow authors. It might be trusted friends who are broad readers in your genre. Whatever feels right for you.
[00:08:22] I will say the critique group I'm talking about, it could be pretty intense. And it daunted a lot of the writers who were in there. I've written about this in "Intuitive Editing." The leader of the group would start all of her critiques with what page of the submission she stopped reading on. Which I understand her point. And I think her intentions were good. She wanted to let the author know, here's where it didn't grab me. This is where I let go and wasn't invested as a reader. But there are more constructive ways to put it. And I watched it shut a bunch of authors down. So it's important to pick a good critique group or whatever source of input on your material is going to be effective and constructive and actionable for you.
[00:09:08] Matty: So if someone finds a critique group on Meetup, let's say, and they show up and it turns out to be a difficult or traumatic experience for them, how do they weigh whether that's just because that's how that can be or that the group is sort of toxic for them, and they should look elsewhere?
[00:09:25] Tiffany: Well, first, I'm always a big fan of trusting your gut. And we are sensitive. All artists are, all people are, but particularly artists where you're presenting what really is your naked soul for people to criticize. And I'll talk in a minute about the difference between critique and criticism, because it's not the same thing, but sometimes some critique groups will confuse it.
[00:09:46] And maybe that's one way to think about it. If you're getting criticism and not critique. So what critique is, as I said before, it's holding up the mirror. It's saying, here's what I saw on the page. So let's say you have someone who didn't feel invested in a character. Let's say the example I just gave you, with, I stopped reading on page whatever. There are ways to say that. That's criticism, that saying you lost my interest. It's putting someone on the defensive, whereas it would be easy to say, and it sounds like a nicety of phrasing, but it's more than that. You're offering your perspective.
[00:10:18] So you might just say something like, I didn't feel as invested as I could in the character, and I wondered if there were ways where you might let us see more what's motivating the character, which is the benefit of having writers as opposed to lay people, because lay people don't know how to put it in craft language. Writers might. And so they might lose investment and realize I don't know what this character's goal is. I don't know what their motivation is. This character was not engaging to me. Why was this character not engaging? They might be able to offer the kind of feedback that is a little more actionable to you than a lay reader.
[00:10:52] But lay reader feedback is also valuable because as a writer, you can interpret what they say and put it into actionable language. But also, I advocate especially with lay readers, but with any critique reader, offering a questionnaire, specific questionnaire, where you can guide them toward the kinds of input that's going to be helpful to you.
[00:11:12] Matty: I think in that scenario, this doesn't cover the providing actionable detail, but even if the input was, I lost interest on page 10, versus, you lost my interest on page 10, the first one is a little more easy to absorb than the second one is.
[00:11:28] Tiffany: Yeah. Even if we know we shouldn't, we all associate ourselves with our art. So the slightest, like you said, just the tiniest little tweak of phrasing like that can make it feel like a personal attack rather than somebody offering their personal impressions.
[00:11:43] I always liken it to, if a friend asks you, what do you think of a movie, you're probably not going to say, boy, that filmmaker sucks. You might review your impressions of it, you know? Well, I didn't really, I didn't really love it. It didn't engage me, or I didn't like the characters or the ending. I figured out the ending halfway through the movie. But it's always about how you felt about it, what your impression of it is, and that's what you're offering as a critiquer for someone else.
[00:12:10] Matty: I think it's also an interesting example, because if you think about even giving a negative review of a movie, I don't think anyone is saying, I hated that Steven Spielberg movie, they're saying maybe they're saying I hated the movie, but it's not an attack on the person who created it.
[00:12:27] It might be an attack on the thing they created, but we may be, we'll talk about this a little more when we talk about reader reviews, but the fact that a reader is rarely going after you personally, even if they're going after the work in a way that feels personal.
[00:12:42] Tiffany: Yeah. sometimes they are, we've all probably done that. Let's use Steven Spielberg, even though I do not think he sucks, I'm sure there are people who think, Ugh, that guy sucks.
[00:12:50] I hate his movies. Yeah. It's easier to do it with somebody we don't know like a celebrity, there's that depersonalization. And you see it a lot in reviews of books on Amazon or any other site where people can get a little bit personal and nasty. But especially as authors, critique unto others as you would have them critique unto you.
[00:13:11] I've realized that creativity is an unbelievably fragile thing. And I always say it, it doesn't respond to the stick, it only responds to the carrot. Which doesn't mean you have to blow smoke up anyone's butt. It just means you want to present it in a way, there's a difference, think of your relationship with your children or your spouse, there's a difference in saying, you're an idiot, I can't believe you forgot the milk. And, oh, I really was hoping to have the milk this morning. I understand you forgot, however you want to phrase it that makes it more productive.
[00:13:40] Matty: Yep. When I was early on trying to decide if I wanted to use a critique group, I've only had very limited exposure with critique groups because early on, I knew I was going to get a professional editor, even for my first novel. And I was trying to avoid the scenario where I didn't know enough to be able to sort through critique input in a way that I thought wouldn't bog me down.
[00:14:06] And then once I had started working with that editor and understood what her priorities were and what her direction was and the kinds of things she was going to tell me to do and not do, then I didn't really feel a need to go back to the critique group. And also once I started getting reader reviews on retail platforms, then I felt like I was getting the market research side of critique groups out of those reviews. Is there an aspect of critique groups that I'm missing that I'm missing a benefit that I could be tapping into?
[00:14:39] Tiffany: I think the benefit, especially if you're working with a professional editor, when you spend thousands of dollars to bring in a professional, you want to give them something that is as absolutely polished as you can possibly make it on your own. And I think it is useful to have input for doing that because you want to get the most bang for your buck. So you want to have had as much input as you can get to polish this sucker to the best of your abilities before a professional comes in and helps you dig even deeper with it. And one way to do that, this is a great function of critique groups in my opinion, is before you get to the editorial process with a professional.
[00:15:18] So while you know perfectly well, I'm sure most of your listeners do as well, that your first draft is not your finished draft, and it's probably not even close to the draft you're going to turn into the editor. You're going to do a bunch of editing and revision. And as I said, critique is a function of editing.
[00:15:34] So one of the hardest things as an author is to get the objectivity to assess what you have on the page and see how effective it is. That's where critique partners can be brilliant. Before you ever get to the editor, you can test market it like we were talking about a minute ago and say, how's it coming across to you? And that'll start to pinpoint for you any possible areas that you could strengthen and clarify and develop and deepen on your own. So that by the time you get it to the editor, she's got the most polished version that you're able to give her. And then you guys can dig out even more nuance and depth.
[00:16:09] Whereas if you haven't done that, okay, it would be helpful at this point to talk about the difference between editing and revision. The easy definition that I always use is editing is assessing, revising is addressing. So what that means is, as an author, you have to do both those things and you can't really do them at the same time as effectively as separating them out.
[00:16:28] Editing is that first step of what do I have here? How effective is this on the page? Have I conveyed my vision? Are all the loopholes tied up? Is it as strong as it could be? Is it as airtight as I can make it? Have I resolved everything? Do the characters have arcs?
[00:16:44] Once you know the answers to all of that, that gives you the roadmap to what should be revised. So in the editing process, you might go, oh, I lost track of this character's thread. Or I realized this character is not as well developed as she could be, and I need to deepen her because she's a major character. Then you go and you revise that. But the editing is just the identification of what the problem is. That's where I think it's helpful to bring in some outside perspectives.
[00:17:11] The hardest thing as a writer is to step back from our own work and see it through fresh eyes. It's not impossible. And I talk a lot, I've mentioned an online course I have called "How to Train Your Editor Brain," I know you and I love talking movies and TV. You can do it by practicing with things you're watching. Things you're reading. Learn how to analyze and assess something with that analytical, objective mindset, and you will get better at doing it in your own writing. But it's such a great shortcut to doing it if you have these trusted critique partners or beta readers who can offer you that and jumpstart you if let's say you have four different people tell you one certain area of your manuscript, that's a pretty good indication that that might be an area of weakness that needs shoring up that maybe you're blind to.
[00:18:01] If one person says it, maybe it isn't. Maybe they just have a different vision for your book. That's where you have to find your feet in your own story and assess it as you have to assess the objective input with that same objectivity, as I said before, and know when to stand your ground on your story, and when you're getting feedback that may be typical of your intended audience.
[00:18:25] Matty: It's interesting as you're talking because I realized I actually do you have some of the support structure you're talking about, but I would never call it a critique group.
[00:18:34] Tiffany: So what do you call them, like a writing partner or something?
[00:18:38] Matty: Writing partners or beta readers or my author support group. I refer to them as my author support group because there is a group of four other authors who all write in the general crime genre, and they'll often read an almost complete draft and I trust them because, one, I've read their books and I like them, so I know they're talented authors. They're familiar with the tropes of the genre, so they know what to expect and what readers will expect. And they have exercised those themselves, so they themselves are experienced in exchanging this kind of information, so they're all quite proficient at doing that in a palatable way. But I think it's even the difference between criticism and critique. I don't know that we've actually addressed that directly, but even "critique" is a little bit uncomfortable.
[00:19:26] Tiffany: It's always uncomfortable. Nobody wants to hear their baby is ugly in any small regard. All of our babies are perfect. And so it always hurts to hear it.
[00:19:42] Matty: It's even just the word, like even completely separate from the experience of getting that input, just the word critique is almost as creepy as the word criticism.
[00:19:52] Tiffany: That's kind of why I separate out criticism and critique. And by the way, going back to your group of author friends who are your writing partners, I have news for you. That is a critique group. Yeah.
[00:20:01] Matty: Yeah. I just had never really thought of it that way.
[00:20:04] Tiffany: Yeah. It doesn't have to be formal. And I'm using "critique group" as a broad umbrella to include anyone who gives you that objective feedback. I think people do think of a critique group as maybe more prescriptive in their feedback, but I don't feel that's the proper function of any critique group. That's the proper function of almost no one except possibly a professional editor, professional agent, or your publishing editor. And even with that, and by prescriptive, I mean, you know, like that old Neil Gaiman quote, which I'm going to horribly mangle, but it's something like, when people tell you something is not working in your manuscript or not effective for them, they're usually right. And when they tell you exactly what it is or how to fix it, they're usually wrong.
[00:20:49] So by prescriptive, I mean someone telling you what the problem is exactly and how to fix it. The exception being trained professionals who have experienced in doing that. But even so the prescriptive information, even my editorial letters are not prescriptive in the sense of here's what you should do. Here's what the publisher wants.
[00:21:08] Here's what the market demands. Whereas a critique group might say something like, I didn't understand the character's motivations in this part of the story, and so my interest flagged a little bit. And notice, again, this is all about your reaction. It is not a statement on the work and every bit of critique and feedback is always subjective, including from the professional. So that's what a critique group might tell you.
[00:21:31] A professional editor might say something similar, but they might also say, I wonder if there's a way to indicate more specifically the fact this is an example I used in a blog post that you inspired actually, when we talked about this topic last time about criticism versus critique. So a professional editor might say something like, we don't quite understand here, her desire to pursue art and her husband's lack of support for that. What if you showed a scene that indicated that specifically, like maybe she's working on a canvas when her husband comes home and she's proudly trying to show it to him, and he barely glances at him.
[00:22:09] It's a for instance, right? I'm not saying do that. It's not prescriptive in the sense of this is the right way to do it. There is no right way. There is no right way. It's your story. And it's a subjective, creative field. So there are no right answers. There's only, what will your target reader respond to the way you hope for them to respond?
[00:22:30] Whether that's an agent who you want to offer representation or an editor at a publishing house you want to offer you a contract or your target reader?
[00:22:41] Matty: The last question I had about critique groups is, are there any cautions that you would have or any tips that you can think of that would help a writer who's receiving a critique from a group sort out the gems?
[00:22:59] Tiffany: Yeah. I wrote some of these down because I didn't want to forget them. We've touched on some of them. The first thing I would say is, try to be receptive. No, it's going to hit you like a Mack truck in the face. And be kind to yourself. You know, I have a friend who used to say in moments of difficulty, have a glass of wine, Sugar. So when you get your critique back, pour yourself a bubble bath if you like and have a glass of wine, Sugar. And just relax. It's meant to help you. Even if it is a poorly executed critique by someone who is not doing it constructively, at the core, they took the time to read it and they want to help you. So try to receive it in that spirit.
[00:23:41] And then leave it alone, let it sink in. And then after a day or two, especially with these long editorial letters I was telling you about, I've always told authors, it will start to coalesce. Like you get this wall of words, and it just feels like, holy crap, everything is wrong with this story. And I will never climb Revision Mountain. And then as you step away, you realize, oh, it's really just these three specific areas. I try to be exhaustively thorough in my edits. So I will explain exactly where something may not be as effective as it could and why it's not and suggest some possible paths for addressing that and support my reasoning for it.
[00:24:19] And so it just winds up being, it looks like more than it usually is. And it almost always coalesces into specific, actionable areas of craft that you can then go, aha. Okay. I know how to do this. And you do know how to do this. And then remember that all critique is opinion. I cannot overstate that honestly. And it is not only opinion, but it's opinion based on the market, how many other titles or similar books in your genre an agent or a publisher may already have, reader expectations and preferences, mood. You know, on one day you may enjoy something that on another day you just can't even begin to get into. It could be something as ridiculous as your character reminded them of their ex, and so they're not feeling it.
[00:25:07] So keep in mind that most of it has nothing to do with you. None of it really is any kind of a statement on the worth of your story. It's simply someone saying here is how it did or didn't affect me. And that's all you need to know because you're trying to figure out how to successfully manipulate your target audience, which is really what we're doing. We're telling a lie to achieve a certain effect that we want to manipulate you to feel. And so you're just getting the information of how well you're succeeding at that with this particular person who may or may not be reflective of the people you're trying to reach.
[00:25:46] And then as I said, if something hits you, if something hits you the wrong way and makes you violently angry or make you feel like, that person is just an idiot, keep in mind that those really emotional reactions can often be indicative of a darling that may not be serving the story, but that you're wildly in love with. But I will say, it literally always hurts. I am an editor. I've been an editor for almost 30 years, and every time I get an edit, my first reaction is, they don't know what they're talking about.
[00:26:18] And this was from my editors at my publisher. And so then I will let it simmer for a day and I'm like, okay, maybe they kind of have a point about this one thing. Let me go look at that. And then I swear by the end of a couple, two, three days where I've actually started marinading in it, I realize they're right about absolutely everything they said. It's just hard. It's hard to hear it. And we have to give ourselves the space and the kindness to be able to receive it. And we have to understand it is what it is. It's not a reflection of our talent, which I think is why we get that visceral reaction, because it feels like, well, if it's not perfect, I must suck. And we're all so fragile in our, many of us are so fragile in our confidence in this subjective arena anyway, because it is so naked and close to our hearts.
[00:27:09] When I was an actor, boy, you'd be in the middle of an audition in the middle of a sentence and they'd go, thank you. And you'd have to leave the room. And I knew it wasn't about me. It's about whatever, you're not what they're looking for, and they knew that the second you walked in the room, and they were nice enough to let you speak for three minutes rather than none, but it still feels like that every single time. So just know that it's going to and accept that and then take a deep breath and carry on.
[00:27:37] Matty: And I think that if it's not a person you have to listen to , like you might have to listen to your editor at your publisher, that at some point if you're in a critique group and there's someone whose input is always more painful than anyone else's, then it could just be like a toxic situation too. And I think that people depending on their goal for their work should feel free when they get to that one in the pile, it's probably okay just to flip it over.
[00:28:06] Tiffany: Completely. Yeah, completely. We had one person in that group, again, meant well, but he was an unpublished author, just like the rest of us, was no farther along in his journey, and he would literally, this was so long ago, Matty, that we had printed pages. So he would show up with his sheaf of printed pages, which was much bigger than the original submission and clunk down on that table and then say, I made a list of all the areas where this needs to be improved. And you just started to realize, this is about him. It's not about the work. It's how he needs to, whatever it is that gave him. And you learn to tune that right on out.
[00:28:48] Matty: Yes. I think protecting ourselves from those kinds of people is, as you said, a legitimate decision.
[00:28:53] Tiffany: Like you would in life, right? I mean, if you have a toxic "friend" who's always making you feel terrible about yourself, you start avoiding that person. Just don't take it personally. That's their deal.
[00:29:07] Matty: So that we don't become that person, are there any tips that we should talk about? I think we've discussed a lot of the details of accepting critique and many of these you can just switch around and obviously the tips for giving a critiquer clear based on looking at it from the other side. But are there any general areas that you feel like we should still cover for that scenario, like a critique group?
[00:29:29] Tiffany: Yeah. It's funny how often this is my first advice in this field: Be kind. Be kind to the person. Like I joked a minute ago critique unto others as you would have critiqued unto you. Keep in mind that they are as sensitive and fragile and hopeful about their work and proud of their work as you are. So take the time.
[00:29:52] One thing I learned as an editor is that it's a big job, right? Every time you're working on something it's 80,000 or more words, and it's a lot. And the temptation is to take a shortcut, especially with authors, I still do it sometimes, and I have to remind myself not to, with authors I've worked with before or who I know to be experienced enough that I can shorthand something and go, motivation unclear, or I don't know, there's the temptation is to shorthand the feedback because you know that they can take it or that they know what to do with it.
[00:30:25] Resist the temptation. Take the time, rather than saying, this doesn't make sense, which is the shortcut thing, and also not subjective. That's an objective statement of worth of what you're reading rather than you didn't understand it. And so take the time to phrase it that way. And be specific. There's nothing to be lost by doing that except a little bit of extra time. And you're providing much more actionable feedback for someone who presumably will either be reciprocating that for you or somebody that you know and care about, or you just want to be a good citizen of the writing community and take care of one another, the way that hopefully others will be gentle and take care of us.
[00:31:11] You know, how you feel when you read one of those horrible Amazon reviews that's just a brutal attack or the comments of a newspaper article, right? Where somebody is just being incredibly personal and unkind, how your whole body just recoils. Imagine hearing that and trying to do something creative and constructive with that as the person on the receiving end. I don't think it's possible. And I don't think any of us would want to inflict that on somebody else.
[00:31:41] Matty: It makes me think, just stepping back for a moment to the receiving critique, that I suppose that there's the, everybody gets together in the bar, when we're starting to do that and hands around the pieces of paper or opens up the email that it has been sent out in and has that discussion there.
[00:31:59] And then I guess there must be critique groups where it's more, you're receiving the input out of the public eye. And so you're having that opportunity to absorb it before you get together with a group or talk about it with that person. And I would think that second one might be a good steppingstone. Like if you think in the moment, if you're sitting at the bar and somebody starts telling you everything they think is wrong with your story, and let's pretend they're one of these people who doesn't really know how to do it well, that it's harder to control yourself in that moment when all eyes are on you, than if you are getting that input at home and then you can go have the glass of wine and a bubble bath to decompress.
[00:32:40] Tiffany: Yeah, that's true. It would be hard, it was hard because the critique group I described to you, you got it in person. And you're right, that doesn't give you the space and time. So if you know that's something that might put you in an overly emotional situation to hear it live, just don't put yourself in that situation. Ask to have it.
[00:33:00] We talked a little bit ago about a questionnaire. That's another really good way to guarantee you get the kind of feedback that's going to be effective for you. And it also is very helpful to the critiquer because especially if it's someone who is not necessarily experienced at critiquing or an author themselves and know how to give constructive and actionable feedback, it is a guide for them.
[00:33:22] So rather than saying, what did you think or how did you like it? Maybe it's, did the story engage you throughout? I literally create a printed questionnaire, and I send it out to my beta readers when I'm using them. And I know the things I'm looking for. So for example, let's use "Intuitive Editing," cause that's the most recent one I did, I had a questionnaire that said were all of the chapters clear to you? And they're broken up by areas of craft. Were there any specific chapters that did not feel as developed or that left you feeling confused? Don't ask necessarily all yes or no questions. Give them specific things. Did your interest flag at any point in the story and if so, where, and do you know why?
[00:34:05] If it's an experienced author or critiquer, they may be able to say, yeah, I didn't understand her goal there or the urgency flagged, or momentum lagged. But even a lay reader might say something like, I don't know, I just put the book down at that point and I just couldn't remember what she was doing at that time, and I forgot what the important thing was that was driving her to do it. And then as an experienced author who knows craft, you can take that input and go, aha, that's urgency. That's motivation. That's whatever it is. But guide them with a questionnaire so that you are encouraging the feedback you want and discouraging the kind of feedback you don't want.
[00:34:44] The first time I ever gave my husband, bless him, something to read and critique for me, which we have never done again, and I went, so what'd you think? And he goes, it was good. And I said, okay, but could you be more specific? Like, what did you like about it? What worked for you? What was effective? I liked it. It was really good. You've got to give people parameters, a guide almost, of what it is you're looking for.
[00:35:15] Matty: One thing that I love, and my first editor, the editor of my first couple of books did this and I thought it was just what everybody did and then when I found out it wasn't, I've asked subsequent editors to do this, but she would put kind of her stream of consciousness, total reader, not editor thoughts in the book. So I could be reading through, and she'd be like, correcting my use of a comma or making editorial kind of comments. But every once in a while, there'd be something like LOL or, I'm so not liking this person right now, or I'm pretty sure I know who done it, or just these kinds of things. And I think that of all the editorial input I got, those have been the best, those totally, this is just what popped into my head at the moment, or, you know what I laughed, and I want you to know that I laughed. And it's really a great way to read into, okay, the motivation must not be fully explained because she couldn't tell why this person was doing what they were doing.
[00:36:13] But I have found that after that first editor, I've always had to ask editors to do that because they wouldn't necessarily do it. And then I can glean a lot of the things that they might otherwise have to flush out in other kinds of editorial input from that.
[00:36:26] But it's actually also quite fun because it gives them an opportunity to comment on the good things in addition to the things that need to be fixed. So I might never have known that somebody was laughing at that section if they hadn't noted it.
[00:36:40] And another editor was by his own admission, not really good at saying the good things. And so he got all done and his cover letter said, you know, it's well put together. He did say some general nice things. And he said, there's some lovely moments in here, and then here are the things that need to be fixed.
[00:37:01] So then I met with him, he's nicely meets with me in person, and we went through all those things, and we got to the end, and I said, so what were the lovely moments? And he said, what? And I said, you said in that letter that there were some lovely moments. What were they? I said, just give me one or two. And he was like, it's been like three weeks now since I read it. And I was like, okay, but next time when you come to a lovely moment, could you just make a note so that I know you thought it was lovely?
[00:37:27] Because it's helpful not only to know what you should stop doing, but if he thought that moment was lovely, can you give me a hint so I can do it again in the next book? And he was very good about that. The next book, in fact, he was very careful to do that.
[00:37:41] And I would also add that he gave the critique part, the things that had to be fixed, in a very sensitive and supportive way. So it was a great experience all around. But in the end, I do want to hear a couple of things that were lovely.
[00:37:55] Tiffany: Well, I love that you said that, actually, because that's one of the most important things about giving critique. And you said two things that I think make a critique especially helpful. That is be specific. And that's part of what you're saying. It's not enough to just say there were some lovely moments. We all want to know what's working really well. I do smiley faces a lot, and I can't tell you how many authors will tell me, oh my god, I live for the smiley faces?
[00:38:18] But it's really helpful, especially when you're getting a lot of feedback that may be more pointing out areas that could be strengthened, it's incredibly helpful and bolstering to know what's already working really well. And the thing about editing or critiquing or any of it is that I always tell authors as an editor, I'm like a building inspector. I guess my job isn't to go in and go, what a beautiful home look, how great the wainscoting is and the crown molding, and gosh, you've decorated it so gorgeous. It is to take a spotlight to try to find every little thing, every little corner I can, that might have something that needs addressing. So editors, critique partners, even your agents, they don't always get the opportunity to tell you how much of the story is already working. And most of it probably already is.
[00:39:11] The other thing is that that specificity, so the positivity is really important because have you heard the term, I think it's called a negative sandwich? It's almost a cliche, but, and it is a cliche, but for a reason, because we hear things let's say again, let's use a relationship, a spouse or something. If you walk in and say, you left your underwear on the floor again, immediately they're going to close off. They're not going to hear another thing you say because you've started with an attack. But if you say, do you know how much I appreciate you always making the bed. I know that's not your bag, but you always do that for me. Thank you so much. Do you think it would be a pain in the butt to pick up your underwear too? I'm sorry to ask because I can see how much you're trying, and you already do so much for me. So I've started with a positive and I've ended with a positive and I have a negative sandwich, my little request in the middle, but it's psychology, right? It's how we work. We're we do not respond to the stick; we only respond to the carrot with creativity. So start whatever feedback you're offering, start it with a positive end, with a positive and offer the stuff in the middle.
[00:40:15] But also those specifics. It's not enough to say, the character's motivation isn't clear. This is why when I edit, I really like, and very few critique partners will be able to do this because it's a major expenditure of time, but the sort of overall feedback is great. But if you can go in and in specific places call out, this was hilarious. This particular moment was when I started wondering what the heck she was doing, and I wasn't sure I could relate to her as much as I had been. I cried in this part. Then you have specific feedback that is more actionable than those generalized ones.
[00:40:51] Matty: I also liked the idea and I think you cannot do this with a group, I think you can only do it one-on-one or with a small group, that once you've gotten the input and you've absorbed it and you've had that kind of resting period, having someone who will talk through that with you is gold. Because again, I'll use another example of some input I got from my editor, that he felt like there was a sub storyline that just petered out and didn't come to a satisfying conclusion. And I said, yeah, but I haven't been able to think of a way that seems plausible to bring that sub storyline to a satisfying conclusion.
[00:41:25] And we were brainstorming some ideas and he was suggesting things that seemed completely implausible to me. And one of his points was, you're writing a thriller. So, you know, is Tom Cruise really going to leap from the cliff top to the wing of the plane? Not in real life but people like seeing that who are watching that kind of movie.
[00:41:44] And so he said, you have to adjust your level of plausibility a little bit. And it was great because we were able to talk through different approaches, and I finally got won over to his plausibility level and added something that in fact I did think was a huge benefit to wrapping up the end of that, and that I think would be really fun for the reader. And so I think in that case, it's a matter of making that distinction between arguing with the person and engaging them in discussion about it, if they're willing to do it, and once you've had that cooling off period, so you're not reacting as emotionally, as you might otherwise.
[00:42:18] Tiffany: Well, the difference is you're not explaining why you're right. You're going, okay, I see that whatever area was not working for you, you said right at the beginning, you also knew that was already a weakness in your story. So he put his finger right on something super valid. It resonated for you. His suggestion for how didn't, and that's okay. It doesn't have to. Like I said, it's not prescriptive. But in the course of bouncing ideas off of somebody, often that will spark something in you. I build in follow-up time for that reason with every contract that I offer and I'm frequently shocked how few authors take me up on it. Because it's someone who knows the story at that point, almost as intimately as you do, that you can, like I said it's not that you're looking for them to give you ideas, and I think sometimes that's why authors are leery of it. I think sometimes they feel like, oh, if I need so much help, there must be something wrong with me as an author, which is never the case.
[00:43:12] That's part of the process writing is revising. But that process of just talking it out loud with someone and batting ideas around, I've seen that ignite absolute brilliance in authors, not because the editor or critiquer or agent said something that was so brilliant, but because something they said sparked something in the author where they went, okay, I agree with you that this area needs work. None of your ideas are really hitting it, but you've just given me an idea that will. And you don't really get there without that kind of back and forth sometimes.
[00:43:47] Matty: Yup. And if somebody offers it to you, grab it.
[00:43:50] Tiffany: Oh my gosh, take it. It has no reflection on you as an author, whatever help is offered to you. It's so valuable.
[00:43:57] Matty: I do remember early on my editor making a suggestion for something I could do. And I thought, well, sure, that's a good idea, but now it's her idea. So I have to think of something different, that's not that, so it's my idea. But now I'm happy to use other people's ideas if they're offered.
[00:44:15] Tiffany: Because there's nothing new under the sun. We are all borrowing ideas. I have a friend, Deb Courtney, bless her, if you're listening, hey girl, she has this habit of going to public places and just listening to people. And then she will completely lift what they're saying if it's excellent. She calls it conversational shoplifting. Does that mean it's not her idea? She's the one who just, it was sparked something creative in her and she used it in a way that was all hers. But that's part of the process, too. Think of another career or pursuit, raising your children even, or what you do with your job or learning how to swim, anything where you would go, no, no, don't tell me anything. I'm going to figure it all out on my own or it's not valid. That's how we get better.
[00:45:02] Still make it yours. That doesn't mean it's not yours. I could give someone the whole plot. Like I can talk them through the entire story and go, do this, this, do this, do this, do this. And it's still going to be different when they write it than it would when any other person wrote it.
[00:45:16] Matty: Yeah. It's always the joke among writers that when someone comes to you and says I have a great idea for a book, and if you use it and write it, then we can split the money. And it's like, coming up with the ideas is not the problem, the execution of the idea that's the problem.
[00:45:31] Tiffany: And you know what? How about you write it and then I'll come in and edit it, and then we'll talk about splitting the money.
[00:45:36] Matty: Yes, exactly. So as a final wrap up, I wanted to ask you if you have any advice specific to people who are reading reader reviews on retail platforms, social media, anything like that, should they do it? And if they do, any tips?
[00:45:53] Tiffany: You mean reading their own? Yes. I'm going to give you my short answer, which is don't do it. I know it's tempting. And I'm going to also tell you that I'm a big fat hypocrite and I read my own, but there's nothing to be gained out of it. You're the creator. So your job is done when you have created.
[00:46:10] The only other job you have is try to get it into readers' hands. But anything that happens to it, the same thing we were talking about with critique, all it is is someone's opinion. Nobody's right and nobody's wrong. And anybody who writes something scathing, that's not about you or your work, that's about something they're going through. They're just not able to receive your work and not able to offer anything constructive. And they felt it incumbent upon them to hurt someone else for whatever reason. You don't know what that is and reading it accomplishes nothing for you.
[00:46:41] And the other thing is that we all have this negativity bias which psychologists have studied. And it's this inborn tendency that, if you get 10 pieces of positive feedback and one piece of negative feedback, human nature is that we obsess on that one negative one as if those other ten aren't weighted as heavily. So that's what happens when we read negative reviews. We go into a tailspin. It may send us into self-doubt. It may fill us with rage or pain. Nothing good comes of it. It's not like it's going to make you a better writer. So I will read my reviews. I always read anything three stars and above. I generally, if I see that it's one or two stars, I just, I try not to even look at it because nothing is to be served by that.
[00:47:28] When I first started, bless my husband, this is how he made up that critiques snafu to me, he would read the reviews for my first book, and then he would say, okay, you can go today and you should go look, or today? Not so good. Don't go there.
[00:47:44] Tiffany: There's nothing productive that's going to come of that. It's not like it's going to make you a better writer. All it's going to do is make you feel bad. And their opinion, I don't mean it's not valid, it's valid for them as their opinion, but it's not valid for you as an artist and a creator. All that means is that was not your audience, that it was not for that person. Move on.
[00:48:05] Matty: Well, Tiffany, thank you so much as always, it has been a lovely pleasure to speak with you.
[00:48:11] Tiffany: I love talking to you, Matty. Thanks for doing this podcast. I love the things you tackle, and I love the way you always approach it. It's always so positive and constructive.
[00:48:22] Matty: That's a wonderful way to end our conversation. I appreciate you saying that. So please let the listeners know where they can go to find out more about you and all your work online.
[00:48:30] Tiffany: Probably the best place is just my website, foxprinteditorial.com. You can sign up for my newsletter if you want to, and every week I do a blog post where I do actionable craft posts. I talk about challenges in the writer's life. I have a monthly feature called "How Writers Revise" that pulls back the curtain on how a lot of published authors have learned to do a lot of the stuff we've talked about here, assess feedback, and how to put it into practice.
[00:48:55] And I talk about their writing journeys, the challenges that they faced on the way to publication. And I also have a 13-page guide for authors called "Get It Edited." If you're looking at hiring a professional editor, it gives you a lot of specific places to look and what to look for, what red flags, what positive things, how to find the best fit for you, what it should cost. That's also where you'll find I have a whole page of free resources for authors and online courses, and you name it. It's a kind of a big media clearing house for authors.
[00:49:25] Matty: Excellent. Well, Tiffany, thank you again. This was great.
[00:49:28] Tiffany: Thanks Matty.
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