You have more control over this than you think

In all my years teaching creative writing, I utilized a writing workshop model in my class that was a mash up Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process and the philosophy of Felicia Rose Chavez’s The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop. If you lead creative writing sessions with a feedback component, I can’t recommend Chavez’s work enough.

If you’re in a writing group, looking to form one, or if you’re asking beta readers for feedback and don’t know how to direct them, this is for you. Guidelines aren’t just helpful. They establish expectations and set the tone. So, along with your creative work, you’re going to create a document that will consist of four parts.

What I’d Like You To Focus On

In this section, you’ll tell your readers what you’re having the biggest issues with, or what you perceive as trouble. For example, if you’ve been working on deepening your MCs characterization by including more interiority, you can ask your reader to note where it is and isn’t working. Where it’s too much or not enough. Where it starts to feel like we’re living in their head more than in the world you’ve created.

This also helps your readers understand what’s important to you as the writer. I read a lot of submissions in genres that aren’t my preferred genre. That’s how it works when you’re teaching, and having my students tell me what to focus on has taught me a ton about how they see their genre, some of the conventions that I may have missed, and what’s truly important to them in their story.

It’s too easy to get caught up in what we want the story to be, but when the writer tells us precisely what they’re going for, and asks if we can look out here and see if they’ve hit it? It takes us off the hook, and they get better feedback.

If this is a rough draft and you’re just trying to see if the idea has teeth, you can say something like, I’m just looking for your general impression. Let me know what’s standing out to you good and bad. You don’t have to have 15 bullet points and a manifesto here. A few way markers can make all the difference.

What I Already Know Isn’t Working

This is where you tell your reader what you’re working through, and that can take a variety of forms. For example:

This is the first time I’m trying this in third person, and I know I’ve probably missed some of the pronouns and verb conjugations after I flipped it from first person. I also know this POV switch isn’t fully landing.

This can range from a few sentences to a few paragraphs so your readers understand the context of your thinking, and the other elements of the story that you’re grappling with as you’re making decisions.

If this is a rough draft and you already know that most of it isn’t working, this is the place to let your readers know where you are in the larger process. Flagging it as a shitty first draft is massively helpful for your readers because they’ll know not to flag every typo. We’ll all assume that most of this is going to be rewritten, and the feedback can focus on the broader points of the narrative.

My List of Questions

The magic of this section is where you ask for help specific help if you want it. It’s also a great place to add more context to your questions to help your readers give you more considered feedback.

  • I know the train station scene is a real mess, and when this was in first person the reader knew what the character was thinking and her motivation. Any suggestions on how to let the reader know that she’s planning to rob the ticket agent? I want the reader to still have sympathy for her.
  • When the porters are emptying the baggage car, they drop and trunk and everything spills out of it. Did that seem like a reasonable enough distraction for her to be able to rob the ticket agent? Is there something even more obnoxious that would make more people turn to look, and make her get away more believable?
  • I tried to differentiate the men in the train car by giving one a mustache and the other a midwestern accent. Was it enough?

This is what I call the developmental editing section of the document because usually looking for help to patch a hole in your plot, or make a scene really sing. This tells your reader that they can get creative and that you’re open to their interpretations. That brainstorming is welcome. You also don’t have to put anything in this section. It’s entirely optional.

This is How I Want To Receive Your Feedback

This is the most important part of this document. Even if you don’t put anything in the other three sections, don’t sleep on this one. This is where you tell folks the best way to give you feedback. It’s perfectly reasonable to say something like:

Please only tell me the positives when we meet, and I’ll go over the page notes to see the critiques of what isn’t working in writing. It’s easier for me to digest the feedback that way.

You might be the kind of writer who wants your readers to tear your piece to shreds and give it to you straight. I had a ton of students who were like that, but I also had a ton who thrived with a gentler approach. And I wanted to honor them all. Because the whole point of having a writing community, and giving each other feedback, is to help each other become the writers we want to be.

And we can’t do that if half the room feels like they’ve been flogged or handled like blown glass. Whether you’re anxious about feedback, gung-ho to hear it, or somewhere in between, this model gives guidelines for everyone. Readers included. Phew!

We’ve made a fillable template if that makes your life easier. You can grab it here.

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