No Biting

After a week of don’ts and a week of dos, it’s time to return once more to the don’ts! And this one is a doozy, so hear me out. Seriously. Hear me out. I know you won’t want to, but you need to hear this.

Don’t Bite the Head off Anyone Who Criticizes Your Work

And I don’t just mean editors. I mean anyone who reads your work and doesn’t enjoy it, or anyone who has some ideas for how you could expand your work. That means beta readers, regular readers, family, friends, and yes, editors too.

See, all too often, we writers struggle to accept any negativity pointed toward our work. We snap at anyone who points out even the most minute of flaws in our stories, shout and scream whenever someone says that they don’t like our work.

You know what that makes us sound like?

Two-year-olds.

And you know what we’re not?

Two-year-olds.

It’s important that we get over this. To that end, I always suggest giving yourself a few months or years space between yourself and every first draft, so you’ll know more of what’s wrong and not be so enraged when someone points out a flaw. And I suggest growing some thicker skin, otherwise you’ll never make it in this line of work.

We need critique.

Plain and simple. We need it, if we’re ever going to get better at writing. We need to hear people’s honest opinions on our work, to see from another perspective, what is and is not working properly. I guarantee that some of what you’ve done, some of the words you’ve written, are not as they should be. I guarantee it because it is always true. Even when you’re book has been published, it’ll still be true. We all find flaws in our own work, all over the place.

That being the case, we need to get better at hearing it from other people. A lot better.

If we keep biting heads off anyone who tries to help us get better at our craft, then no one will want to help us anymore. We’ll be on our own, and our work will suffer for it.

That, my friends, is the last thing any of us wants.

We’re all striving to get better at our craft, to write better work so that people really see what we’re capable of. And we can’t do any of that without critique.

Don’t take my word for it. Just stop biting off some heads, start listening to what people have to say, and take it to heart.

We could all do that, more often.

[love]

{Rani D.}