How to Respond to Critique (Even When It’s Bad)

June 11, 2024 | Anna Hawkins

Critiques aren’t always what we hope they will be. As an author, you can do everything right: vet your critique partners, provide them with a list of questions to help guide their feedback, even tell them specifically what parts of your story you want them to focus on. Hopefully, doing all of this will lead to actionable feedback and thoughtful critique. Sometimes, though, you just don’t get the type of feedback you need. It happens to every writer at some point in their journey.

Check out my blog post on Getting the Most from Your Beta Readers for some tips on how to maximize your chances of getting useful feedback from readers!

But what should you do if you’ve done everything right and still received feedback that isn’t actionable or useful? Below are some tips for how to respond to critique, even (maybe especially) when it’s bad.

First, thank your critique partner.

This is important, regardless of the kind of feedback you’ve received. Even if their feedback isn’t particularly useful, your critique partner still took the time to read your work and share their thoughts. Their time is valuable, as is yours. So, whether it’s a simple email, a card, or treating them to coffee, take the time to tell them thank you.

But saying “thank you” isn’t always easy. It can be difficult sometimes, especially when you’ve received feedback that isn’t as useful or positive as you’d hoped and you’re feeling frustrated. To avoid this, consider thanking your critique partner in your own style before you start digging into their feedback. It will make thanking them easier for you, and it will leave them feeling happy about working with you. You can then start looking at their feedback with the doors of communication open in case you have further questions for them.

Feel your feelings, but assume the feedback was given in good faith.

It’s okay to feel frustrated by critique, especially when it’s not actionable or positive. Exactly what are you supposed to do with something like, “I don’t like time travel plots, so I think you should cut that from your book about time travel” or repeated comments saying, “show, don’t tell” with no further explanation?

Anytime you receive feedback on your writing, it’s important to take some time to gain objectivity. As the author, you are naturally very close and attached to your work. Every word you put in your 150,000-word manuscript is there for a reason, so it can be hard to hear a critique partner telling you that 150,000 words is too long for a middle grade fantasy and you should consider cutting it down to something closer to 70,000 words or split it into two (or multiple!) books.

I always advise authors to take some time after receiving feedback—a few days to a few weeks, however long it takes to look at the feedback with an objective eye—before deciding whether or what kinds of revisions their book needs based on it. It’s perfectly normal to experience those feelings of frustration, but don’t edit your work in the midst of them. Often people will advise authors to “write drunk, edit sober,” but “write emotionally, edit logically” is much more useful and practical advice (if less snappy).

It’s also important to remember that, regardless of the quality of feedback, the vast majority of critique you will ever receive as an author is given to you in good faith. Your critique partners are not “out to get you” or trying to tear you down; 99% of the time they’re giving advice that they genuinely think or hope will help you, whether it actually does or not.

So, check out their feedback, take some time to absorb it and feel your feelings, and then get to work on editing your manuscript with some fresh perspective.

Ask follow-up questions.

Following up with questions is always a good idea when receiving feedback! Maybe you’d like some clarity from your critique partner on why they left a specific comment, or maybe they didn’t comment on something you were hoping they would. Especially when you’ve received feedback that you don’t find particularly useful, follow-up questions can help you clarify your critique partner’s thoughts and give you a chance to tease out the feedback you were actually looking for.

Most critique partners are happy to discuss your book further, especially if you’ve responded graciously to their feedback in the first place! At Tomeworks, we offer follow-up meetings with all of our clients, should they want to ask our editors questions.

Take what you can use, leave what you can’t.

Sometimes, even in a bad critique, you will find little gems of helpful or actionable advice. (This is especially true if you take some time to gain objectivity before digging into the feedback.) When looking at an unhelpful critique, try to pick out the things you can act on, and don’t worry about feedback that doesn’t serve your story. Yes, maybe it would be more satisfying if the main character were the queen’s long-lost daughter rather than some unrelated girl that the queen is unaccountably obsessed with, but you don’t have to add a dragon where there isn’t one just because one critique partner thinks you should.

One thing I always advise authors to do when receiving feedback is to triage everything that might be useful. Most authors receive feedback from multiple sources over the course of drafting a book. Some of these readers will point out similar things, others won’t. I always say that the most important things to address in future drafts are things that multiple readers have pointed out. If only one reader is telling you that a character is unlikeable, that’s not as important as four readers telling you that a character’s decisions don’t make sense.

At the end of the day, just remember that you can’t please everyone. You don’t want a finished book that reads like it was written by a committee. Respond to the feedback you can, leave what you can’t, and most importantly, make sure YOU are happy with the book you’ve written.

Move on.

Finally, when you’ve received less-than-useful feedback from a critique partner, you have to decide whether it’s worth asking them for their opinions on your work again. In some cases, like if that person is a friend or family member, having them read your work at all may be more important than the feedback they give you. But sometimes, particularly in professional relationships with other authors or editors, their feedback may not be worth your trouble in the future. And that’s ok. You can still maintain a professional relationship or friendship with another author even if they never critique your work again.

I hope that when you send your writing to others for critique, you’ll receive thoughtful, actionable responses that will help you improve your writing and make your book the best it can be. But just in case that doesn’t happen, these tips should help you make the most of whatever you end up with.

Looking for a critique partner guaranteed to give actionable feedback every time? Tomeworks can help! We offer verbal consultations for manuscript samples as well as full manuscript evaluations to fit your critique needs.