Toxic Feedback: Helping Writers Survive and Thrive

What is Feedback?

What is Feedback? It seemed like a good idea to start this book with an official definition of the term feedback. So I looked up the word on an online dictionary, and here is what I found. I found the definition of feedback as it relates to cybernetics and control theory. I found how the term is used in electronic and mechanical engineering , economics and finance, gaming, organizations, biology, and nature . I found diagrams of feedback loops with lots of arrows pointing here and there. I found exotic-looking translations of the word (terugkoppeling . . . Rückkopplung . . . anavdrash . . . ). But what I didn’t find was a definition for feedback as it specifically relates to writing. How can this be? I knew writers had co-opted the term from some other realm (electrical engineering, as it turns out, circa , according to the Oxford English Dictionary), but you would think that by now our application of feedback would have merited its own place in the dictionary, especially since we use the term all the time. “I joined a writing group because I want feedback.” “I’m waiting for feedback from my editor.” “Winston wants me to give him feedback on his story, but I don’t have a clue what to say.” So with no dictionary definition to help us out, what exactly are we all talking about when we talk about feedback? I think a lot of writers view feedback as someone telling them what’s wrong with their writing in order to help them fix it. That may be one way to think of feedback, but it sure doesn’t make me want to race out and get some. As a writer, just the thought of readers focusing on my imperfections takes me back to the junior prom, with everyone staring at the zit on my nose, but no one even noticing my dress. And, as a feedback provider, the responsibility of helping a writer “fix” his story only makes me feel desperate to find fault with it, even where there is none. It seems to me that as writers and feedback providers we need to change the way most of us perceive feedback. We need to come up with our own definition of the term, one that distinguishes it entirely from feedback as it applies to electrical engineering, for example, with its dry references to input and output, and its awful association with that shrieking sound coming from the P.A. system. We need to put a positive spin on feedback as it relates to writing, and we need to do it quickly before it’s too late for damage control. Otherwise, the term feedback is in real danger of going the way of criticism, a word once connoting praise as well as censure, but is now just a big, fat negative in most people’s minds. We can’t let that happen to feedback. We just can’t. Because the essence of feedback is nothing but positive (even when it is negative), and we are only hurting ourselves if we overlook its real meaning and value. For a writer, feedback means you never have to write in a vacuum. It means that whenever you need or crave a connection to a real live reader, there it is, yours for the asking. And the beauty of feedback is—you can take it or leave it! Part of the reason we shy away from feedback is because we assign it the power of a mandate or a judgment. Feedback is neither of those things. It is simply a resource to help you create the poems or stories or essays you want to create; to help you be the writer you want to be. Consider all the ways that feedback can serve you in achieving your goals. Feedback can help you polish your skills, hone your writerly instincts, and massage your words into shapely prose or poetry much faster than going it alone. Equally important, feedback can serve as a source of inspiration and motivation. It can energize you to go at it again, make it better, dig deeper, and discover for yourself what happens next and why. Creating an inspired and polished work can be a long and murky process. No wonder so many writers are plagued by two debilitating questions: What the hell am I trying to say here? And Who the hell cares anyway? Feedback is one of the best defenses against...