Hey, everyone! This one's horribly late on account of my summer school work, but I'll be sure to get back on track over the course of the week, providing the next two assignments by the time the next deadline rolls around. With that said, welcome back to A Year of Starting With This, a series of posts inspired by the writing podcast Start With This. Each post is themed around a topic covered in the podcast, and this one will focus around the idea of feedback, both how to give it and how to receive it.
To start, I'd like to talk about what exactly feedback is, because it's broader than you might think. Feedback can come in many forms; validation, condemnation, analysis, any form of expressed reaction to a work is feedback in some way. Your parents pinning your kindergarten drawing on the fridge, fan backlash in response to the latest episode of a series, book reviews, these are all examples of feedback in some way, but that doesn't mean they're useful in the same way, or even useful at all.
For example, book reviews can range from an eloquent explanation of the story's strong and weak points to a knee-jerk reaction to a personal pet peeve. More well-reasoned explanations of what people thought worked and what they didn't helps you understand someone's viewpoint on the matter, helping you ponder whether or not you agree with them. On the other hand, more subjective reactions to certain events isn't as useful on a technical level. Most people are able to see that something's weird with your writing, but not everyone's familiar with what aspects of the writing make it weird. However, people are still genuinely reacting to your work, which is important to consider. Understanding why the reaction happened, if it fits with what you wanted the work to do and whether you're fine with people reacting that way is just as important. If the general community reaction goes completely against your intent when writing, you need to take a good look at what you did wrong.
However, you can't accept every form of feedback you've ever received, directly or indirectly. Sometimes people's suggestions go against what you want to do with your work, or they feel as if criticism is an inherently bad thing for some reason, or maybe their reactions are completely irrational. That's fine, but it's important to be able to tell what feedback will be useful to you, and minimise the amount of useless feedback you receive, as harsh as it may sound. When you ask for feedback, you can ask for people's thoughts on specific aspects or events to focus their thoughts more productively for you. It also shows that you're directly interested in their thoughts, so they should hopefully be more honest about how they feel. If you're asked to provide feedback, be sure to ask what they're looking for if they don't tell you, so you know what you need to tell them.
Personally, when I ask for feedback, it's usually from people who don't write, such as my family, and most of the feedback I get from them is how they reacted to it. As such, I usually ask about the emotional impact of certain scenes, to make sure that my work is doing what I want it to do. Sometimes the people I ask come off as if they're worried that they don't know enough about writing to give feedback on my work, but their opinion as readers is just as valuable for me. I don't have much of a sample size for my feedback, unfortunately, but I know enough about who they are to roughly judge whether or not their reaction would be common among certain people.
As for my assignment today, I want you to give feedback on the following piece in the comments below. This is a quick fight scene I wrote up for this assignment, but the real assignment is putting it out there in a place that it can receive feedback.
A masked hooded figure stood between me and the end of the alleyway. I immediately ran back and felt them slam into me, sending me sprawling. I rolled myself upright in time to see them lunge towards me. I threw my hands out to catch them by the shoulders, but it didn’t stop them from taking a swipe at my face. In response, I thrusted my knee up, dazing them for long enough for me to push them off me and pick myself up. Still on the ground, my attacker grabbed at my leg and pulled. I managed to keep my balance, moving my leg along with their pulling to kick them in the face. They shrieked and I ran away, I turning the corner in hopes of gaining some distance before they recovered. Somehow, they were standing at the other end of the alley. The mask was gone, with an empty hood behind where it was. As I stared, shocked, it leapt towards me like last time, this time grabbing my throat and pinning me down, hitting the ground hard.
My head hurt. I couldn’t breathe. Flailing did nothing. I was fading. I grasped its arm. Tried to resist. Light was dimming. Noises were quieter. My sputtering. Its...breathing? Rasps. Wheezes. From me? From it? Don’t know anymore. Doesn’t matter anymore.
In particular, I'm looking for:
How clear the actions in the fight scene are, how easy it is to understand
The change in writing style towards the end. How did you interpret it? Was it effective? How did it make you feel?
Any other thoughts you had on it. Please let me know your thoughts in the comments below, and look out for my next blog posts very soon, about collaboration, writing podcasts on a tight budget, and playing games when writing!
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