Positive feedback vs. Helpful feedback

When I was in college, I double-majored in Creative Writing and Professional Writing. When I graduated, I used to joke about how I had a “BS” in Creative Writing. Not that I think creative writing is bullshit, or that I didn’t value the education I got. I just found it funny that my university classified the Creative Writing major as a Bachelor of Science instead of Bachelor of Arts. Personally, I think writing is both an art and a science.

In my creative and professional writing courses, I had critique groups, and by the time I was a senior, I had a class dedicated to writing and critiquing fiction and another whole class for writing and critiquing nonfiction. They were some of my favorite classes. 

In these critique classes, over the course of the semester, we submitted four original works for peer review and critique. 

Some of the critiques I received were helpful and thorough. They pointed out specifics of what worked and what didn’t, asked meaningful questions, and tried to relate to the stories.

One critique was very mean in a personally-attacking way and actually made me cry. 

Most of the critiques (well over 50%) were somewhat useful for helping me develop my craft but what I would consider “soft critique.” Much of the advice felt like an afterthought, and it made me question how much effort my peers really took in examining my work and thinking of feedback. Some, I’m sure, were pressed for time as most of them were full-time students and many had jobs or extracurriculars and/or a significant other.

(I hate to toot my own horn, but maybe I just put too much effort into my assignments. I always thought hard about each of my classmates’ pieces and tried to come up with probing questions and insightful remarks. However, I could also view it as a reflection on how good I am as a writer. That’s probably what it was, since most of my peers came up with the same feedback…)

Just kidding. 

I know I have a lot of room to improve as a writer, but sometimes in “soft criticism” situations—or situations where reviewers are asked to give positive and negative feedback—I’ve noticed that people can sometimes err on the side of too much positivity in order to not offend the person whose work they are criticising. However, if the point of the class was to help aspiring writers take criticism better, I don’t feel that was the right approach.

Maybe it’s because I grew up with a verbally abusive father who yelled and cussed at everything and everyone when he was angry, but I learn more about my mistakes when people come right out and tell me “you did this wrong” or “this part of your story didn’t make sense.” But what helps even more is when they tell me why or what specifically doesn’t work or make sense. In my college writing seminars, that was the most frustrating thing to me. People didn’t often tell me why they didn’t like a certain aspect of  a story or what they thought was missing. It was just “this could be better.”

Sure. Better. Well, you could have gotten a better haircut, too. What do I mean by that? I don’t know. I just don’t like your haircut. It could be better.

Remember me mentioning that one critique that made me cry? Well, at least that person had the decency to back up their argument as to why “this piece should not exist.” Yeah, it was a memoir. So, I guess a part of my life should not exist, but at least I know why, right? I only cried for about thirty seconds before I got over it and moved on.

That said, I don’t hate soft critiques, and I understand their point. However, I do also know that trying to look at everything in a positive light can be hard. When that’s the case, I see it as a flex of my abilities to be able to pull that pearl out of the pile of pig poop.

Positivity has its place in writing critique, however, we should focus more on asking “how can this improve?” rather than saying “yeah, I thought that was nice.” You don’t have to be a jackwagon to give a strong critical view of a piece of writing. Just, you know, watch your tone and don’t tell people that their writing “should not exist” unless you have a legitimate reason.

So, can positive feedback and soft critique be helpful? Yeah, if it’s done right and not too generalized.

Do you always need to talk about the positive points of someone’s writing piece? No. It’s nice of you to do, but as long as you’re pointing out real concerns in a helpful, informative way, you don’t always need to talk about positive points.

If a person is offended by constructive criticism given in a polite tone, he or she shouldn’t be a writer. Even great writers have lesser works (and this is one of mine). Most writers I know whouldn’t have a mental breakdown if you told them, “this part of your story is really weak because you have too much description, which does nothing to move the story along or expand on the characterization. Either make the words make the story better or cull it.” Even William Faulkner, for all his words (and 1000+-word sentences), they all had a point.