Last week, we shared a chapter from Joni Cole’s book, Toxic Feedback: Helping Writers Survive and Thrive, published in 2006 by University Press of New England, Hanover, New Hampshire. This week, I talk with Joni about writing the book.

Sheila
Joni, I have read Toxic Feedback with great interest. You have written an informative and compelling book for writers and teachers of writing on a subject we all talk about but usually see broached in articles or chapters, rather than considered over the length of a book.

You proclaim “The time has come to rid the world of toxic feedback so that writer’s can avail themselves” of the help others give. By understanding that it takes two to create the toxicity, you show how writers can convert any kind of feedback into nutritious fertilizer for their writing

Can you pinpoint the moment you had the idea to take your experience and write this book?

Joni
I can certainly recall a defining moment, if not the actual moment, when the idea for the book struck me. It was about six years ago in my writing workshop. This was the first meeting of a new group, and during the introductions I learned that several of them, like so many who had come before, were either refugees from previous workshops or classes where they had experienced toxic feedback, or were closet writers who were nervous wrecks about going public.

At that first meeting, as always, I did a timed writing exercise, giving the members some prompt and then asking them to write spontaneously for about fifteen minutes. Afterwards, I invited them to share what they had written. As usual, the panic was palpable, though most people bravely volunteered to read. I remember clearly that night, there was this one fellow sitting in the middle of my raggy couch, his hands and voice shaking perceptibly as he read his exercise aloud.

 While I’d seen this phenomenon so many times before — intelligent, together people who worked by day as brain surgeons, moms, commercial airline pilots — decomposing at the prospect of exposing their fiction writing, this time it really struck me. Where is this fear coming from? Years of doing my own workshop had taught me that feedback doesn’t have to be something writers dread, or endure, or avoid. In fact, when the process is managed properly, feedback is a gift — an amazing resource, and a real opportunity for encouragement and insight throughout the creative process.

Seeing that writer’s hands shaking as he read his piece aloud, I didn’t exactly think in that moment — hey, I’m onto a good book idea here. But it did register that this issue was real and mattered. Almost everyone in that room, including me, had experienced toxic feedback on their writing at some point. And that’s when it hit me. This isn’t right. I wanted to do something about it.

Sheila
It has always seemed to me, that helping writers feel they can handle feedback has to do holding onto substantial esteem or at least acting as if one has a sturdy ability to listen without falling to pieces. What are your thoughts?

Joni
I think you’re right — effectively receiving or giving feedback does require esteem. Particularly as the writer, you need to value and trust your own writerly instincts above all else, especially when the opinions and comments are flying at you like the Romans’ arrows at St. Sebastian. Without a strong writing ego, so many of us, when confronted with criticism, panic, or get depressed, or try to fix the story to meet everyone’s demands. But that’s how we get ourselves in trouble, because I don’t think any piece improves when we write by committee, or under that kind of duress.

The key, as I emphasize throughout Toxic Feedback, is to remember that you are the boss of your own story. Yes, you! Not the other writer in your critique group who’s got the big publishing contract. Not your spouse. Not your professor. And not the scold in your head who tries to convince you that you should just be a good girl and defer to what other people tell you to do, then everybody will be happy.

Acknowledging that you are the boss of your own story (and, yes, you are the most qualified person for that job), makes it infinitely easier to hear and sort through all the opinions and suggestions. It frees you up to listen to even blunt constructive criticism with less defensiveness and more appreciation. And it serves as a reminder that it is your job, as the writer, to consciously manage the process, so that you get the kind of feedback that serves you, your particular writing process, and your work best.

Sheila
Can you talk more about what you call in the book “The Club of Real Writers” and why we immediately assume there is one and we are not in it?

Joni
I think a lot of people who write feel like poseurs, that they don’t deserve the title “writer,” despite the fact they are engaged in the act of writing. We exclude ourselves from this imaginary but nonetheless intimidating Club of Real Writers for all sorts of reasons: I’m not a real writer because I’m not published; because I don’t write every day; because I had a happy childhood; because I make a living in sales.

Likely, part of the reason so many people who are writing feel like outsiders is because of our own temperaments or neuroses. But our insecurities are certainly fed by a snobbishness that exists all around us, in society, and in the writing community itself. The reasons for exclusion from The Club sometimes shift with the passage of time. Remember when women weren’t part of the Club of Real Writers, hence people like Charlotte Bronte and Aurore Dupin (George Sand) had to assume pseudonyms if they wanted to try for publication? Race has also been reason for exclusion. In an interview in my book, Julia Alvarez talks about how mainstream America showed little interest in Latino literature at the time she started writing. How silly, and dangerous, this snobbishness can be.

My opinion? The Club of Real Writers is a club where no one who wants to write should ever feel like an outsider. We all need to do our part to create a stronger writing community. Published, unpublished, literary or genre writers, young or old — what difference does it make? I think anyone who has the gumption to write belongs to the Club of Real Writers. And a rejection letter should earn you a free drink.

Sheila
We can and often need to get feedback from many sources: trusted individuals, writer’s groups, instructors, editors, agents. Can you address any differences we should have in mind as we listen to the different responders talk to us about our writing?

Joni
It’s surprising how often terrific insights come from the most unassuming places. And it’s equally surprising how the most credentialed feedback provider can sometimes give the most impressive, but misguided, advice. All this to say — I think the best thing to do when seeking feedback is to be receptive to responses from a wide range of readers. Listen openly. Don’t rule out anyone, or anyone’s feedback, too quickly. But also don’t put too much stock in any one person’s opinion. Take the time to process all the comments — positive and negative — by filtering them through your own editorial lens.

Here are a few tips that work for me:

1) I like to get feedback from at least two or three readers for every submission. This gives me a chance to see if there is any consensus about the material. It also prevents me from being railroaded by any one overly persuasive critic who may be convincing, but also dead wrong.

2) I carefully mix and match my feedback providers. For example, I choose some readers because they are terrific cheerleaders. (These keep me going when I’m slogging through the muck of an early draft.) Others are gifted at critiquing structure. (I rely on these readers when I’m through a solid first draft.) Some are good wordsmithers (who save me hours during the polishing stage). A few nurture my ego. (I’m completely dependent on these readers at any given moment in any given day!) And some call me on all my writing tics without bothering to sugar-coat their words. (Yes, I’m talking about my husband here.) The point being, by mixing and matching feedback providers, I get what I need when I need it throughout the creative process.

3) I stay away from feedback providers who bring me down. That’s not to say I avoid harsh judges of my writing. I can handle tough criticism, though of course the “wince factor” never completely goes away. But if someone just makes me feel lousy; makes me feel discouraged about my abilities and my work without providing an ounce of insight, I don’t go back for more punishment. Who needs that kind of negativity?

Sheila
At the book’s end, you take us into the back room of your house where you teach weekly fiction writing workshops and in this still, empty room you remember the characters and plots, the themes and human experience that have been read and discussed in there. These memories lead you to the thought that as writers, we need to see “other writers in the thick of it.” “We need to see the creative process at work,” or we will be afraid of our own “bad” writing, the beginnings and drafts we need to find our way to the successful final versions.

I have certainly learned the craft through workshops where I not only saw wonderful writing and writing occasions lurking beneath other people’s first drafts, but also saw in the responses I got to my drafts that I too was holding much below the surface, even when I thought I’d mined the events I was writing about. Who of us has not gone to a writing group and been asked to show more of our experience than we had on the page even when we thought we’d done enough of that? If it’s our experience or imagination, we often don’t put enough on the page for the reader to experience what we have. It’s as if we can’t begin to do it well until the readers of our work in progress affirm that they are interested.

Seeing drafts develop through the workshop process drives home that although finished writing seems to readers like it was born effortlessly and whole, in actuality, writers often painstakingly build upon mere shards of the final product peeking through early drafts. Not only is hard work involved, but trust and delight in the fact that first readers are resonating with at least part of what is so far on the page.

I was struck by your saying that when we read another’s work-in-progress, we experience their generosity in sharing it with us, and we need to be generous in our responses. We do this by coming from a stance of appreciation for the words on the page and telling the writer where we want more.

After teaching workshops for years, I, too, experience the value of expressing appreciation. I think this can change our relationship to our own writing, to anyone we communicate with, and even to the world.

Is this how leading workshops affects you?

Joni
Sometimes I think I’m at my best when I’m in one of my workshops or working with other writers. In real life (outside a workshop), I can be impatient, short-sighted, and too focused on me, me, me. (I also talk too much.) But when I’m working with writers, I seem to have more clarity. I recognize that we are all only human. I see the imperfections in the writer and the writing, but I understand at the same time that disastrous drafts and misplaced modifiers are all just part of the creative process. I appreciate what the writer is trying to do, and how far she has already come. And mostly, as a writer, I am grateful to any other writer who has the courage to put his or her work out there, in the hopes of making it better.

Little by little, some of this clarity is carrying over to my other relationships. I am consciously trying to be saner, more generous, more understanding, and more appreciative in my daily interactions. If I was a short story, I’d say I’m a solid second draft. Not a complete mess…but a long way to go before I’m polished.

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Learning to use feedback in whatever form it comes and learning to give feedback in the most effective form for others are useful skills for the writer interested in revision. When you learn to profit from what others say, no matter how awkwardly or critically they say it, you do yourself and your writing a great service. Conversely, when you learn to empower others with effective, nontoxic feedback, you also learn how to better provide help to yourself.

In self-help literature we come across the notion of “negative self -talk,” the phrases that swim around in our heads telling us we are not skillful enough and can’t achieve what we hope to. Toxic feedback is the norm for many of us about our own work–though we might be kind to others in our responses, we tell ourselves that our work will never be good enough. Perhaps that is why we are so very crushed when someone else gives us harsh response–we feel it confirms our negative self-talk. Practicing giving nontoxic feedback means paying attention to a new way of speaking about writing and hopefully provides a way for us to replace negative self-talk with something more open, more empowering, and more motivating. There’s a world of difference between “this scene is flat and isn’t working for me” and “I really miss hearing more about the birthday party the family went to–what did the father say when his son blew out his own candles for the first time?”

I recommend reading Toxic Feedback soon and whenever you fall back into thinking you can’t work with the response you are getting from others. You’ll feel well coached in how to use feedback to boost your revision process, how to resist giving up on your writing as a consequence of someone’s harsh words, and how to help others who are helping you.

Click here for more information about the book. You might also be interested in reading another interview with its author, Joni Cole.