Ego versus Constructive Criticism

I recently read a post in one of my groups from someone who was concerned about balancing Ego with Criticism. She confessed to having "thin skin" when it came to criticism and asked for advice on how to deal with some she'd gotten recently. She has a few unpublished works, and admitted her education isn't necessarily as advanced as it might be. She asked another author for feedback on her current work, and when she got the comments back, she was "gutted." Her question? Is my work that bad? Is it my ego that's bruised or are my skills that deficient?

I've been at this job for 20 years professionally, and I can't tell you how many people over the years have commented on how easy writing must be. You just sit down and write a story and voila! You're done. Nope. Not quite that simple.

Taking a story from a point of inspiration to a finished product takes lots of hours and hard work. It means understanding sentence structure. Character goals, motivation, and conflict, as well as plot. Sometimes the stories are easy to write. They flow easily (despite the inevitable muddle in the middle), although there are some that require a lot more thought and craft. 

When I first started out "seriously," I did a lot of studying, took some extra classes. Thought I knew it all. Joined a critique group. Lovely people in that group. They were all very supportive and complimentary. Here's the problem with that. I didn't learn anything. I still remember a woman named Glee pointing out my "ing monster." But she never explained what that meant or why that was a problem. 

After a couple of years, a "real author" joined the group and immediately took me to task on one of my chapters over dialog tags. Well heck. Everything I'd ever learned told me to use descriptive dialog tags. Now, someone comes along and tells me they're too flowery? That I should use "said" because it's "invisible?" I didn't respond well at first, but then I considered the source. This was a published author. Published by a house I'd hoped to get into. She must know what she's talking about, right? So I reached out to her to learn more. Unfortunately, my knee-jerk negative response to her critique burned my bridges with her. She quickly realized she was in a group of amateurs. 

The good news is I met another author through that group and asked her for advice. That was the beginning of a years-long association, and I have learned SO MUCH from her and the other authors she introduced me to. The criticism was much more intense (read "ouch!"), but focused, and as much as I didn't like hearing that I'd screwed something up, that group also taught me what to look for and what to fix. I learned that "the ing monster" was a signal to check for passive voice. I learned to focus on filler words (like just) and common errors like "That vs. Who." I didn't lash out at the criticism I got, even when I didn't agree with it. I set my ego aside and actually learned something. As a result, I now have some well-written and professionally edited books that I can be proud of. 

I still get abrasive comments on my writing at times, and it still stings, but I now have enough experience behind me to understand when those comments are constructive and I should pay attention. For those comments I don't agree with, I now rely on my editor as the "final say" on whether they're valid or not. At the end of the day, you need a professional you can trust who knows what they're talking about, with industry and genre experience, to be the deciding factor on what is ego and what is a valid criticism. That, in and of itself, can be a challenge. My first attempt at finding an editor garnered one whose biggest criticisms were the names I'd chosen for my characters. For THAT reason, it's a good idea to have a sample edit before you sign a contract to make sure the editor will balance what they can do with what you need.