There is a false narrative that if we simply give our art to anyone, the feedback will be useful! Everyone’s opinion counts! No, it doesn’t. Everyone’s in-put is useful! No, it isn’t. Most people’s feedback SUCKS.
A strange amount of people think to give feedback means to be as mean as possible and they will try their hardest to obliterate the precious thing they have been entrusted with. I would like to quickly hark back to the time my lauded writing teacher wrote stupid all over my manuscript when I was 21 years old. I was distraught. If I wasn’t so fucking stubborn and motivated by people not believing in me, I know that moment could’ve stopped me writing forever.
This is not an over exaggeration, I’m not being dramatic. I cannot count the amount of times someone has told me that they recieved feedback that stopped them creating full stop. Feedback is powerful, and powerful things are dangerous. For Creatives and artists in particular, feedback can be lethal. It’s one thing to get feedback on your excel spreadsheet at work (this is what I assume people do in an office), but what creatives do is vulnerable, to get feedback on your art is to have feedback on your soul, (it isn’t but it feels this way).
However, as someone who loves attention…
I understand the impulse to want to share your creations before you finish them. Especially when we are working on long form projects, like a novel or a film, where we spend years and years not sharing the creation. Of course, we begin to crave feedback. It’s not silly or vain to want someone to see your art and tell you what they think. It is so human. And it can often times be really helpful. We just need to picky about who sees it and when we share it.
(this bit is mostly taken from my book We Need Your Art… you should buy it)
I think too many of us are sharing projects too early. It’s too hard to give meaningful feedback looking at something that’s 30% finished. You might not even know what you are creating at that stage!
Similarly, art that is only just becoming is vulnerable. They are easily hurt! They are easily influenced. They are easily broken. Art babies need protecting from random outsiders having a say.
Don’t get feedback from too many people, especially if you are a new artist who isn’t sure of your own voice yet. Lots and lots of feedback is boring, confusing, and overwhelming, and it will stop you from finishing
due to the sheer amount of work it takes to go through all that advice.
When considering WHO is going to give you feedback, we need to understand that giving useful, usable feedback is a skill. It is something that must be honed, developed and worked on and your neighbour who you showed the first mix of your new single IS NOT QUALIFIED. Find someone who can enhance the best parts of your work and show you how to double down on them, not just tell you where you suck. Criticism should always balance what is working with what isn’t.
Find someone who is used to consuming your genre of art! Too often sci‑ fi writers give their novels to people who don’t read at all, let alone read complex intergalactic political dramas. The fact that they hated it and couldn’t understand what was going on is not a problem with the book. At least, not definitively. What is certain, though, is that that writer chose the wrong person to get feedback from.
Have specific questions and parameters about what sort of feedback you want. For example: Let me know if you ever got confused. Let me know if you ever got bored. Let me know when you felt emotional or very engaged. Tell me every part you absolutely loved and nothing else (this is a valid form of feedback!!)
Finally, and most importantly, don’t take the feedback too seriously. You are the artist, and you make the decisions about whether you take their feedback on or not. You are the authority on this journey. Sit on the fucking throne and remember that.
I love you, We Need Your Art.
Amie
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