Five Stages of Processing a Negative Critique
by Janet R. Macreery
Some critiques are just mean. It’s true and unfortunate. I like to think that most, not all, but most reviewers or people writing critiques do so with the goal of being both honest and helpful. However, being on the receiving end of a harsh review is a difficult experience. In order to make it a worthwhile one, I have developed system.
Here are my Five Stages of Processing a Negative Critique:
Stage One: The Hurt Bunny
Reaction: But, but, but…I tried so hard. Sniff. Did they have to be so mean? Sniff-sniff. Was is really necessary to use that particular word? Sniff.
It’s natural to feel injured, defensive, and even defeated when you read the specific reasons someone didn’t like your work. It’s just as natural for those feelings to launch you into the next step.
Stage Two: The Rage Monster
Reaction: I mean really, that’s a loaded word, right? Who do they think they are anyway? Maybe they just didn’t understand my sophisticated literary style. This person clearly isn’t qualified to write a constructive critique. They’re just using their thesaurus to find new mean words. How dare they write that about my work? Perhaps I should have written it in crayon so they would better understand.
Anger quickly evolves into indignation. The reviewer clearly missed the point. It was over their heads and they simply didn’t understand. It’s the only way they could have so totally disliked what you wrote, right?
Stage Three: Contemplation
Reaction: Well, if they didn’t get it, maybe it’s too complicated for the average reader. That’s a real problem. Does this person represent my actual audience or not? Do I have to consider what made them get lost?
The realization starts to dawn that if one person didn’t understand what you were doing, maybe the majority of people won’t get it either. The world may not be ready for your brand of narrative and that means you need to rethink things.
Stage Four: Acceptance
Reaction: Okay. maybe, in their own mean way they’ve pointed out something that I should consider. I still think they could have used a better phrase or word than THAT. I need to calm down so I can approach this with an open mind.
*Goes for a walk*
*Has a cup of hot chocolate*
*Spends time with loved ones*
*Takes deep breaths*
Sometimes the best thing to do is walk away for a while. Do something good for yourself. When your heart rate is normal and you can think about the critique without seeing red, then you’re ready to return to the job at hand.
Stage Five: Constructive Analysis
Reaction: Okay. Let’s dig in and try to find out what they were trying to say. Then, try to figure out whether or not their point is valid and if so, how to address it in the future.
One trick to accomplish this is to identify the word or words that are causing you the most stress or strongest reaction. Replace them with a different, less aggressive word that has the same or similar meaning. I’m not suggesting you replace the negative words with “puppies” or “cupcakes” but instead, find a less hostile or more constructive word or phrase. Once you’ve done a nice “Find and Replace” run, you can better read what the reviewer was trying to tell you. From there, see if you agree with their concerns. Did you assume a knowledge base or similar background that the reader didn’t share? Was there an important point that wasn’t explained thoroughly? Did your own vocabulary choices cause the disconnect? Or, did they miss something because of their own experience that you cannot address? Once you identify those issues, then you can attempt to address them.
To be honest, the Hurt Bunny and Rage Monster stages are involuntary reactions, so I developed the other three in order to get something out of the experience. The point is, go ahead and feel what you feel at first. Not everyone is going to like everything you write. You need to find your own path through it and then determine if there is anything you can learn from it.
About the Author
Janet R. Macreery combines her passions for travel and history to create the multi-award-winning historical fiction adventures A Little Noble and A Little Wicked as well as her latest release, The Falls. She explores the United States and Europe for inspiration and research as well as her quest to find the ultimate hot chocolate.
THE FALLS
It wasn’t her choice to go. But from the moment the bush plane splashed down on the Alaskan lake, there was no turning back for 11-year-old Monty. Her widowed father’s job brought them to the edge of wilderness. Her journey that summer of 1953 would take her through rugged terrain, dangerous wildlife and unlikely friendships to the wonder and mystery beyond the Falls.
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The intellectuals hired by Scott Meredith to evaluate the first 8 chapters of RE-EDUCATING MYSELF in 1982: They used 6 words that I had to look up in the dictionary, and they all meant “stupid.” Mensa knows different.
Merritt somebody who smeared that same book and made only two factual statements, and both statements were wrong.
The reviewers of my music on the Internet who put me in the same categories as a wasted person and a creepy person, and then called me “wasted” and “creepy.”
The wonderful review by a Presbyterian minister of the Second Edition of RE-EDUCATING MYSELF, which never mentions the words “psychotherapy” or “dream analysis,” although my major discoveries were made through psychotherapy and dream analysis.
The reviewer (for the Mensa Bulletin) of RE-EDUCATING MYSELF who started off with the assumption that it was impossible to turn one’s back on the culture and rejected my entire book on that assumption.
The reviewer for the British Society for Psychical Research who made 15 errors in reviewing DIRTY SCIENCE, and their book review editor and the head of the organization both supported him. My intuition tells me that his book wasn’t as good as mine, so he had to diminish me.
I think you are taking the attitude that authors (certainly authors that aren’t famous) are like schoolchildren, and reviewers are like teachers who are always right. This has been our authoritarian upbringing. But with psychotherapy, it is possible to break away from that and be on a level playing field with other adults. And as adults, we can see that these other adults aren’t always right, and are sometimes motivated to put us down, to preserve their ego-position. Certainly reviewers are in a position of power where the author has no right of rebuttal.
Psychotherapy was introduced into our culture by Sigmund Freud around 1900. The academic establishment rejected Freud in 1973. Psychotherapy spooks people out. They don’t even use that word. It is like evoking Beelzebub. I am a satisfied customer of psychotherapy, and I have said that in 4 published (self-published, of course) books. I accept the fact that there are people who are threatened by that and want to take me down.
You need to accept the possibility that reviewers are not all-knowing adults, but may have political, religious, or psychological problems of their own.