Receiving feedback

Peaky was only last week and is always a good time to reflect on feedback. It’s something I find both rewarding and difficult.

It’s rewarding because feedback is a great way to improve. It’s difficult because I have thin skin, and sometimes I take criticism a little too personally. But I’ve learned to deal with that.

But I’m not going to talk about Peaky feedback; instead, I’m looking at the feedback for Writing Freeform Larps. (But my overall response, and the process, are much the same.)

I had the first draft of Writing Freeform Larps done in January, and I asked on the uk-freeforms mailing list for volunteers to give me some feedback. I had a few responses, so I sent pdfs of the book to my volunteers – and waited.

Red reviews

Luckily, I’m used to receiving feedback. For the last decade or so, I’ve been a bid writer (and bid manager) on numerous tenders. Part of the tender process always includes a review (we used to call this red review), which can be punishing.

I always warn new bid writers that red reviews can be punishing. It feels like personal criticism. However, I find it helps to remember that the reviewers are not criticising the writer (well, they shouldn’t be) – everyone simply wants to make the bid as good as possible.

I’ve weathered plenty of these, but I still find receiving feedback a little challenging.

Feedback

I go through several stages when receiving feedback.

Initial response: When the email lands in my inbox, my first response is an immediate adrenaline spike. What will they think? Will they like it? I then read through the feedback, from start to finish, without thinking too hard.

It’s always tempting to defend my work – that’s almost always a mistake. If someone misreads something or has a reaction I didn’t expect, I try not to get defensive. Instead, I try to work out what I need to change to ensure I convey my message more clearly.

(At Peaky, most feedback is given verbally. I find it best to record it in my notebook rather than try and engage with the feedback at that point.)

Wait: As I know my initial reaction is to reject any criticism or suggested changes, I usually wait a day or two to process the suggestions. I’ll try not to think about them in this period, but I know that by leaving a gap between the first read and when I come to action them, I will be in a more positive state of mind.

(During bids, I didn’t always get the luxury of waiting this long, unfortunately.)

Reviewing the feedback and making changes: My process for dealing with the suggestions was straightforward: I printed the suggestions and then worked through them, crossing out each suggestion once I had finished with it.

Sometimes I worked methodically through the feedback; sometimes I flitted from one piece to another.

For Writing Freeform Larps, I got feedback at different times. So once I’d completed that, I asked those who hadn’t commented whether they wanted an updated copy. One advantage that gave me was that I didn’t get contradictory feedback. (It wasn’t unusual to get contradictory feedback during red reviews.)

Accepting feedback

For Writing Freeform Larps, I accepted about 80% of the suggestions. All suggestions had some merit – but some pushed the book into a direction I wasn’t interested in or wasn’t how I would write a freeform larp.

Often, the feedback made me adjust the text, even if I didn’t directly respond to the suggestion.

Second edition

So now that Writing Freeform Larps is published, if I get any more feedback I want to include, I must decide: do I update the files immediately or wait for a second edition? We’ll see. 

(And I'm pleased to say, the feedback I’ve received so far has been overwhelmingly positive.)