What do you mean her behavior is "out of character"? I WROTE this character!

If you’re new to the process, you might expect the following:

1. The editor loves something you did and wants you to keep it the way it is. Validation! Hooray! Whatever the editor approves of—your characterization, your structure, your word choices—it’s one less thing to worry about as you focus on the areas that didn’t work as well.

2. The editor doesn’t like some element of your writing and shows you how to improve it. Obviously, this is a lot less fun to hear. You may be disappointed in yourself for not having gotten it right to begin with. You’re probably frustrated about the amount of time and effort it will take to fix the problem. Still, the whole point of hiring an editor was to make the book better, and now you know how to do that.

But there’s a third option you may not have considered:

3. The editor makes a suggestion you don’t agree with. At all.

It happens. In fact, it’s unusual for a writer to agree with each and every suggestion the editor makes. Don’t freak out. No, really, don’t freak out. Deep breaths. It’s going to be okay.

The first thing to do when you find yourself face-to-face with questionable advice is … nothing. Don’t argue with the editor. Don’t plunge in and do what the editor tells you, either. Just let the critique sit for two or three days.

Once the initial shock has passed, you’re ready for the second step: trying to figure out why you disagree. A tip from acclaimed fantasy author Neil Gaiman will serve you well here.

When people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.

Say your story centers around a love triangle, and your editor objects to its resolution. Mark would never choose sincere-but-boring Laurie (your editor argues)—he’d lose interest in her within a week. It’s more realistic for him to run off with Danielle, the dangerously unpredictable Alaskan bush pilot. If you still don’t agree after a few days, go back and puzzle out what the editor is reacting to. Maybe you failed to show Laurie’s more enticing qualities. Maybe Mark’s character growth, which enables him to stop running from healthy relationships, isn’t as apparent to readers as you think. The solution: instead of changing the ending, tweak previous passages so that the ending makes more sense.

Take heart. You survived writing a whole book; you’ll survive the critique. Just remember that it’s possible to take an editor’s advice seriously without sacrificing your vision.

“I want your honest opinion, as long as your honest opinion is that it’s flawless and brilliant.”

Does that mean you shouldn’t bother to show them anything you write? That you should skip directly to professional editing? Not at all. While you’ll need editing eventually, I recommend hitting up your buddies before hiring somebody like me. The trick is to solicit feedback in a way that inspires objectivity and honesty.

How do you do that? Glad you asked.

1. Be humble

You’re on the eleventh draft of your manuscript, and you’ve meticulously reworked and polished every sentence. Intellectually, you understand that criticism is a necessary and important part of the creative process. In your heart, you think you’re done. What could there possibly be left to change?

Hey, maybe you’re right. Time will tell. In the meanwhile, though, try to keep your glowing self-assessments to yourself. If a friend isn’t as dazzled by your writing as you show yourself to be, he won’t want to be the one who brings you crashing down to earth. If you act as though you expect suggestions for improvement, you’ll elicit more honest responses.

“I’ve gotten as far as I can on my own,” you say as you hand off the manuscript. “I need other people’s perspectives to take it to the next level.” Try as hard as you can to believe those words. They will serve you and your book well during the next round of revisions.

2. Be confident

You’re on the eleventh draft of your manuscript, and it just isn’t coming together the way you’d dreamed it would. What made you think you could do this? You need help and lots of it. Intellectually, you understand that writing takes a lot of practice, especially if it isn’t your area of expertise. Emotionally, you know that the inevitable criticism you receive will crush your soul.

You may be correct about how much work you still have ahead of you. (It’s okay! There’s no shame in that!) In the meantime, though, try not to wear your insecurities on your sleeve. If a friend realizes how much her true impression will hurt you, she may refuse to offer anything but praise.

There’s no need to pretend you have confidence in your work if you don’t. You can, however, act confident about your ability to handle negative reactions. “I know there are a bunch of things wrong with this,” you tell your prospective reader, “but I’m not sure how to fix them. Your suggestions would really help!”

3. Specify what kind of feedback you want

You’re on the eleventh draft on your manuscript, and quite a few people have already weighed in on previous iterations. Most of them hated your resolution; they thought it was too dark. But a small handful loved the way you tied everything together, and they tended to be the ones who truly understood what you were trying to accomplish. After a period of reflection, you’ve decided to keep the ending the way it is.

Mention stuff like this to your new readers going in. “Just so you know, I’ve decided I’m happy with the conclusion and I’m not going to change it. If you could just tell me anyplace the wording seems off, or where I could flesh out the characters more, that would be great.”

Eliminating areas of potential criticism is a kindness to your readers, as it prevents them from wasting their time trying to diplomatically phrase advice you’re going to ignore anyway. It also benefits you. Some friends will be reluctant to give more criticism than praise; they understand the value of an honest appraisal, but don’t want to be too harsh. Now they can limit their negative evaluations to the elements of your manuscript you’ve identified.

4. Set the bar high

People are often predisposed to love anything their daughter/son/mother/father/spouse/friend wrote. To the best of your ability, you need to nip that instinct in the bud. Tell everybody to pretend someone else is the author. Tell them to imagine they were flipping through the pages in a bookstore. That will prime them to demand as much from your manuscript as they would any other book.

5. Be gracious

No matter how much you psych yourself up for pointed criticism, it’s not going to feel good. Resist the urge to argue. Thank your readers for their time. Tell them you’re going to let the critiques sit for a few days while you process them, and then do so. When you’re calmer, you can (nicely, calmly) ask clarifying questions about their reactions. If you handle the less-than-optimal assessments gracefully, you’ll be more likely to get honest feedback the next time you need it.

 
While they aren’t a substitute for professional editing, friends-and-family critiques can be highly useful. Do your best to help your first readers be objective, make them feel safe about sharing their true impressions, and thank them for their efforts. The more you use high-quality feedback to help you level up, the less work your manuscript will need at the editing stage … and the less you’ll need to spend.

“OMG, this is the best book by a close friend ever.
Five stars!”

I’ve heard this refrain many times, usually when the subject of editing comes up. Whether the author hasn’t budgeted for it or believes she doesn’t need any help beyond basic proofreading, her first line of defense is often friends-and-family feedback.

If anyone pushes the issue, the author may become irritated. “I had some friends read my book, and THEY thought it was GOOD!”

It used to baffle me. How could an author’s friends give a manuscript high marks in the face of what I considered obvious problems? Despite the praise, these works weren’t ready for prime time. Some contained a lot of spelling errors, some weren’t organized clearly, some were difficult to follow, etc.

Maybe the friends didn’t want to hurt the author’s feelings?

But a turn of the tables provided some needed insight. While visiting my parents one Thanksgiving, a close friend asked me to read the novel he’d started and tell him what I thought. My friend is a good writer, so I was happy to do it.

Sure enough, it was brilliant. The unique premise! The well-worded descriptions! The clever turns of phrase!

Then came the aha moment.

I wasn’t evaluating his work in the same way I would if I picked it up in a bookstore.

Instead, my thought process went something like, I couldn’t write science fiction in a million years. How does he come up with these ideas for his plot and his characters? It’s like magic.

So I took a step back and forced myself to read the pages again. I pretended I was in a bookstore, scanning the content to see if it was worth my time and money, expecting a certain level of quality.

I still found the story highly entertaining. But I also realized it needed work. After a great, hooky first sentence, many paragraphs of description and backstory followed. They were well-written paragraphs—which is why I didn’t notice a problem at first—but if I were skimming the first chapter in a bookstore, I’m not sure I’d have enough patience to wade through all the telling to get to the action.

The lesson? Even your most brutally honest friends and family members aren’t the best people to screen your work. They may be too dazzled by the fact that you could write a book at all to notice its flaws.

It isn’t their fault.

It isn’t your fault.

You just need to go outside the circle of people who love you best if you’re looking for unbiased reviews.

Because here’s the thing. Eventually you’ll want individuals other than your friends to read your book. You’ll send it to agents in the hope of getting it published, or you’ll skip that step and make it available to the masses yourself. And they’ll decide whether they think it’s worth their time.

If you’ve done your homework, sought out objective criticism, and eliminated the flaws based on that criticism, you’ll have a much better shot of convincing those total strangers that the answer is yes.

 
An earlier version of this article originally appeared on the Wheatmark blog.