Taking Advice

Taking advice is always a double-edged sword. It could be brilliant advice that will lead to success. It could be poor advice that leads to failure.

In the critiquing process, it's hard to sort the good from the bad because so many people are giving advice. In my experience, it's trends that are important. If I'm not sure about whether the advice is good, I wait to see if others bring up the same thing.

Sometimes, though, one piece of advice can throw you completely off course.

This has happened to me in critiquing three times now. It's made me doubt my abilities as a writer and give up on entire books. One person can bolster our spirits, but conversely, one person can also take us down.

I'm working on a fantasy/sci-fi novel at the moment, and I got advice from someone that destroyed my confidence in myself and the book. I pulled it out of being critiqued and listened to what each person had to say about my actions. 

The person who gave me the advice was supportive and took my offer of reading a different book of mine. The two other people said they thought I'd gotten bad advice. A third person encouraged me to have other people look at it before I gave up. A fourth encouraged me to consider whether I was being too sensitive.

I probably was being too sensitive, and I honestly may have gotten poor advice. I've given the book to a friend and long-time critique partner and am going to keep giving it to another critique partner who's been tackling it in chunks through an exchange of documents. I'm also offering it back to one other person who suggested I got poor advice. I don't know yet if he's interested.

I have to remind myself that it's trends that truly show if there's an issue. One person's advice against several people saying I may have gotten poor advice. What does that say? To me, it says to give the book another chance and don't give it back to the person who destroyed it. 

I'm eager to see what the supportive partners have to say about my novel. Hopefully, I'll get excellent advice from them. Cross my fingers.

Through this, I learned a lesson about critiquing: Pay attention to trends more than a single person.

There's always a lesson to be learned.

In honor of spring, here's a nature video full of birdsong.

Photo Credit Bruce Mars via stocksnap.io