Using Feedback to Improve Your Writing

Giving and receiving feedback is often a core part of the writing process, but it can be hard to know what to do with that feedback once you've received it. In this video, I show you my own process of sifting through feedback from multiple readers while revising a poem.

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0:00 Intro
1:54 Initial Priorities
13:01 Revisions, Revisions
18:51 A Poem at Last
22:52 Conclusion

[vckmesz]

Wow, this was a learning opportunity if I ever had one! What differentiates good poetry from bad, I feel, is expert revision. But expert revision isn't something you get to see very often, so I appreciate you providing an example 😌

[The-Cosmos]

Andrew, You're such a great teacher. You bring up good points and questions we all have but no one answers. You are not getting the views and subscriptions you deserve. But please never stop these videos like many youtubers do. You'll get what you deserve if you continue to persevere

[bigbiggoblin]

Banger. Gotta edit a short story now— great advice.

[joelturnbull]

For another, more general, angle on receiving feedback, I’d recommend “Thanks for the Feedback” by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen. It has a lot of good advice on how to learn from feedback, even if you don’t think it’s very good feedback.

[jolinevdk]

This was such a good video! I really enjoyed and appreciated you going through your own work and the feedback you were given. It's always interesting to me to see more of your poetry, but in this case it did more than satisfy my curiosity - it was really instrumental in showing how to use feedback and how it informed the process of revision. Thank you so much, I just know this is going to be one of those gem videos I'll be referring back to and revisit often in the future. Top notch!

[concertautist]

This video tickled my mind in a most pleasurable fashion. The finger word juices are a-flowin'.

[TThom-vbwq]

I just formed a writing critique group. Thanks for this.

[delstanley]

Okay it's about the process of putting together and revising a poem about a six legged bug. Got it! However, the process of The Revision seems to be about a four legged animal! The zebra. There in the second line of the poem. I wonder why a zebra? LOOK at the poem at 17:01in the video and note the parallel structure of the black and white lines. On my screen it looks like a "zebra-esque" pattern!"

At 21:10 Andrew says, "The real point though is that this poem has come a real long way from it's original form and it ADAPTED A FEW DIFFERENT SHAPES along the played a vital that feedback helped me to identify where my readers' experiences with the piece A-LINE WITH, and diverge from....

Okay I know the word just above should be "align" instead of "A-Line, " but I used it instead to help me shamelessly make my fun zebra point, but then again zebra stripes DO actually align.

Andrew's conclusion in the final draft was to eliminate most of all the gray areas in the prior drafts and instead use more Bold Lines of Black and White! Hence "zebraed helmet?" To me these little boogers look like they're wearing polo caps, or football ref's caps.

Then again, I'm probably conflicting with Andrew's purpose after all, they very thing he was trying to avoid. Hey, I'm just having some fun guys. Loved the video!

[nightelflevel]

I like you pulling back on the skull. It is funny at times but it always distracted me when it talked over you. It feels much more like a snarky commentator when it has its own screen time.

[AlienLabrador]

Fantastic video! I feel that we rarely get to see the behind-the-scenes editing journey of published/finished works, so I appreciate the insight.

Question - what are your thoughts of using ChatGPT/AI as a beta reader to provide feedback to our works? I had found it to be somewhat useful to pick up on grammatical errors, awkward sentences, pacing issues, and cohesion and transitional issues.