Open Wardrobes

Last night my writer's group, Critical Mass, met to read through "The Princess and the Moon." It was good to get another chance to hear the play out loud. The last reading helped highlight a number of major problems that needed to be fixed, and so it was encouraging that this time around the feedback was centered around more minor issues - structurally everything worked. There are still some things that need to be fixed, but overall it's sounding good! I'd say it's 90% of the way there, now I just need to do the final polishing,


A lot of the comments were also along the lines of "I'd do this differently..." I think that's part of the challenge with taking feedback on a piece - some comments hit on a real problem, others are simply a reflection of how a different person would treat the same story in a different way. The trick is learning how to distinguish between the two. When I first started writing I thought that I had to address every comment I received, not realizing how often such feedback can boil down to simply someone's opinion which may or may not be right for the piece. Eventually I realized that I could take a comment, think it over, and decide I didn't agree. The flip side of that is that it makes it easier to dismiss feedback that is spot on and thus fail to do the work needed to bring the piece to the next level. It's fine line, but the lesson I've taken from all this is that the ability to not only take criticism but know what to do with it is an important skill for any artist.