Accepting criticism when the truth is hard

(writing a novel vs selling a novel)

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I’m usually pretty good at accepting criticism. I know that editing involves making major cuts. I’ve been in a local critique group for over 15 years now, and I’m an English teacher.

Over Christmas break, however, I got really excited about a new dystopian, sci-fi idea for a novel, tentatively titled THE DIGITAL OATH. I had filled about 50 pages with notes, and wrote about 20 pages, and my teen daughter even sketched out one of the characters for fun.

My agent reached out and asked if I had a quick blurb for this new idea. Normally, I don’t send my agent any drafts until my critique group has gone through it, and I’ve edited it twice, but I was excited, so I quickly wrote a blurb and sent my agent the first 5 rough pages.

She then asked for a phone call. Hmmm…

It had nothing to do with the quality of my writing. She didn’t think she could sell the concept. She said the publishing industry is really tight right now, and that I needed to write another highly commercial sci-fi to match my last sci-fi series, THE WARNING and THE FALLOUT.

I wanted to write THE DIGITAL OATH because I cared about the topic, not because I considered the market. Writing advice is usually if you write from the heart, it’ll show and make a better story. But my agent didn’t think my new concept was viable because it was about digital money and debt, and she didn’t think teens understood enough about debt to care. (As an educator, I would argue maybe that’s exactly why I wanted to write the book.)

This is the give-and-take between the artist and the industry, trying to create something from your soul that’s meaningful to you, but needing the work to sell so you can support your creative life.

And let me be really clear—I love my agent. She is hard working and very editorial, and has been pretty hands-off about my projects until now. I spent 5 years writing a sci-fi manuscript, GERMLINE FOUR, that hasn’t found a publisher because books about viruses with four POVs aren’t selling right now. My agent is also currently pitching my YA Christmas romance manuscript that I wrote on a whim because I needed a break from writing dystopia and wanted to write something happy in-between projects. So she is very supportive of letting me doing my thing. Normally.

But as far as career advice goes, my agent wants me to sell my next sci-fi project and not waste time with something she can’t pitch. I have a growing group of readers who want more science fiction work from me since my series came out in 2023. In terms of a good business strategy, she’s right. My next project should to be easy to pitch, contemporary, and commercial. And I need the money.

But I really didn’t want to give up on THE DIGITAL OATH even if she thought it wasn’t viable.

She then mentioned a vague sci-fi topic that she thought would be timely in the market and good for me to write about, and although I listened, my body tensed with stubbornness. I don’t like being told what to write. As a teenager, I dropped AP English in high school because they gave me a list of books to read and essays to write during the summer. (Ironically, now I’m an AP English teacher.) Her vague topic felt like it had been done too many times before, and I couldn’t think of an angle to make it fresh and interesting.

It’s also often bad advice to write what’s trendy because in the time it takes you to write something new to follow a trend, the trend gets saturated, and then no one wants the manuscript by the time you’re done.

So what do you do after a hard critique?

I vented to one of my critique partners, and she said a very important thing to me. “You’re not wrong for loving your project. You’re the writer. It’s your career. If you want to write it, write it.”

So I waited, made no decision, and let the critique percolate. From experience, I know how accepting critique works.

The best advice I can give you is to let yourself get annoyed, keep that defensiveness to yourself, and thank the person for the information.

Then let some time pass.

It’s the only way to get out of an emotional space and into a logical one to make creative decisions.

So a few days later, I looked over the notes from the phone call, dropped my ego, and assumed she had a valid point and was trying to help me, not attack me. We can feel so defensive at times about our work, and the best thing we can do is to take a step back and really listen.

No, you don’t need to accept everyone’s criticism. But if you respect someone’s expertise or point of view, whether they’re an editor, agent, or critique partner, you really need to consider that 90% of their feedback is valid and necessary in order to make your work better. We’ll say around 10% of the time their feedback is invalid because they misunderstood something that you can easily clarify if needed.

So the number one thing to remember: Critique helps make your work better. That’s the ultimate goal.

In this case, my agent was trying to help me build my career. She was trying not to waste another five years while I go down the rabbit hole of a shiny idea that can’t sell right now.

So I let my brain do what my writer brain does, and I took her vague topic and bounced it around, trying to form different What if scenarios. It still felt like everything I came up with was done before, but I stayed open to the process to give it a fair shot.

When I woke up the next morning , a ton of ideas swirled in my head, like puzzle pieces falling into place. I thought of using an unreliable main character, which I had never tried before, as well as taking advantage of dramatic irony throughout most of the story to compel the reader. That challenge intrigued me, but I had no idea how the story would end.

Again, I waited. I told myself I wouldn’t start this project unless I knew how it would end.

Three days later, a possible ending suddenly popped into my brain—and I LOVED IT.

So I am putting THE DIGITAL OATH manuscript to the side for now, and I’m working on a new project, tentatively titled INTERFACE.

Here goes…