So you’ve got a bad review, a 1 star rating or a scathing comment on one of your blog posts. How do you react?
Do you shut down and hide away? Do you lash out and try to destroy the person who posted the review? Or do you try to learn from this experience?
No one is an island, and we’re all connected. If you’re struggling to understand why you received a bad review, you need to take a step back and analyze why the reviewer had to be so brutally honest in the first place. You have to try to see things from their perspective. This will help you understand what went wrong and allow you to correct it. Only then can you move on and continue improving.
The Difference in Personalities
Every person is different, and this is something you need to remember when reviewing others’ work and trying to understand why they did or said what they did. Some people are more open about their writing and love to hear critical feedback. Others prefer to keep their work hidden until the perfect moment to release it. This is something you have to consider and understand.
If you’ve ever worked with or for an introvert, you’ll know that they can be very difficult to communicate with. Even the most simple tasks take a lot of effort and require a lot of patience. These are the same qualities that make up an excellent reviewer. Not all people with these qualities are good at communicating, but this is something you need to remember.
The Importance Of Opinions
No one is right all the time. This is especially important in the world of writing. Even opinions can be useful and make a difference. One of the most useful things you can do when trying to learn from a bad experience is to look at what different people said about it. This way, you can get a broader perspective. You can find out what other reviewers thought about your book, essay or script and use this as additional insight to help you improve.
One of the best places to find this critical information is in the review itself. If a reviewer posted several times about their issues with your work, you can bet that you’ve got some serious problems. Make sure that you go through these reviews carefully and try to understand what they are saying. Sometimes a bad experience can be so invaluable in the right circumstances. Not only will it help you improve, but it can also expose you to new ideas and perspectives that you might not have thought of before.
Look At What You Can Improve On
Even if you’ve written a remarkable story that you’re certain deserves to be published, you’ll still have to face the harsh reality that someone else didn’t love it as much as you did. Even if you’re completely innocent of the bad review (and we’ve all been there), you’ll still have to work hard to prove that. In these situations, it’s always a good idea to examine what you can change and how you can make improvements. This will help you get back on track as soon as possible. If you’re wondering what you can do to make your story better, consider the advice of bestselling author and story doctor Alvin Schwartz. He recommends that writers try to identify the specific things they did that irritated their readers and make changes where necessary. The key is for you to be objective about what you did wrong, and not to get too attached to your work. As Schwartz says, “When your emotions get involved, you’re apt to make errors of judgment. To protect your writer’s ego, be objective about what you did and didn’t do, and don’t be afraid to admit your mistakes.”
When you’re feeling deflated and ready to give up, it always helps to take a step back and look at what you can change to make the situation better. Then, when you’re feeling more confident, you can look at your work with a critical eye and see what else you might have done wrong. Only then can you move forward and start rewriting.
In most cases, a bad review is the result of an unsuccessful attempt at something. This can be a great way to learn, because most writers will try many different techniques before they find one that works for them. If you’ve followed these instructions and examined what went wrong, you should have no trouble correcting things in the future. Now, you just have to find the will to do so.