Don't Withhold Feedback

The other day someone asked me a great question that I have to share here:

"What advice do you want to give your clients, but you've never had the balls to actually say?"

I thought for a moment before saying the following (in essence):

**Quit pussy-footing around critical feedback.**

Non-creatives (such as ghostwriting clients, business owners, etc.) have this assumption that writers can't take negative criticism about their writing.

Something about being delicate artists, probably.

But the truth is the exact opposite: there is nothing more infuriating than a client who dances around critical (and therefore helpful) feedback.

Clients usually pick up on that frustration and use it to confirm their faulty assumption:

"I knew it––look how frustrated he got when I gave him feedback, and that wasn't even the harsh stuff!"

No. I'm frustrated because you won't tell me the harsh stuff.

Writers are infinitely more brutal with other writers. Why? Because we know that brutal and nit-picky feedback is often the only helpful feedback.

Now, I do realize part of the reason my clients dance around their feedback is because they simply don't have the vocabulary or experience to articulate it. No shame in that. I'm talking about the folks who obviously have something negative to say but withhold it.

If you don't like the tone of a paragraph, tell me sooner rather than later.

If a story is too long, tell me.

If one single word doesn't fit your tone, tell me.

The more nit-picky, the better.

The alternative is that you get a book, story, etc. that you didn't want, but because you didn't speak up, we get in too deep to fix it without a costly overhaul.

[Image from: https://www.behance.net/patriciaand1fb]