Know When to Fold Them

In my last blog, I told you all about taking rejection and feedback gracefully. 

Today, we’re going to follow up on the concept. The Melvin saga continued, and when confronted with a thought that Melvin didn’t like, he dug in his heels, and defended himself. 

Writers, this is exactly what I implore you to never do in the face of feedback. It leads to ugly places. It did not help me. It did not help Melvin. All it caused was pain. 

Let’s spill some tea. 

Melvin weighs in

In the last blog, I asked Melvin to share my book with his online community. He declined. I moved on. I spoke to you about accepting that sometimes, people are going to reject you, and it’s your job to move on with grace. 

You’ll also remember that Melvin was an ARC reader, who had access to an earlier draft of the book. He didn’t finish it. I know, because he admitted it to me in the events I’m about to describe. 

Long story short, Melvin and I were discussing stubbornness. Being stubborn isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, I’d argue that being stubbornly useful and on the hero’s side is described as stalwart. I brought up how stubbornness is a useful trait when facing the onslaught of rejection in the world of creative writing. I told Melvin these thoughts about how stubbornness can be a useful tool in a sea of rejections. 

Melvin replied that he hadn’t rejected me. He clearly didn’t read my blog. I explained the story, and assured him that it wasn’t a big deal, and I didn’t want to make it one. 

I don’t know what was going on in Melvin’s mind, but he drew a weird semantic line between rejecting my book, and rejecting me as a writer. Melvin also said something I’ll never forget. 

“I did that for your own good.” 

At this point, I told Melvin to stop while he was behind. That sentence rarely leads anywhere good. It’s loaded with problems, such as inferring that I don’t know what’s best for myself, and the fact that actions on my behalf need to be taken without my consent lest I become a detriment to myself. It’s an icky sentence. 

I’m only human. Remember when I said to accept rejection? This isn’t rejection anymore. This is something else, and I wanted to know more. We went back and forth (and I’m no angel in this conversation), and eventually I asked Melvin, “So my book is embarrassing, and you’re saving my reputation by not sharing it?”

He answers, “Not how I’d have worded it, but essentially, yeah.” 

never defend your work

Just don’t do it. I am not proud of some of my choices in the heat of the moment, but I didn’t bother to defend my book. I wanted to ensure I understood how much of my work Melvin had based his opinion on, and I wanted to verify if he was saying what I was hearing. He verified it. 

The reason we don’t defend our work, or that we take our rejections with aplomb, is because it makes us look bad. When someone criticizes you, that shows you they care enough to be honest. Arguing with them denies their accounting of you or of the situation. 

Arguing with someone over their thoughts and feelings is stupid. You have already lost. 

Melvin knew I was hurt by his words. That wasn’t his intention, so his immediate goal became to clarify his position and defend it. He tried to paint his actions as a positive for me, blind to the damage it had done, and was continuing to do. He was ignoring my feelings and thoughts to try and prove himself in the moment. 

I’m sure there’s plenty of arguments to be made about his intentions for better or worse, but the defence didn’t add up. If he thought the work was so bad for me and my career, why did it only come up now? Why didn’t he object when I published the book, or when reviewing it? Why, only when asked to share it, should the book not see the light of day? And to claim he knows best - without knowing the material properly, or approaching it from a stance of marketing strategy, or product improvement, is a weak argument to make. 

I’ve been in plenty of moments where I want to clarify my thoughts and actions, especially when I’ve hurt someone. There’s a step that needs to be taken before anyone can do that. 

You need to address the pain. 

“I can see I hurt you. My intention was this, but my result was that. I’m sorry. When you’re able, I want to discuss how I can avoid this and do that instead.” 

This is more inter-personal relationship advice than feedback advice, but it applies. Let’s take a note I got on The Five Cursed Kingdoms: The Stone of Despair that I rubbed against, and tackle some responses to it. 

case study: Address the pain

Here’s a note I got from an ARC reader. “I don’t know why I should care about Vidalm.” 

This note annoyed me. It’s vague and unhelpful in a lot of ways. I needed to clarify it. I needed to avoid defending it. 

If I had turned around and said, “No. You do, because Vidalm is a fish out of water, trying to do the right thing. He’s smart, and courageous, and he cares about people,” I would sound like a bit of an idiot. Why? I haven’t addressed the pain. I don’t know why I’m getting the note. I’m not listening. 

Let’s break the note down. 

My goal is for you to care about the protagonist pretty quickly, for what I hope are obvious reasons. This means that this note was about the beginning of the book. 

Spoilers for chapter one, but in the beginning of Stone of Despair, Vidalm kills a rival of his. It’s unintentional, but Vidalm’s choices came with a high degree of danger. This death was avoidable, intentional or not, and he knows it. Vidalm chooses to say goodbye to those closest to him and turn himself in, despite knowing that he was likely facing a death sentence. 

In my opinion, that shows a huge amount of character. 

But if you don’t care about him here, why not? Did he think, say, or do something to turn the reader off? Was this subjective, or was there a pain point in here that hadn’t been caught? 

Because I didn’t know what the pain was, I needed to learn more. I asked if I could follow up the note with questions, then asked, “Vidalm becomes essentially a murderer in the first chapter, and turns himself in. My hope was you’d find that admirable. Did you not think so? What did you think during this first chapter?”

This question can be seen as a defence against the note. I’m stating my intention as I troubleshoot. But I had gotten permission to follow up, and my goal here wasn’t to convince my reader of anything. My goal was to understand their line of thinking. 

In case you’re wondering, the reader had a few big issues with the beginning of the book. They had trouble buying into the world. The story failed to grip this reader, and as a result, they were not open to connecting with Vidalm, no matter what he had done. There’s a fantastic lesson here about the note behind the note, but that’s a blog for another time. 

(To fix that note, we moved some things around and added action from the secondary characters. I feel it was an intelligent change after getting excellent reviews from fantasy readers.)

character is action under pressure

I get approached with a lot of opportunities and great ideas. Whoops, that should read, “opportunities,” and “great ideas.” Everyone has a brilliant thing they want to do, but many don’t know how to do it, or they don’t want to do it themselves. 

I have an easy litmus test for this. Ask them to do a lot of work on it. I had a friend who wanted me for a writing gig in a different vein. I wanted to do it, but I was worried it was a secret time waste. I asked what we’d do with the project once we finished it, and wanted a viable plan in writing. You know, a business plan. The friend decided it wasn’t worth pursuing. He didn’t have the answers (and neither did I), and didn’t want to find them. 

Can you imagine if I had done all that work, only to discover that? Odds are, I’d either have to write it all off, or find those answers myself. 

In life, people are going to show you their true colors. When the pressure is on, character has the perfect chance to show itself. Many people can say all the right things all the time. Melvin assured me he supported me (but not the book) all the time. But he didn’t do anything. In fact, he actively put in effort to NOT support me. 

Characters will always take the least amount of effort to obtain their goals. That’s just what people do. In order to support me, Melvin suddenly found he couldn’t verbally assure me that was his goal. He had to act. But his defence of his actions put him in a box. He had no intention of helping the book succeed, so he had to justify why that was a supportive action. 

None of this rang true for me. There’s so many holes in the logic. There’s a lot going on underneath the surface, none of which I’m privy to. 

In my last blog, I said I’d remain friends with Melvin, because it’s fine if he doesn’t like my work. Now though, he’s taken steps well beyond that. I told him to stop digging himself further down, and to just call it a mistake. Melvin hadn’t convinced me he was acting as my friend in this moment. I didn’t see how awesome it was that he was willing to say no to me here. Maybe that’s how he saw it, but I saw the whole thing as gaslighting, trying to turn my bad experience into something that makes him out to be a great guy. 

know when to fold them

This leads me to my last point. You have to know when to fold them. That’s great advice for poker, and better advice for life. You’re going to grow in life (I hope). You’re going to go through things big and small, and conflicts will arise. As you try to accomplish amazing things, you’re going to learn so much. 

Long term relationships can get seriously hurt during times of growth. People who quit vices struggle to remain friends with those who shared those vices, and not just because of the vice. The person who quits something damaging is forced to face their demons and to grow. Their previous group of friends haven’t done this. There’s now a disconnect there. The best of the old guard may be able to find ways to appreciate and hang out with their friend, to listen, to cheer them on, whether they understand or not. Most of the old guard just can’t. 

The higher you want to climb in life, the more you will need to transform from “the person who aspires to do the thing,” to “the person who can do the thing successfully.” 

Many friendships fade over time, as people grow in different ways. Priorities shift. Needs change. Every now and then, you’ll find yourself with people in your life that can’t, or won’t accept those changes. They won’t see you for who you are - only who you were - and they resent you for reacting in negative ways to this. 

You need to let those people go. You need the wisdom to wish them well, and walk away. It’ll only cause you pain if you don’t. While you’re trying to climb towards bigger and better things, they’ll cling to your leg and complain about it. They’ll drag you down. 

I hoped Melvin could be that friend that maybe doesn’t understand me, but hangs out with me regardless. He chose not to be. He was determined to prove he was a friend without putting in any of the hard work - to understand the path I’m on, to understand what I’m trying to do, and why it’s hard, to really know my struggles. He was always indifferent to the writing side of my life, until he insisted he supported me and wanted to help. Until he actively chose not to help, and caused way more pain in doing so. 

Melvin, I doubt you’ll ever read this, but if you do, know that I wish you well. I cherished our friendship, but I need to grow. What I need right now, I’m not getting, and therefore I have to walk.

Readers. Walking away sucks, but you cannot be afraid. You cannot let pain stop you from the correct decision. Walk away if you must. You, and only you, will be the person you live with forever, and you need to take care of you. 

When you’re working hard to better yourself, friends will make mistakes. That happens. “Friends” will cut you down, or drag you down. They’ll cause pain and suffering. Say goodbye to these people. You may lose someone in your life, but you have so much to gain in return. 

I believe in you. Go out there and kick some ass for us both.