When one of my stories
doesn’t work,
my editor will tell me
my readers would be disappointed
with it.
This doesn’t say
the story is bad.
It simply says
I haven’t met the expectation
I’ve set for my readers.
I haven’t met my own standard.
“One of the nicest things
a generous critic can tell you
is that a particularly off-key email
or comment
doesn’t sound like you.
It’s generous
because that’s precisely
the sort of feedback
we can use to improve our work.
And it’s nice
because it means that
not only do you sound like something,
you sound like something
worthy of sticking with.”
Don’t tell people their work is bad.
Tell them it doesn’t represent
the work they usually do.