Who Should I Share My Writing with for Feedback?

Choose someone who has nothing to gain or lose by telling you the truth.

A boss, a mentor whose approval you're quietly auditioning for, a partner whose feelings you manage carefully, a friend who owes you one — these relationships carry weight that lands on the manuscript. The feedback you get will be shaped, consciously or not, by the shape of the relationship. They will soften. You will perform receptivity. Neither of you will quite say what you mean, and you'll leave the conversation with notes you don't fully trust.

Find instead someone lateral to you. A peer. A fellow writer at roughly the same stage. Someone who wants honest conversation about the work because that's the only thing either of you gets out of it. No hierarchy, no obligation, no subtext.

The feedback won't necessarily be gentler. It may be harder to hear. But you'll be able to trust that it's about the writing.

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