What's more difficult is when two or more people give the exact opposite feedback. One might say for instance, 'I loved such and such'. Another, 'I really didn't like such and such'. Of course, some of that might be taste.

It has been pointed out that feedback might indicate a problem, but not necessarily according to letter that the helpful critiqer has given. (Ie. You don't have a story, just a series of scenes). Then it becomes like reading tea leaves.

Sometimes when I've implemented feedback the writing has actaully suffered. For instance, when I first started I was severely scared off of all 'to be' verbs. I literally went in and tried to expunge them all. And what came out? A stilted mess. And I still sometimes have 'to be' phobia.

Some suggestions are well meaning, but go against what I've seen in print: No question marks in the narritive. No exclamation in dialog for the first five pages... No contractions in the narritive...

If someone says something that excites you or gives you ideas of how to rewrite the story, go with that.

If someone says something that pinpoints an area you've been struggling with, pay attention--and even ask for more information.

If someone says something that confuses you or feels wrong, tell them "thank you" and let it rest. You don't have to use anything anyone says unless it works for you.

Truly useful feedback tends to resonate in your mind or "zing" through you. When you hear it, you say, "Yeah!"

Everything else can be disregarded or used as you choose.

Please remember, though, that I started by saying this is for feedback that people don't agree on or that only one person has mentioned.

You can't please all of the people all of the time. No matter what, there's going to be at least ONE person who doesn't like your POV, your descriptive methods, or your characterization. One person is going to tell you that they totally related to the main character, and another is going to tell you that he seemed fake and foreign and completely unbelievable.

Just write to please yourself, or you're going to hate writing. You'll constantly second-guess yourself, and your work will suffer.

There is no best way to take a critique. Just don't let other people's philosophies completely and blindly blot out your own... unless you actually think that their ideas are good and right.

This has been my experience.

To me, feedback is just a way of finding out what I have. I can't look at my own story objectively because I wrote it. If you've ever written music, it tends to work the same way there. You wrote the song, so you can't step back and see what you really have because you're already in love with it. The only way for me to guage what I actually have in a story is to have someone else read it, someone who can look at it objectively, and tell me what I have.

No matter what the feedback, take what you think will make your story better and ignore the rest.

But this is where logic fails us, for you see we're creating art no mathematical equations. It is possible for something to be both X and !X in literature, and for a number of different reasons. First, it may simply be preference. It probably is. When you come up against a matter of such significant personal preference that many people chose to comment on it in opposite manners you go with your own preference, which is usually as written. Now, it could be that both groups are picking up on two aspects of something that has both good and bad properties: one group picking up on the good parts and the other on the bad. Hmmm....needing an example.

Let's say that you've written a story about a talking horse and some people say "I loved the idea of a talking horse." and some other say "Talking horses have been done before." Well, they may all even like stories about talking horses but it is also true that many stories have been written about talking horses. The comments show us that while this concept has been done before, there are many who are still thrilled with the idea. (There are many concepts that have been done dozens of times that I never tire of and in fact, sometimes I like those familiar ideas rehashed in new ways.) What you may have to do is come up with something unique about the talking horse that hasn't been done before. Then you have satisfied both groups, even if it seemed you could not have done so: you have the talking horse that the one group liked and you did it in a new way, which is probalby all the second group was pointing out.

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has been pointed out that feedback might indicate a problem, but not necessarily according to letter that the helpful critiqer has given. (Ie. You don't have a story, just a series of scenes). Then it becomes like reading tea leaves.

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I've been told this [the part in bold] on one of my stories. At first I didn't know how to take that. Who was right, them or me? I now know they (meaning several people) were right. I had to set the story aside for quite some time to tackle it objectively.

One thing I find helpful is to not rewrite or edit a story until it has sat for at least a month AFTER I have received feeback on it. I believe this helps me avoid what you're doing -- changing things and messing up your narrative.

I could go on and on about reading the tea leaves that are our critiques, but whenever there is conflicting advice, the author (me) breaks the tie. I decide. Simple as that.

On the other hand, I had lots of conflicting advice about a recent story, but both of my reviewers agreed there was trouble in a certain area. I knew immediately I had to change that section to make it clearer -- even tho' it made perfect sense to me.

You can't please everyone, but you at least try to please some of the someones out there. Don't worry about the critiques too much.