It’s not their fault

Getting feedback on projects. Ugh.

But I wonder - if you're on the receiving end, what are you actually looking for?

Reassurance, obviously. But that's empty calories.

You're not looking for "you're missing a comma" or "this link doesn't work" - you can get an editor or AI to catch that.

What's actually helpful is often Reconstructive feedback. The shift in narrative. The repositioning. The shunting of three chapters way further back, or Act 3 becoming Act 2. Not "I don't like this bit" but "what if you moved this here?".

People are generally terrible at giving this, of course. It's easy to complain about that. I certainly do.

But here's the thing: it's not their fault. It's ours.

Our job as the creator of a thing is to extract the feedback - to find out what they really mean, why they're saying what they're saying.

P.S. This realisation came from a friend giving me feedback on an early(ish) version of a project. I was annoyed. Then miserable. Then I realised the problem was me, not her.