4 Writing Feedback Examples to Help You Give (and Get) Better Critiques

Explore writing feedback examples from real writers and get inspired for your next critique.

By Julie Tyler Ruiz 

CONTENTS:

• Overview
• Women's fiction feedback example
• Philosophy essay feedback example
• Historical fiction feedback example
• Nutrition nonfiction feedback example
• Final tips

Overview

Exchanging feedback with other writers offers you a valuable opportunity to improve your work and support others in their writing process. Gathering a range of opinions provides insight into how readers might respond to your work and helps you make informed decisions about how to revise. Crafting useful feedback on others' work raises your own awareness of craft and strengthens your relationships in the writing world.  

In conjunction with my article, "How to Give Writing Feedback Authors Crave," I've put together four writing feedback examples to help you recognize what good feedback looks and sounds like. With permission from members of my community, the Author Exchange, I've included:

• Original writing samples members and I shared during our critique sessions, spanning different genres and styles.  
• Summaries of the verbal feedback each sample received, reflecting diverse and sometimes contrasting opinions and giving each writer plenty of ideas on how to revise.

Explore these examples to craft better feedback at your next critique group meeting, writing workshop, or session with your critique partner. 

Women's fiction feedback example 

Author: Grace Santamaria

Work-in-progress: Novel exploring Marcela, a woman in her forties, who questions her marriage and wonders if Chris, the boyfriend she had in her twenties, is the "one that got away."

Writing sample: A short flashback to a moment in Marcela's twenties, visiting Chris's grandmother.

“Abue! Lele is here.” Abue’s house, much like her and everything inside it, was old. The remains of a life well lived many decades back. Faded family photographs lined the walls, furniture that was all the rage in the 70s covered the floors.  

Loud salsa music filled the house. Abue’s preferred soundtrack was a radio station that was on every day from 7AM to 7PM, with a boisterous radio DJ and his choppy Spanglish that didn’t do justice to either of the languages; flowing into reggaeton that was packed with enough sexual innuendo to make Chris and I blush, but seemed to go unnoticed by Abue; and then ending with eight minutes of local ads, including the plastic surgery jingle that invited Abue and everyone else listening to achieve the Miami body of their dreams in one quick visit.

In the kitchen, the windows were open to air out the smell of sofrito and condiments. Every inch of counterspace was covered with dirty bowls, veggie pieces, chopping boards. Abue led the madness from the center of the kitchen, with her plump figure behind a long flowery dress and a stained apron. She removed a wooden spoon from a cast iron skillet, brought it up to her mouth, and shook her head. “Chris! Come fix the stew!”

“Hola, Abue.” We greeted each other with a hug, the one that made me feel I was part of their little family.

“Niña! Estas muy flaca.” As usual, she complained that she could feel my bones through my clothes, acting surprised like she hadn’t seen me in a while, although I had dinner at their house almost every night. It was her original way of asking me to sit down for dinner. Everything in that kitchen, from Chris tasting the food and adding salt and reducing the heat, to the mismatched plates and cups waiting for me on the dining table, was familiar and comforting.

Feedback from Author Exchange members:

• I like Abue as a minor character, from the descriptions of her house, the faded furniture, and clothes, and how she behaves are lively. The descriptions of the DJ and choppy Spanglish are great. Could you show what the choppy Spanish actually sounds like? 
• You have an opportunity with the sexual innuendo of the music. Perhaps Abue sings along and shimmies to it, or even jokes about the innuendo, giving her a bit more flair and endearing readers to her. 
• You're onto something with this contrast between this welcoming, lively scene and the stuffy husband and in-laws Marcela has in her forties. With the future in-laws that we've seen in another scene, Marcela is stressed about things being perfect.
• This passage reads like it's in real time, even though it's in the past as something forty-something Marcela remembers. This narrative approach provides a sense of immediacy.

Philosophy essay feedback example

Author: Céline Leboeuf

Work-in-progress: Essay exploring self-care, disordered eating, and the philosophical concepts that can contribute to our well-being. Later published in Psyche, a digital journal devoted to psychology, philosophy, and the arts.

Writing sample: The opening paragraphs of the essay, exhibiting Celine's effort to implement feedback from an editor at Psyche and submitted to the Author Exchange for additional feedback before publication. 

During the first months of COVID-19, at a time when many in lockdown panicked over “pandemic pounds,” the restrictive eating I had engaged in for decades began to take a toll on me. Unlike many anorexics, I never fasted nor lost a dramatic amount of weight, so I hardly thought of my habit of eating very little as a problem. At the urging of a therapist, I had seen an eating disorder counselor for a few months several years earlier, but I did not think I had a serious issue until the night I found myself unable to take care of my dog, Carol. As it turns out, having two tiny falafel balls for dinner, paired with sangria, did not make for a competent “dog mom”: I spent the evening lying in bed with my head spinning instead of taking her for a walk. The next day, I sought counseling for disordered eating.

Although I was familiar with the idea of self-care from popular culture, I had never appreciated its merits until I entered therapy for my eating problems. Each session with my counselor was an act of self-care, as were eating and cooking during my time working with her. Or, at least, in hindsight, that is how I conceptualize my journey to reclaim psychological and bodily integrity after years of denying myself food. But first, what is self-care? And where does this ideal come from?

In Self-Care: Embodiment, Personal Autonomy, and the Shaping of Health Consciousness, Christopher Ziguras offers a useful starting point: “‘Self-care’ refers to the active process of recovering, maintaining and improving one’s health.”  Thus, in healthcare fields, self-care describes the actions we undertake to restore our health, such as brushing our teeth. For many of us, however, the notion of self-care often has a wider scope. As he puts it, self-care practices “are not so much techniques of the body as ‘techniques of the self’ aimed at sustaining mental health by managing one’s self-identity, self-perception, feelings, and relationships.” In other words, these practices aim to help us enhance our well-being. For example, my father finds cycling and swimming necessary for both his physical and mental health. Using Ziguras’s description, we could conceptualize these activities as his version of self-care.

The ideal of self-care has a deep history, going back to the beginnings of Western philosophy in the fifth century BCE. For instance, in the Apology, Plato describes the trial of his teacher, Socrates, who has been charged with corrupting the youth of Athens. There, Socrates defends the purpose of the conversations that led to this accusation: “I spend my whole life in going about and persuading you all to give your first and greatest care to the well-being of your souls, and not till you have done that to think of your bodies or your wealth.” This statement exemplifies the importance of self-care. Instead of prizing superficial features, such as their physical appearance or money, Athenian citizens should tend to what is essential to them: their souls.

The tradition of caring for oneself extends from Socrates’s Athens to the rest of the ancient Western world. For instance, in his Letter to Menoeceus, the Greek philosopher Epicurus divides desires into two main categories, the natural and the unnatural, before adding that “He who has a clear and certain understanding of these things will direct every preference and aversion toward securing health of body and tranquility of mind, seeing that this is the sum and end of a happy life.” To use an anachronistic example, smoking cigarettes would fall under the scope of unnatural desires while satisfying one’s hunger would belong to the natural category. Epicurus explains that simple foods, such as bread and water, are all that we should desire if we wish to live in peace. In his pithy words: “what is good is easy to obtain.”

Feedback from Author Exchange members: 

• The transitions between the personal and philosophical sections feel smooth, rather than abrupt. The tone is consistent, but it's not as gripping as we've seen in the book project. But since this piece is an essay for a particular publication, you might not have room for that gripping tone. 
• You have some opportunities for clarity. Say exactly why you were unable to take care of Carol before that particular sentence ends. Then the next sentences can explain in more detail what actually happened. Also, provide a high-level summary of what the therapy was about. Was it to enjoy food, or normalize eating and cooking? Include one more sentence about the sessions with the counselor to ease into the idea of self-care.
• I love your coverage of self-care concept in paragraphs that follow. It's a relevant topic. We see it in passing everywhere, but for the first time I've stopped to think about the meaning of self-care from perspective of an expert. 
• To stay within the word count limits for publication, while adding details for clarity, try to shorten sentences where you can, remove filler words, and find more concise ways to phrase things. You can even put something into ChatGPT and ask it to shorten areas without changing the meaning or rearranging anything. 

See the published version of Céline's article, "Learning to Cook Taught Me That Self-Care Isn't Selfish," on Psyche. 

Historical fiction feedback example

Author: Ellen Ellzey 

Work-in-progress: Novel exploring Sonora, a jaded outlaw, and Jesse, a respectable doctor, who form an unlikely alliance and later a romance in the untamed west.  

Writing sample (version 1): The novel's opening paragraphs, introducing Sonora and her life of danger. 

Sonora Webster was no stranger to cruel men. They tried to cheat her. They wanted to overpower her. They believed that she was less than a man. They all underestimated her. 

The man who just tried to save some money by shooting her instead of paying her what he promised didn’t know that she had changed her name two decades ago. He didn’t know that she was raised by the cruelest man west of the Mississippi. 

It’d been twenty years since she ran away, and she could hear father’s voice. “The quickest way to take power is a bullet in the right man’s skull.”

She’d kept her morning oatmeal in her stomach where it belonged until she was alone. Then, she hurled at the edge of Coombe’s Ravine. She never should’ve agreed to meet her client so far from town. There was nothing out here but dust, dying trees, and dried-up creek at the bottom of a fifteen-foot drop. Seclusion intensified the sense of power in cruel men. 

The Texas sun was halfway up the sky, and she held her trembling hands out to soak up its warmth. The thin tattooed bands around her fingers were just one more part of her past that she couldn’t undo. Standing at the edge of the drop, she glimpsed the bottom of the ravine between her knuckles. 

This was supposed to be a simple job. She did her part, and so did her crew. All they had to do was deliver the cargo and get paid. But why would a cruel man part with money when he succeeded in luring a weak woman and the people weak enough to work for her out in the middle of the Texas desert?

She cradled her right hand with her left. He’d forced her. She had no choice but to pull the trigger. He took that choice from her. She knew that. She didn’t survive cruel men for forty years to die by one now. But did it always have to be this hard? Maybe people like her couldn’t have anything better. 

She considered the ravine. Her boots inched closer to the edge. It was a steep drop. Maybe not far enough. But the craggy rocks at the bottom might…

She heard footsteps behind her. 

“Sonora,” Jayme said.

Her brother. Sometimes he sounded like their father. She turned away from the ravine to face him. Jayme Caine had changed his name twenty years ago, too. He scrunched his heavy brow and looked at the ground where she’d been sick. 

“You ain’t feeling guilty, are you? The bastard had it coming.”

She shook her head. It felt like a weary gesture.  

“Is this it?” she asked. “Is this all there is? Are we just gonna look over our shoulders and get cheated until we die? Maybe people like us hope for better.”  

Jayme worked his jaw like he had an invisible cigar in his mouth. 

“You know thinking deep makes by brain hurt.” But he sighed and spit in the dirt to give himself time to think. “People like us know better than most that good people get hurt every day. It don’t matter if you’re good or bad or in between. Ain’t nothing fair about any of it.”

She nodded again. There was nothing else to do but nod and deal with it all.

“Today was shit,” Jayme said. “But it’s over. You gotta let it go. We try again tomorrow.”
He beckoned her to follow him back to her crew and their horses, and she did.

“Sam and Waylon already tossed him in the ravine,” Jayme added. 

Her stomach cramped, like she might be sick again. 

“Good,” she said.

Feedback from Author Exchange members: 

• The opening sentences about cruel men get us immediately interested in Sonora's life and what it's been like up to this point. However, they tell, rather than show through action. Are the cruel men what the whole story will be about? You want these sentences to set the tone and mood. Could you just have the first sentence, cut the rest of the paragraph, and then show some action? 
• You worked really hard on the voice. It's pitch perfect. That said, this passage might be so voice-driven that it sacrifices a bit of clarity in terms of Sonora's predicament. Sonora's expression is so unique to her but it's hard to know what she means this early in the story. You're on the cusp with the voice and clarity, but consider having her say, in her mind, some version of 'Here's what's going on. I don't like it. What am I going to do about it?' as early as possible so that the reader can get on board with her.
• These opening paragraphs raise questions of identity and the kind of person Sonora is. Is there some level of cruelty in her? Is she comfortable with that aspect of herself or does she want to break away from this? Good character development in the first chunk of the story.

Writing sample (version 2):

Sonora Webster was no stranger to cruel men. She just didn’t plan to shoot one in the foot before she fully digested her breakfast. 

The Texas sun was only halfway up the sky, and there was nothing but parched earth and prickly pear cacti as far as she could see. She should have known better than to meet a man like Badger out here in the middle of nowhere. Cruel men felt powerful in the absence of witnesses. 

She squeezed Badger’s leather coin pouch. It was light. He never intended to pay her. He intended to kill her to save a little money. 

“You should’ve put that bullet in his head,” Jayme said. 

Sometimes her brother sounded so much like their father that his voice made a chill run down her spine. She turned her back to the expansive desert and looked up at his grizzly face. 

“Is this it?” She gestured to Badger’s blood on the ground and the wagon full of cargo that a cruel man valued more than her life. “Is this all there is for us? Looking over our shoulders and getting cheated until we die? What’s the point if nothing gets better?”  

Jayme worked his jaw like he had an invisible cigar in his mouth. “You know thinking like that gives me headaches.” He walked closer, stepping on the red spot where Badger had clutched his bleeding foot. The dry earth had already absorbed the wetness. “When a man points his gun at you, you don’t got a lot a choices.”

He was right about that. Cruel men took other people’s choices away. The moment Badger aimed his gun at Sonora, she had no power to choose anything besides hurt or be hurt.   

“He’ll have a limp for the rest of his life,” she said. 

“He deserves a grave.”

The other three members of their crew were silhouettes in the distance—two men, one woman, and three guns. They watched Badger and his men retreating.  

Sonora turned the coin pouch in her hand. Her tattoos—the thin bands that encircled her fingers—were another part of her life that she could not change. She was still a girl when she got them, and she thought she was moving on to better. Twenty years later, they reminded her that she could never outrun her past. 

Who was she to think that she deserved better clients, better jobs, or better anything? She would always attract people like Badger. People cut from bad cloth always found each other.  

“He didn’t bring the money.” She held the pouch out for Jayme to take. He weighed it in his palm and cussed. 

“It shouldn’t be this hard,” she said. “Get hired. Do the job. Get paid.” 

“How bad did we need the money?”

She leaned—weary—on the wagon. “We need money soon. But we still have the cargo.” 

“We don’t need a wagon full of tobacco and oil.”

“But somebody does. Who do we know that would buy it?”

They both looked at the prickly pears and thought.

Feedback from Author Exchange members:

• This is a good revision of the previous version. It clarifies what's going on and readers can grasp Sonora's situation and be in it with her. 
• You have an opportunity to show Sonora's act of shooting happen in real time. Consider letting readers see it happen, this very important part of the scene, instead of having the narrator refer to it. 
• l love the questions that Sonora asks, "Is this it?" and so forth. The questions sound authentic. We can tell she's burned out and jaded and we want to see Sonora rise above this.
• "Hurt or be hurt" is a swift phrase but maybe it's missing a word. I didn't easily understand it in the first read and found myself getting hung up. Is there a clearer way to express this that is still swift?
• With the comment about Jayme sounding like their father, it's not as clear that their father is a murderer as it is in version 1. 

Nutrition nonfiction feedback example

Author: Julie Tyler Ruiz

Work-in-progress: A nonfiction book on women's reproductive health, focusing on the role of nutrition in fertility, pregnancy, and early motherhood. 

Writing sample: A section of the book exploring body image in motherhood, specifically in the early postpartum period.  

Here, we’re going to explore how our bodies and body image change during motherhood, as well as the roles of nutrition and exercise in recovering from birth. 

In the weeks leading up to and following birth, our bodies change in more ways than just gaining and losing weight. We can sustain back and hip injuries, experience a weakened pelvic floor, and lose limb strength and flexibility. Breasts tend to enlarge and then shrink. Rib cages flare. Hair falls out. Some women go up a shoe size and even swear that their noses get bigger. Whatever glute muscles we had before pregnancy, well, they can atrophy, leaving us with a flatter, narrower “mom butt.”

As adults, we get used to our physical forms and in a matter of months, we change, head to toe. For many of us, we find it difficult to reconcile with the idea that we’ll forever have a different body, from how it feels and functions, to how it looks. 

In my experience working with moms and even facing my own body’s evolution, I find that the most empowering way to handle a changing body is to face what’s happening—-and why—squarely. Let’s take a look at each change one by one, exploring the physiology behind it, what to expect, and how to mitigate it. 

[Note to Author Exchange members: Not yet sure the whole list of changes or the order I’ll list them in.]

Mom butt

We all have different kinds of butts, both before and after pregnancy. But one common change that new mothers experience is a shrinking of the glute muscles, and for some, a redistribution of fat from the butt to the waistline. The butt that was once a peach is now a flat, narrow “mom butt.” 

If this describes you, you might feel alone in the experience, when you look over your shoulder at the mom butt in the mirror, fresh out of the shower or getting dressed in clothes that don’t fit. But you’re not alone. Just look on the internet. 

The hashtag #mombutt has over 5,000 posts on Instagram, with moms bemoaning their own butts or influencers teaching how to fix mom butt, while internet searchers are turning to Google with inquiries like “mom butt,” “what is a mom butt,” and “how to get rid of mom butt.” 

It’s tempting and understandable to focus on the aesthetics of this experience, but we should also understand the causes and physical ramifications. Mom butt results from three main things after giving birth:

• Moving your body less and losing muscle mass all over 
• Changing your posture and using your glute muscles less 
• Going through a rapid hormonal change, leaving you with low estrogen levels and ushering in a temporary menopause of sorts, which has a direct bearing on your body’s contours  

Once mom butt sets in, you’re more likely to experience lower back pain, pelvic floor dysfunction, and diminished athletic performance.  

[Note to Author Exchange members: Here I'll include a summary of my own mom butt experience: weaker, smaller glutes; back pain; postural problems, etc.]

So now you know why mom butt happens, and the next logical question is, well, how do you get your peach back? Or if you didn’t exactly have a peach before giving birth, could you grow one now? 

[Note to Author Exchange members: Here I'll include what I did nutritionally to support hormonal rebalancing, correct my posture, and rebuild those muscles, along with some references to helpful resources, postpartum fitness coaches, etc.]

Feedback from Author Exchange members:

• I appreciate that the book will include this topic. It's important to discuss bodily changes, face the changes squarely, and create a space to discuss openly, and then encourage readers to take this upfront approach. Sometimes tiptoeing around these topics can make it worse. It's good that you're being direct. 
• I wonder if going through each change one by one could be overwhelming. There are so many changes and there's a limit to what can be explored in one book.
• I appreciate that readers can that others experience the changes and they're not alone. The part with the hashtags is great. I'd like to see something like this in other parts of the book. 
• The voice sounds authoritative, friendly, and inclusive, especially with the use of "we" and "us," conveying that the author is in it too. It doesn't come across as overly academic. I'd like to know how the more informational, academic passages will contrast or line up with the passages you have in other sections that involve more storytelling or the spiritual angle. 
• I like the tone and structure here. It's a fun challenge, this hybrid of storytelling and information, and making the voice consistent. The transition between the first and second paragraph is fairly seamless, but the first paragraph is more like a science video and the second is more personal. 
• I am looking forward to seeing the sections of the author's own experience. It's good you're going to talk about not just mitigating changes but also accepting or embracing them.  
• I wondered about your plans to make references to other resources. Will they go out of date? Are they going to be more regional? How might you attract a national and international audience? 

Next steps

Now that you've explored real writing samples and examples of feedback, start taking action to exchange helpful feedback with writers in your network. Here are some possibilities: 

1. Connect with qualified sources of feedback who can review your writing and offer pointed commentary on what's working and encouragement around what needs work. Qualified sources include experienced fellow writers, developmental editors, and expert writing teachers or coaches.   
2. Review my article, "How to Give Writing Feedback Authors Crave: the Ultimate Guide," for a step-by-step critique process. 
3. Practice giving feedback to become a qualified source of writing feedback yourself, and even become a professional writing mentor. 
4. Learn more about my community for writers, the Author Exchange, by reaching out directly.