The Old Way of Sharing Stories? Toss It.

Experimenting with rapid feedback for clearer stories.

I'm figuring out how to build a system for testing my writing, and here's what I'm noticing so far. The old way of waiting months for feedback before sharing? We can toss that out the door.”

Bye. Gone. Hasta la vista, baby. (Thank heavens!)

Take that book Dad and I wrote back in the nineties.

He spent years writing stories in spiral notebooks, then we slogged through it chapter by chapter, sending pieces to my friend Denise for feedback and testing small bits in online forums. We crossed our fingers, sent it to the publisher, and hoped for the best.

My family liked it, though later I found out it has one or two stars on Amazon. We had no idea what Amazon was back then, let alone that it handed out stars! (Do I want stars? Do I need them? Will they be on sale during Prime Days?)

The point is, we had a process, but it wasn't easy and there wasn't much feedback.

Now we have options!

I started this Substack specifically due to Austin Kleon's book Show Your Work. In a nutshell, don't wait until you have a finished product. Show what you're working on while you're working on it. This might help somebody else. It might help you.

I also really like some of the ideas put out by Nicolas Cole and Dickie Bush over at their various writing courses. In particular, they suggest writing something short, trying it out, and seeing how people respond before you invest time in turning it into something longer. SubStack Notes is great for this.

Now, Dickie and Cole are thinking in terms of deciding what to write about. If nobody wants to hear about the time Uncle Edgar caught that cold, they won't react, and I can move on to the time Uncle Ozzie flew his biplane under the Ross Island Bridge. I can keep these musings short. No need to invest further time unless people seem interested.

One step further.

But for my purposes, I can take this one step further. I can also use people's responses to my short notes to judge whether what I said is confusing, or if it needs more context.

Take what I wrote just the other morning. Here’s a real-time example of how this works.

I posted a "Second Half Note" - one of my targeted notes where I talk about life from an older person's point of view. (That’s me. Older person. Yup Yup.)

In this case, I was thinking about how some of my first cousins are much older still, and leaving this world at a rather rapid rate. I don't really know them well. I adored their parents, but due to age differences and geography, some of us didn't have much occasion to meet. Yet their children are very good about including me in family news and circles, and I appreciate this.

That's where I thought I was going with my message. But as soon as the first response came back, it was clear that's not quite where I went. This was from the other Denyse. Same pronunciation. Different spelling. Very nice comment.

"So sorry for your loss. Hope the what you shared brings comfort."

Now what I shared was that message and a song, generated via Suno. Suno is an AI Music Generator. I give it lyrics. I tell it what style of music to produce. It produces. (I wish I could create music like that myself, but let’s just say the result would be less “hit single” and more “old lady guitar strumming.”) My family will like the song, and on Amazon it would probably get … what do you think? Another 2 stars? ; )

You can listen here if you missed it in the note.

So I responded back:

“I think this was less about loss and more about inclusion. Cousins I don’t know well included me in their times of loss. Wasn’t that good of them? …”

I'm figuring it out while I write but before I send anything to my extended family. It's SubStack notes. This is allowed!

Instead of posting a note, I could have sent a direct message asking for feedback - to Denyse, or Lori, or Anne, Paul, Barbara, Robin. But what if I asked someone who is out of town or low on time? And honestly, my experience with requesting feedback is that reactions are more candid when I just put things out there and wait for comments.

After gathering comments, I was ready for the next step: sharing with family on Facebook.

“Well, Carvers (Hendricksons, etc), what a couple of weeks. Here's something I'm noticing. My dad's nephews, nieces, and surrounding family are all leaving us, one by one, and their families are really inclusive about pulling more family into the circle as we say good-bye. Reminds me of Dad in hospice and how Uncle Bob and Cousin Betty and so many others all dialed in long distance to talk to him. You could say it was sad, but really, it was strong.”

This is how rapid feedback helps me find the right words before sharing more widely, turning rough notes into clearer stories for family—and sometimes for all of you here.

Depending on the length of the project, there might be a handful of small pieces like this—shared bit by bit over a few days or weeks, each one fine-tuned with feedback before moving on to the next. It’s like building a story quilt, one patch at a time, making sure each piece fits before sewing it into something bigger.

The New Way

Technology has changed a lot of things since my dad sat at the kitchen table for the first time back in 1976, with his spiral notebooks and blue ball point pens, making notes about the places where he wanted to wait until Sunday (when long distance rates were lower) to call Uncle Bob with questions about certain places where they lived or things that they did.

Dad and Bob aren't here anymore. But we still have their stories. Thanks to new technology, we can upgrade our process for spreading those stories around. Getting rapid feedback is part of that upgraded process.

(By the way, Dad, if we could time travel back to ‘76, I would really really like it if you would write on Just. One. Side. Of. The. Page. Please! And thank you. XO)

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If you’re experimenting with rapid feedback for your stories, I’d love to hear how it’s working for you. If you’re still writing in spiral notebooks, note what I said to dad above ; )