Again and again, I see the ultimate wisdom and kindness as well as the productivity in remembering and employing Nathan's sandwich rule.*
[/color](*When offering your feedback, please please remember the sandwich rule (Positive, very polite constructive feedback, positive).)
It is unbelievably good manners to keep in mind as well as constructive and encouraging.
In one of my critique groups recently––while loving a member's work––a number of members tore through it with such gusto that, while the feedback was constructive and valuable, it also completely flattened the person. Critiquers went straight for the flaws and spent 95% of their time on the better possible model. But when the then pancake of a writer left the room, he walked straight to the cemetery and contemplated burying his book for good. People, it's not even Halloween yet.
I know that writer will survive it, will be a better writer for all the criticism and points made. He dutifully took notes throughout and politely remembered to thank everyone for their considerable efforts (which, in fact, they were) for which ultimately his writing will improve.
However, I wonder, again and again, how less of their editorial scissorwork and more of the use of the sandwich rule might have bolstered the poor fellow so he could have better assimilated the haircut his work got.