Feedback from external eyes is a vital part of the process for any writer working towards publication. It doesn't matter if you are new to writing or have been writing for decades with multiple publications to your name. Any writer on the road to publication will get feedback about their writing at some point during a book's life cycle.

It might be from critique partners, beta readers, editors, or friends. Those external eyes help us to see what is really on the page.

Let's face reality here: What we thought was on the page might not actually be there. We know our stories so well that what we thought was obvious might be confusing to another person who doesn't know what is inside our heads. They won't see things the way we do. But until we get that vital external feedback, we have no idea if something reads how we imagined it.

While I have written about how to handle feedback before, in today's post, I want to address editorial feedback specifically. I'm talking about the feedback that comes back from editors, either freelance editors that we've hired or editors assigned to our books by the publishing house. While it is still feedback, because it comes from a source that is seen as authoritative, it does carry a different feel.