Get Up and Grow! How Effective Evaluation Changed My Life

You know, public speaking and fiction writing share a common thread.  Sure, they’re both platforms you can use to share a message, tell a story, drive a point home, inspire your audience. . . but beyond that, they are also two of the most terrifying, nail-biting experiences you could possibly put yourself through.  Sharing your pen-scratches and speaking on stage are particularly gripping, heart-palpitating  experiences because when you share your work, you’re sharing. . . well, a piece of you!  That’s no easy feat.

So how do we go from being a terrified heap to a cool, calm, collected speaker?  The old adage of “practice, practice, practice” certainly rings true.  But I’d like to take a minute to look at the other side of the coin—when you are an evaluator.  As an evaluator, you have the special task of helping a speaker to grow by providing effective, quality feedback. 

This is nothing to sneeze at.  A good, honest evaluation can help a shaky speaker grow by leaps and bounds.  A bad one can send them running for the hills.

Last month I completed an online course hosted by the Houston Spectrum Writer’s Guild called “Imagination Boot Camp.”  This is a 10 day program in which you’re tasked with writing 1,000 words per day—and you e-mail your messy, first-draft work to the organizer each night by 12:01 a.m.  No edits.  At the end of the course you participate in a one-on-one phone session to discuss what you have written.

So here’s a snippet of the text I produced on Day 3.

“A busy man who traveled often, the doctor was sheltered from the knowledge that Laurel had been missing since her wedding day.  The story was huge amongst the locals.  Some called Laurel a runaway bride, suffering from cold feet.  Others spun a more sinister tale of kidnap.  One of the shopkeepers swears she saw the infamous Lieutenant Corcoran lurking near Laurel’s bedroom window at dawn.  It was well known that he was wanted for treason, and kidnapping a soon-to-be member of the wealthy Brighton family seemed a good way to negotiate with law enforcement.”

I showed this piece to a number of people, and I received feedback on it—or, as we call it in Toastmasters, evaluation.  Two types of feedback stood out to me—because these are things we want to avoid when we are in the evaluator role in Toastmasters.

 The Whitewash:

“It’s good.”

How many of us have received this as feedback?  You wait with baited breath for more—but it never comes.  I used to enjoy whitewashes.  I viewed them as positive affirmation that I was on the right track and doing a good job.  But over time, as I heard those same two words over and over, I grew frustrated with them. 

I wasn’t learning anything.   This evaluation means nothing to me.  It’s just a generalized statement that says “you opened your mouth and said words, and I acknowledge that I heard them.” 

Let’s talk about another type of evaluation:

The Two-by-Four to the Face:  

“It’s not that bad, but you need to make Lieutenant Corcoran less stupid.  You shouldn’t make him kidnap a girl on her wedding day.”

This one can deflate someone.  It always catches me by surprise.  Believe me, I’ve learned to develop a very thick skin over time, but the two-by-four always gives me pause.  At first blush it may seem like there is real information here—a helpful suggestion for improvement.  But you dissect it—it’s like a pair of pants with those fake pockets—there’s nothing there.  “Make your character less stupid.”  How?  And what does that even mean?  This isn’t useful to me, because there’s no takeaway; it’s just a flimsy, generalized statement—similar to the whitewash.    

If you can’t do anything with it, it isn’t valuable feedback.

So what does an effective evaluation look like?  What better way to explain than to show you?  At the end of my bootcamping experience I got on the phone with someone who gave me one of the best evaluations I’ve received in my life. 

The lightbulb turned on—he helped me reach that “aha!” moment that has taken me to the next level.  Broken down into four parts, here’s how it went:

INTRODUCTION:  PROMOTION OF SELF-ESTEEM

 

“Daniela, your tendency toward scene work and strong dialogue skills make you a natural for novel writing. It’s like you decided to be a tightrope walker one day, and you already have good balance and are comfortable with heights.”

 

BODY:  AREA OF IMPROVEMENT

 

“You recognize description is not your strong suit. I see some overwriting, overtelling in your work.  You want your readers to be active participants in your story.  Without descriptive elements, they become passive observers.”

BODY:  HOW TO IMPROVE THIS

“Practice using your whole body when you write. Visualize a scene in your head—is it day? Night? Raining? Cold?  Hot? What do you hear?  What do you see to your left?  Don’t pick up a pen to write until you can clearly see the scene in your head.”

CONCLUSION:  POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT

 

“The most important thing is to keep going.  Keep up the regular practice.  You have a strong vision and the self-discipline to write every day.  That’s huge.”

All in all—the perfect evaluation.  Honest, positive feedback that gave me something to work toward.  But evaluation doesn’t end there.  As a speaker, you aren’t doing yourself justice if you sit down and let it roll off your back.  If we truly want to grow, we must challenge ourselves to take our evaluator’s words to heart—and act! 

Immediately after boot camp I picked up a book on descriptive writing.  I read it.  I practiced visualizing things before I wrote.  And finally, last week, I sat down and rewrote the scene I’d originally drafted in boot camp—from scratch. No edits.  It looks very different now.

The doctor rounded the corner, picking up his pace as he walked through rows of identical tents.  Two women clad in eclectic colors glanced in his direction.  They perched close together, shaded by a dusty awning, furious whispers firing back and forth between them.  Amidst their pointed hisses the doctor’s ears picked up one audible word:  “Laurel.”

 

He slowed his pace, craning his neck slightly as he hovered past their shop.  He felt somewhat embarrassed to be eavesdropping, but he itched to know.  Why were these women discussing his patient?   They were much older than Laurel—clearly not friends of hers.  And he’d never seen them at the inn before.  The few clips of conversation he was able to decipher sent his heart careening to his knees.

 

"Wedding...missing.."

“Kidnapped…”

“…yes, Corcoran.”