Charlie Cleveland
Giving creative feedback is one of the most misunderstood, and potentially damaging, parts of the creative process. Whether you’re working on a film, game, book, or music, the way feedback is delivered can either unlock the work’s full potential, stall it or even destroy it.
This post expands on my solo episode from the Movie in the Making podcast (linked below), and captures some of the biggest lessons I’ve learned while developing games like Subnautica and working on our new Christmas movie, A Christmas Letter. I’ve seen first-hand how delivering feedback the wrong way or at the wrong time can be really counter-productive, leading to a lot of extra frustration and work.
This subject is far too vast to summarize in a single blog post, but I wanted to get some of these thoughts down while they’re still fresh.
🎙️ Listen to the podcast:
How to Give Feedback That Actually Helps (26 minutes)
1. First, Do No Harm
Before giving any feedback, ask: Does the creator even want feedback right now? Not everyone does. And not all the time.
Creative work is fragile early on. Harsh or unsolicited feedback can demoralize an artist, and sometimes kill the project entirely. Early versions often contain a kind of delicate magic that’s easy to destroy.
I learned early in my career that some feedback made me want to stop working altogether. It wasn’t malicious—it was just badly timed.
2. Be Descriptive, Not Prescriptive
Imagine going to a doctor and saying, “I need penicillin.” A responsible doctor would say, “Let’s talk about your symptoms first.”
That’s what great feedback does—it identifies how something made you feel, not how to fix it. Yet it’s so tempting to make suggestions on fixes. It feels helpful and responsible, even though it usually isn’t either.
Try saying things like:
- “I felt confused here.”
- “I was bored during this stretch.”
- “This moment really moved me.”
Let the creator figure out the fix. That’s their job.
Neil Gaiman: “When people tell you something’s wrong, they’re almost always right. When they tell you how to fix it, they’re almost always wrong.”
There are exceptions—especially if the creator asks for help or feels stuck—but start by describing the emotional truth of your experience.
I’ve noticed this is especially important in game design, when a “fix” is extremely delicate and can cause much bigger problems. It’s usually best to leave that to the designers to figure out all the unintended consequences. A corollary in directing is not giving actors line readings.
In screenwriting, I’ve seen an exception here which can be quite helpful. That’s “the bad version”. After mentioning the description of the “symptoms” you’re feeling, you can illustrate possible solutions as “the bad version”. You’re not actually suggesting they use that version, you’re just trying to show how it would address the problem (even if it might actually cause other problems).
I think this would work well in games as well, although I haven’t tried it (much more info here)
3. Prioritize and Filter Feedback
All notes are not created equal. A joke that needs punch-up is not the same as “the main character has no arc.”
If you’re collecting feedback from a group, try to:
- Rank importance
- Unify the notes into one doc
- Focus on the few big things instead of overwhelming with everything. Wait on small stuff if the big stuff isn’t solved.
We received pages of feedback on A Christmas Letter, but ultimately, two issues stood out: the story lacked stakes, and we weren’t leaning hard enough into the “fish-out-of-water” comedy. But our feedback documents had dozens or hundreds of notes. Instead of helping, this feedback was clouding what was truly important. Ie, without making the stakes or comedy work, we had no movie. We didn’t need to give feedback on a line until the two big things were fixed.
More than once, we’ve been able to move forward much better after deleting most of the feedback, and leaving just the few big items.
4. Merge stakeholder feedback first
Imagine you’re trying to take feedback and you get two conflicting notes.
A: The opening is too slow - can we speed it up?
B: The opening is my favorite part - can we have more of it?
Following both notes feels confusing or impossible. But A is from your boss and B is from the person funding the project. What are you supposed to do?
The solution here is to have the stakeholders meet first. They take notes and talk to each other, then merge their notes together to decide what direction to go in. Then and only then, is that feedback given to the creators.
This adds a lot of extra work for the stakeholders, as they have to hash their own thoughts out together, which could lead to arguments, difficulties or more questions being raised. But until they generate their own aligned feedback, they shouldn’t be delivering it.
One added benefit here is that once this happens, only one of these stakeholders is needed to actually deliver the feedback. That makes a Working Session more feasible
5. Emotion Is Gold
Creative projects are emotion machines. Audiences put in their time, attention, and money—and get back joy, fear, laughter, catharsis.
So when someone tells you:
- “I cried at that scene,” or
- “That moment gave me chills,”
...listen. It’s pure gold.
In our movie, one reader teared up at on point in an early draft. That inspired us to look back—and eventually revert to that version, setting aside months of newer revisions. It made the whole team sit up and pay attention - we knew this was important.
When we saw early players gasp at the useless-but-sublime Reefbacks in Subnautica, we leaned into that awe and fear. It changed the entire direction of the game.
6. Try Working Sessions Instead of Endless Notes
Sometimes the feedback loop stalls. People talk past each other. Delays creep in. Or you think your feedback session was understood, but then a couple weeks later when you’re checking the revisions, you realize they weren’t.
Instead of iterating between feedback and creation cycles over many weeks or months, try this instead:
- Schedule a 2-3 working session with no other goals
- Keep it to 3-4 people maximum.
- Hash out a plan live. You’re going through feedback and making imperfect choices to move things forward. In a script, this can be a series of beats.
- Don’t get distracted. Be ruthless about keeping people focused.
- Record it for others so everyone can refer back to it later (his also allows you not to invite everyone). Loom is invaluable for doing this quickly and easily.
- Consider doing this in real life together if the stakes are high. Spending a few thousand to move the needle on a big project is a bargain.
The stakeholders are agreeing to this direction as it’s being decided. Real-time creative collaboration can solve problems in hours that might otherwise take weeks. In my experience, the best ideas, flow and results don’t come until the 2-hour mark, so make sure to give it the time it deserves.
It can be exhausting and time consuming, but is there anything else you need to get done in a day that could be more important than getting your project back on track?
During the session, try these questions to keep things moving:
- What’s the simplest version that might work?
- What’s a crappy solution that could get the job done?
- If you keep getting stuck on an element, that might mean you can just remove it. Can you just remove that problematic bit?
- Adding a placeholder TODO that can be solved later instead of immediately (ie, “TODO: Find a way for Clarence to get back to the North Pole”). Keep up your momentum.
Final Thought: Say What You Love
If something works—say so.
Compliments aren’t just nice, they’re directional. They tell the creator what to do more of. Don’t hold back praise. It’s hard to create “away” from something - it’s much easier to go “towards” something. So keep giving feedback on what you loved and why, not just what you don’t.
I hope this gets the gears turning and helps you avoid development hell in your creative projects.
Thoughts or feedback? ⇒ charlie@abyssal.co
🔗 Resources Mentioned
- 🎧 Podcast episode: How to Give Feedback That Actually Helps
- 🎧 Scriptnotes Podcast : link
- 🎧 Rick Rubin on Listening – Watch
- 📘 The Creative Act by Rick Rubin ("Let It Be" chapter)
- 📗 Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull (”Honesty & Candor”, Chapter 5)
- ✍️ On actor line readings – Read here
- ✍️ More on Giving Helpful Feedback for Games - My game design blog
