#its a really difficult thing to be good at
“But let me give you the dark side of writing groups. One really dark side of writing groups is, particularly newer writers, don’t know how to workshop.
“And one of the things they’ll try to do is they’ll try to make your story into the story they would write, instead of a better version of the story you want to write.
“And that is the single worst thing that can happen in feedback, is someone who is not appreciating the story you want to make, and they want to turn it into something else.
“New workshoppers are really bad at doing this. In other words, they’re really good at doing a bad thing, and they’re doing it from the goodness of their heart. They want you to be a better writer. They want to help you. The only way they know is to tell you how they would do it, which can be completely wrong for your story.”
—Brandon Sanderson, Lecture #1 Introduction, Writing Science Fiction And Fantasy
And this is why many writers (including me) don’t ask for concrit on their published stories - they’ve told the story they want to tell.
If that’s not the story you want to read, you are welcome to write your own version.
He goes on to say that to give good feedback, tell them how the writing made you feel. Don’t say, “instead of that you should do this.” Tell them, “this part confused me.” Or, “my attention drifted during this scene.” Your job isn’t to tell them howto fix it or even that it needs fixed. Your job is let them know what impact their story had on you, the reader. Then they can determine if it’s accomplishing what they want it to and if not, they know which parts need attention.
