I felt an article on receiving feedback from agents and editors when you receive a rejection on your manuscript was an important discussion to have. I have received both acceptance emails and rejection replies, some very scathing ones.

When you receive rejection, it’s not an easy pill to swallow, of course, and it may take a few hours, if not days to pick yourself up. But the most important thing to remember if you are a writer is to develop a thick skin and not take the criticism personally. Also read the comments, if any, as there is usually feedback with suggestions and ways the manuscript can be improved. It's very difficult to have worked on a manuscript that has most likely taken a year or more to complete with all your soul, then you send off your precious work out into the world and you wait impatiently for an agent or publisher to reply within 24 hours offering you an advance or contract. Overnight you are the next JK Rowling or Martin Amis.That may happen to some and I think it's probably very rare that it does first time round,even Rowling had many rejections before her rise to fame. The reality is, you are probably going to receive responses highlighting everything that is wrong with the manuscript whether it be characterisation or plot, or both. The truth is the feedback is invaluable to you and you must use it to improve your work. After all , literary agents do not get up in the morning with the intention of upsetting as many writers as they can before lunch. Agents always read manuscripts with open minds and the good ones will always remain impartial.

It may seem that the feedback is full of criticism about the manuscript and you feel that the producer doesn’t know what they are talking about. But it is vital you get another viewpoint on your manuscript. Remember you wrote the book for an audience not for yourself, so if it doesn’t make sense to the agent it will probably not to the reader.  Read through the feedback a few times and think about it from the agents's point of view. If they have found 'holes' in the plot, or there's something they don't understand that you haven't made clear in the manuscript, then an reader won't understand what's going on either when they read the book. There may be vital elements missing that an agent might deem important that you haven't thought of before, there may be something wrong in your formatting that needs improving and the list goes on.

Remember,agents receive hundreds, if not thousands of manuscripts a year and if the feedback means a producer would reconsider it once amendments have been made, it's very well worth thinking about.Getting detailed feedback from an agent is not negative at all, in fact feedback is far better than no reply at all and is  it's not meant to upset you, it's not meant to make you believe you can't write a manuscript when you change a few things, it's not meant to indicate the book has no chance, it just means there are some constructive things you can do, to make the script better and more acceptable for submission.

So, when you do submit your work to a literary agent, or publishers, or anyone you know will give you professional feedback, be prepared for it to come back with good, constructive criticism and remember that whoever is reading it, doesn't hate it or think you're a bad writer, they are just giving you healthy and contructive direction for the good of the manuscript.