Everybody's a Critic

Page 115 of "No Plot? No Problem" by Chris Baty suggests not sharing your novel with anyone until it's finished. Of course, later he says you can get help on plot points from friends and family, but nevertheless, I think this first bit is good advice. I'm thinking about my backstory in my head, and I go to bounce an idea off my husband. My question was along the lines of "given this situation, is it more likely that a society would react like A or B?" The very useful feedback I got? "It's not grabbing me." First of all, I wasn't sharing the plot, just the backstory/setting, so the grab-ness rating is not of big concern to me. Second of all, I didn't ask his opinion about the quality of the idea, just what would be more realistic, given what we know about groups of people and how they react to things. But it hits on a key point from Baty's book - beware the internal (and occasionally, external) editor. So now I must overcome the self-doubts engendered by his passing remark that the foundation of my novel sucks. Which of course, is not what he said, but my internal editor runs it through the transmogrifier and that's what I get. Lesson #1? Keep it to yourself unless you're prepared to disregard any feedback that in any way remotely casts doubt on your fabulous, brilliant, totally original work.